Google Employees Already Running Android L on Nexus 4 Phones

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By Gary Sims September 22, 2014

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Google’s official firmware images for the next version of Android, currently known as Android L, were only made available for the Nexus 5 and the Nexus 7 (2013). This led to various questions, speculations, and oft-times grumblings about support for the Nexus 4 and the first generation of the Nexus 7 tablet. Although the AOSP version of Android L has been subsequently ported to the Nexus 4 by some clever folks over at XDA, Google still only supplies downloads for the latest iterations of its Nexus phone and Nexus tablet.

There is a possibility that Google is planning to officially release Android L for the Nexus 4.

However, there is a possibility that Google is planning to officially release Android L for the Nexus 4. According to online postings made by Google employees it looks possible that the company has released internal versions of Android L for the Nexus 4.
The comments, one which comes from a user with a google.com email address and the other with a chromium.org email address, are responses to bug reports filed against Chromium on code.google.com. In both cases the users mention testing various bits of Chromium functionality on Nexus 4 phones, running Android L.

The first of the two comments confirms that a particular bug had been fixed in Chromium 38.0.2125.24 when tested on a Nexus 4 running “LRW52G”. The initial release of the Android L Developer Preview were LPV79 and LPV81C. It is assumed that LRW52G is an internal Google build of Android L.

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The second comment is more specific. The Google employee says “With my N4 on Android L, I could…” A clear statement that they are using Android L on a Nexus 4 phone. Of course, they could be using the build made available via XDA. However when you put the two comments together, the possibility exists of an official internal build of Android L for the Nexus 4, which is being used by Google employees.

Although good news, this is by no means a guarantee that we will see an official release of Android L for the Nexus 4 or for the Nexus 7 (2012). It is good practice for any engineering company to test a product as much as possible before release and if that means making internal builds available for unsupported hardware then that is fine. But Google’s aspirations for Android L on the Nexus 4 could stop right there.

However, since Google has committed to bringing Android L to the Android One platform, there should be no reason (other than the man power / expense) for Google not to release Android L on the Nexus 4.
 
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