It’s about now that we start seeing Nexus tablet rumours, or at least since Google began launching the Nexus 7 tablets two years ago, and why should this year be any different? Nexus devices, have been named after fish since before Nexus was a thing, going back as far as the G1 (HTC Dream): trout (G1), mahimahi (Nexus One), herring (Nexus
S), stingray (Xoom) and so-on right up to the hammerhead (Nexus 5), and so it’s no surprise that an unrecorded device with a fish themed name has been spotted in the Chromium Bug Tracker.
First spotted by MYCE, the entry for bug 371206 in the Chrome Bug Tracker, which MYCE kindly captured a screenshot of, refers to a device with the codename ‘Flounder’:
It’s too early for a Nexus phone, so it’s being assumed that the Flounder codename has been designated to a Nexus tablet that’s currently in development. Whether this is a Nexus 7 followup – Nexus 7 (2014) or the much rumoured Nexus 8, is uncertain.
The AAV36B build designation shown in the bug tracker gives a lot of information on how recent a build the device is running. The AA in the code indicates it’s running software from Android’s development branch, the V indicates Q2, with 36 indicating the build is from the 36th day of Q2, which puts the build date at May 6th.
Google IO is just around the corner, where the original Nexus 7 was announced, or it could be announced soon after as the Nexus 7 (2013) was. Will Flounder be the latest iteration of the Nexus 7 – the Nexus 7 (2014) or will it turn out to be the rumoured Nexus 8? We’ll find out soon enough.
It begins!
yet again
Hang on, you just listed all the Nexus phones as fish, but then say that flounder is likely to be a tablet? Nexus 7 2012 was ‘grouper’ to be sure, but Nexus 7 2013 was ‘flo’ which was very tenuous a link to fishy things. It *might* be a tablet, but it might be a phone as well. Oh, and I think if I’m reading the bug tracker correctly there’s a reference to ‘arch-arm’ in the trace – which would cut across the Intel rumours for the tablet chipset – maybe? And someone at Google is likely a Game of… Read more »
I said Nexus devices. Xoom is a tablet and considered to be a Nexus without the name as it was the Google Reference device for Honeycomb.
The Nexus 7 2013 Deb(lte) and Flo(wifi) are thought to be named after the fish in Finding Nemo.
Timing wise a phone is not really viable with the traditional October/November launch. But a phone may show up in a few months.
Well said. I thought you were very clear in what you wrote.
“It’s too early for a Nexus phone, so it’s being assumed that the Flounder codename has been designated to a Nexus tablet” You went directly to assuming tablet. Now, a tablet is perfectly possible, but so is phone – and the point I made was that if the line at the top is actually saying it’s an ARM processor then either you have a different device to the tablet expected soon, or the tablet that’s expected soon doesn’t have the Intel chip that’s expected with it. The AOSP page that’s been found, that also references ‘flounder’, references tegra as well… Read more »