The Nexus line has a long history of fish-inspired device code names, and these code names have an equally long history of leaking via rumors and AOSP commit comments. Today both Android Police and Evleaks are chiming in with details on the next Nexus phones.
Android Police nailed early Nexus rumors in 2014 with the Nexus 6 (Codenamed "Shamu") and again in 2015 with the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X (Codenamed "Angler" and "Bullhead," respectively) and today they're introducing us to "Marlin" and "Sailfish," two HTC-built Nexus devices. The names come from sources Android Police isn't sharing, but "Marlin" was actually mentioned in an AOSP commit by a Qualcomm engineer. This all but confirms the device exists as some kind of Nexus product. Qualcomm's involvement points to the device having a Snapdragon 820 SoC.
Scoring the Nexus contract would be a big deal for HTC. With the excellent HTC Vive VR headset and the revamped HTC 10 smartphone, the company has been on a bit of a resurgence.
HTC is building a pair of Android N devices for Google internally dubbed M1 and S1 #nexus
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) April 27, 2016
Prolific smartphone leaker Evleaks tweeted this earlier today. He doesn't have the fish code names down, but "M1" for "Marlin" and "S1" for "Sailfish" line up very well with the other report. It's typical for Nexus devices to launch alongside new versions of Android. If the phones are "Android N devices" that might mean they'll launch alongside Android N, which Google has said will release Q3 2016.
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