A petition on Change.org seeking an Android 4.4 KitKat for the Galaxy Nexus, which has received as many as 14,188 signatures (as of this writing) and over 3,400 comments, has been printed and shipped to Google headquarters in Mountain view.
Max Duckwitz, the man behind the petition, demands that Google reconsider its decision of not supporting devices older than 18 months and release an Android 4.4 KitKat update for the smartphones released in 2011. Google had officially confirmed that it won’t be releasing an Android 4.4 update for the Galaxy Nexus as it “falls outside of the 18-month update window when Google and others traditionally update devices.”
Some of the reasons cited in the petition include points such as:
- The phone is more reliable then the newer Nexus 4
- Android fragmentation (lots of different Android versions in use) which Google claims to fight will be even bigger
- Galaxy Nexus is still on sale on Amazon and was still sold on Google Play just a year ago
- Throwing the Galaxy Nexus away to get a phone with the latest Android version is bad for the environment
However, it seems that releasing an Android 4.4 KitKat update won’t be all that easy for Google as the Galaxy Nexus runs Texas Instruments OMAP chipset and it doesn’t support the latest Android version out of the box. TI would need to update the chipset to support Android 4.4 KitKat and this seems highly unlikely as the company has already confirmed that it is moving away from mobile chipset business and will be focusing on embedded markets.
The petition should arrive on Sundar Pichai’s desk in about three weeks’ time and we will let you about Google’s response if any.
