Device will naturally feature Nokia and Microsoft apps instead of Google Play
Nokia may finally release its long-rumored Android phone, and the announcement is expected as soon as this month. According to sources of The Wall Street Journal, Nokia engineers have continued to work on the budget-minded Android device as the company prepared to be acquired by Microsoft. As you would expect, Nokia doesn’t plan to put Google Play on the device nor highlight any of Google’s services, choosing instead to fill the phone with its own apps such as Here maps and services from Microsoft.
The phone is expected to be a low-end replacement for its current “Asha” devices, which are targeted at emerging markets and have used an in-house developed operating system even as all of its higher-end devices moved to Windows Phone. Minimum spec requirements have kept Windows Phone off of these budget phones, and it seems Nokia plans to test the waters with using Android rather than try and shoehorn WP8 onto the handsets. The report claims that Nokia is ready to show off this new Android-powered device at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
It’s unclear exactly what Nokia’s plans for using Android in the future would be, but the best assumption right now is that this will be a distinctively low-end play. Taking into consideration that Nokia currently makes a vast majority of the Windows Phone handsets available in the market today, there’s little reason to think that Microsoft would consider a shift towards Android on any devices capable of running its own operating system.
Source: Wall Street Journal