They made a very public guarantee to their other partners that Moto would have to wait in line for their turn as Nexus maker. I think there was some cryptic non-replies which indicated that the next flagship Moto after this might/will be a Nexus product.

What makes you think that Google's goal is to have every single Android phone run unadulterated Android? I'm sure that something like the slow-motion Tizen migration that Samsung is doing is a bit much for them, but these kinds of light customizations (tailored to the specific hardware) are probably exactly what they'd like manufacturers to do.

It's a great question. I asked a friend who works at Google the very same thing yesterday and sadly got a very non-answer answer - either because he didn't know, he didn't want to say, or because Google is having a case of the corporates.

Something about internal corporate structure, compliance issues having to do with the Motorola acquisition, objectivity when it comes to Android competitiveness, how the Android group has to treat Motorola just like every other Android phone vendor and can't give them special treatment, something about contracts with HTC, etc. etc. etc. I felt more confused than before I asked.

Google is trying to spread the unmodified Android UX through at least three tiers of branding: Nexus, Google Play Edition, and normal Google-logo branding, but with a greater emphasis on a standard UX.

I think they could have done better. While the UX issue is annoying, the killer issue for enterprise deployments is timeliness of security updates. They could have had a pledge with incentives that would result in update SLAs with OEMs. Then customers could count on getting updates within a certain interval.

The Google Play Editions have announced updates, right after Nexus got their's, so that's something. But even outside the Google Play store, I would like to see some kind of formal commitment from OEMs. I have been pretty happy with ASUS for updating, but their schedules seem to slip.

Every manufacturer slips when they release new top segment hardware. The real problem is Android being too free in terms of support. Google should have set requirements for distributors regarding updates. But then again Android wouldn't have grown this fast this big if they did. Now they try to fix the segmentation with mentioned line ups and work arounds (Google Play Services or something, releasing new core features as installable applications) but I doubt they will ever fix the core problems completley as it makes Android as what it is.

> Google should have set requirements for distributors regarding updates.

Google could have done that as a condition of getting the proprietary apps and Google logo while maintaining unconditional openness in AOSP. And while you are right that they might not have had that leverage in the first year of Android as a commercial product, they could surely have started before now.

"Where is this heading?" ... "Instead, it comes with an almost pure version of Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean."

I think the color shells is misdirection, it's a way to get the Moto resellers on the (almost) pure stuff.

My friend that works at Motorola says there were frictions in having Google brand their own company's flagship phone as a Nexus device. Probably a lot of hard feelings still between Google and Samsung (among others).