Despite Samsung’s best efforts, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus will, at least for now, remain banned from any future sales. The Galaxy Nexus is already unavailable in the Google Play Store and is listed as “Coming Soon.” Judge Lucy Koh denied the Korean company’s motion to have the preliminary injunction overturned, which Apple was granted last week. All Apple needs to do now is post the $96 million bond and the injunction will be all set. Google and Samsung will now most likely go the same route that HTC did when Apple went after their One X and Evo4G LTE. A software update for the Galaxy Nexus will likely be made as a “work-around” to the patent that Apple claims Google and Samsung are infringing upon with the Galaxy Nexus.
According to a Google spokesperson, the alleged software update will “essentially dumb down the quick search bar on the Android homescreen, limiting its results to just those from the web. No local searches on the device will be performed at all, taking on-device apps, integrated Gmail, and other search results out of play. Voice search, which has been a point of contention in the trial, isn’t going anywhere — but it will be restrained to the same set of limited search results.” Thus, current Galaxy Nexus owners that are running on stock should expect some sort of an OTA update with this implemented in the near future.
I know this hits such a personal and soft spot in the Android community, and its saddening that there’s literally nothing Google nor Samsung can do about this other than comply and work on an update to work around the patent issue. I personally root my devices and I’m hoping that this “work around OTA” won’t be in Google’s AOSP so that custom ROM’s are still able to retain the search functionality that Apple is complaining about. What do you all think about the “dumbed down quick search bar” that the Google rep was alluding to? Is it a feature that you’ll direly miss or something that you rarely use at all? Sound off in the comments on how you feel about this, we would love to hear your input.