Evidence Mounts HTC Is Indeed Making the Google Nexus 9 Tablet

WSJ reports that HTC is working closely with Google, citing people familiar with the matter to say some of the Taiwanese maker's engineers have been seen flying to the Google headquarters in Mountain View in recent months to work on the next Nexus tablet.

The report stresses that Google's decision to pick HTC regardless of the fact that the Taiwanese company is primarily more focused towards smartphones was to "avoid any one manufacturer gaining a monopoly." It also notes out that the search engine giant likes to build a broad base of partners for various devices.

Further, it's claimed that Google had originally contacted HTC for the Nexus tablet line-up since last year, in-line with previous reports. Reportedly, HTC had then refused Google's offer to build a Nexus tablet as it was busy promoting its smartphones business at that time.

WSJ quotes Google to say, "Android is a vibrant ecosystem, and many of the industry players are doing very well. There's room for many partners to do well and to innovate with Android," but the Mountain View firm declined to comment on switching partners for Nexus devices, and in the past, both Google and HTC have declined to comment on any collaboration for a Nexus tablet.

If the reports of HTC manufacturing next Nexus 8.9 or Nexus 9 tablet are on the mark, then this will be Taiwanese giant's second tryst with Google for Nexus line-up, the first being the original Nexus One smartphone launched back in 2010.

It's worth noting that HTC has maintained a distance from the tablet segment ever since it got its fingers burned with its first Android tablet, the Flyer (Review), which was launched back in 2011.

Prior to this, the HTC-made Nexus 9 tablet was seemingly confirmed with the listing of a purported lawsuit document by Nvidia against Samsung and Qualcomm. Nvidia accidentally revealed the HTC Nexus 9 tablet name in the legal document, alongside its expected release time frame and Tegra K1 specification.

The anticipated HTC Nexus 9 is anticipated to come with Android L onboard. Rumoured specifications of Google's next Nexus tablet include an Nvidia Tegra K1 Denver processor, which is a 64-bit chip, and a Quad-HD (1440x2560 pixels) for the rumoured screen size of 8.9-inch or 9-inch, as learnt from the previous leaks.