Well, well!! As if all the rumours, leaks and speculation about the next Nexus device and successor to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean weren’t enough, there’s a brand new one to spice up your day.

Japanese Blog Blue Ringer Men reports that EXIF data extracted from an image posted on Picasa, a Google owned online image sharing service, seems to indicate the mysterious presence of a Nexus 5 phone device, running a hitherto unknown version of the Android OS, which could possible be Android 4.2 – code named Key Lime Pie. According to the data, as you can see from the pic above, the manufacturer field clearly indicates Google, and the Model field indicates Nexus 5. The software version, as you can see further down, indicates a string of alpha-numeric characters which start with the letter K – possible indication to the Key Lime Pie code name for Android 4.2

It is being inferred based on this data, that the device corresponds mostly with the recently announced HTC J Butterfly, and the likely specs deduced from EXIF data seem to conveniently tie-in with the specs of the HTC device. Could this be the next Nexus device- HTC Nexus 5?Well, the 5 suffix could mean a successor to the Nexus 4, which is likely to be announced at the Google event on Oct 29th, or it could just mean a 5 inch device, like in the Nexus 7 – but the Nexus prefix is what is puzzling, especially when it appears just in time before the launch of the the Nexus 4.

The latest version of Android Jelly Bean – 4.1.2 has just been pushed out to Nexus devices less than a week ago, and we all know that it could take some time before other OEM devices, however capable, will have to wait it out a bit before they can get there. With Google opening up its Nexus program to multiple manufacturers, it may only be a matter of time before we get to choose between different Nexus phones from different manufacturers, but it seems highly unlikely that time has already arrived.

Last, but not the least, it is relatively easy for someone with a reasonable degree of  comfort with the Android OS, and a rooted device, to change the build.prop information on a device. The build.prop file is your android handset’s ‘ID card’. It tells applications the specifications of your device, so that apps can change their interface or function for your specific device. Editing the build.prop file is most commonly used for changing LCD density, build number and your device’s model or manufacturer. 

While the information is definitely interesting, we would take it with not just a pinch, but  a punch of salt, till there are more irrefutable indications towards the existence of a new Nexus device or a new Android version out for testing. Till then, let’s continue to enjoy these leaks.