The Nexus 9 is definitely happening. Court documents recently confirmed that development of an HTC-made slate is currently underway and according to The Wall Street Journal the search giant decided to go with the Taiwanese firm to prevent manufacturing partners like Samsung from having too much power over its Android platform. When it comes to smartphones, HTC has an impressive resume loaded with high-end devices, but the company has struggled to find a winning formula in the highly populated tablet space.

 

 

Historically, Google has tapped HTC for some of Android’s biggest devices. In 2008, the company produced the first commercially released Android smartphone, the G1 aka The HTC Dream. Two years later it was tasked with development of the Nexus One, the very first handset in the search giant’s flagship product series.

The Nexus 9 is expected to be announced before 2014 comes to an end and will likely be the first device to launch with an official build of Google’s Android L software. As for the tablet’s hardware, it’s rumored to ship with an 8.9-inch 2,048 x 1,440 display, a Tegra K1 processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB or 32GB of internal storage spac