HTC has been in the smartphone game since its inception, so sometimes you just have to give credit where it’s due. They created the first Android phone that was built for consumers and even made some of the first devices to even feature keyboards and touchscreens. Let’s face it, they’re OGs in the game. 

Within an hour of Google’s announcement at I/O that they would soon sell a special “Nexus experience” edition of the Samsung Galaxy S4, rumors popped up suggesting that HTC would do something similar with the One. And as soon as those rumors surfaced, HTC quickly shot them down, claiming that a “Nexus edition” was not in their plans. Well, here we are a week later, and rumors have once again surfaced surrounding a “Google Edition” of HTC’s popular One device. According to sources who spoke to both Geek.com and Modaco, an announcement is imminent, potentially happening next week. 

While Samsung got done bragging about eclipsing the 10 million sales mark for the Galaxy S4 within a month, this morning, a report out of the Wall Street Journal pegs HTC as having sold “around” 5 million One devices. While that’s short of Samsung’s insane numbers, that’s still a fairly impressive number for a company that we all pegged as being all-but-done and who also suffered supply issues at launch. Keep in mind that their CEO Peter Chou did say that if this phone was not a success and help turn the company around, that he would step down. I’d say that at 5 million in about a month’s time, he could be safe. Then again, the company is reportedly in disarray, with executives and upper management leaving left and right. 

Life at HTC is apparently worse than any of us initially suspected. After over a year of disappointing quarters, followed by manufacturing woes of their latest flagship, the One, the company is reportedly in “disarray.” A report out of The Verge last night paints a picture of a company who has lost key members of their leadership team, is starting to point fingers at the snap decisions of CEO Peter Chou for all mistakes, and whose Seattle U.S. headquarters are looked at as being in “utter freefall.” 

Hypebeast tank tops on? The HTC One on Verizon rumors won’t seem to die, and we’ve got another random one to toss out this afternoon, the day before Verizon takes the stage at a press event at CTIA. According to an XDA member who works for Sprint, their HTC rep stopped by this afternoon to check on things and happened to have a special device tucked away in his pocket. When asked about the 4.2.2 update for the Sprint version of the One, the rep reached for a second device, which he claims to be the Verizon version already running 4.2.2. This tipster mentioned that the device had the 4.2 notification toggles, likely similar to what we saw in the leaked 4.2.2 ROM for the HTC Butterfly. 

The U.S. unlocked variants (including the Developer Edition) of the HTC One are receiving a new update today to build 1.29.1540.16. The update is a smallish 17MB in size, so there likely aren’t any major additions included. In fact, we haven’t noticed any changes after updating other than the build number, especially not a jump to 4.2.2 or anything along those lines. Probably just a bug fixer, move along.

Oh, I’m also still using the One unlocked U.S. version as my daily driver. I spent some extra time at I/O with a Galaxy S4, but have since gone back to the One. It is still my favorite device of the moment. Updates like this, by the way, are another reason to consider picking one up. Keep in mind that HTC can push these out as soon as they are done since there are no carrier barriers to break through.

Last week, the vice president of investor relations for NVIDIA, Rob Csongor, spoke of the company’s mobile strategies moving forward through 2013 and beyond. Currently, Samsung and Apple make up exactly 50% of this year’s first quarter mobile sales, so according to Csongor, NVIDIA will look to partner with the “other half” of the market such as HTC, ZTE, Huawei and other lower-placed companies to push its line of mobile processor. 

The announcement during yesterday’s I/O keynote that showed off the “Nexus Edition” Samsung Galaxy S4 surprised a lot of people. It was as if Google listened to what we have been saying forever – we want great hardware with stock Android and we want it now! Of course, minds started spinning over the possibilities, but HTC quickly put on the brakes by saying they have no plans for a Nexus Edition One.