The age old saying of “you can’t know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been” can be applied to so many different things in life. It’s widely accepted that those words of wisdom were first uttered in the context of taking a look at our ancestry and heritage with the aim of planning a future for ourselves. However, the same words can also be applied to consumer technology with the embedded GIF summing up beautifully the evolution of the Nexus smartphone over the last three years.

Some smartphones just outright refuse to die. The HTC HD2, released in late 2009, is the most recent example of this. It was the first smartphone with a 4.3” display*, powered by a 1GHz Snapdragon processor, 512MB of RAM, a 5-megapixel camera. The HD2 was the last smartphone that was based on Windows Mobile 6.5, but later, thanks to vibrant community support, the device was able to run Windows Phone 7, and Android all the way from 2.2 to the recently released 4.1 Jelly Bean.

It’s all go at Google these days. They’ve just shown off their latest version of the Android mobile operating system; Ice Cream Sandwich, and their hardware partner Samsung has announced the Galaxy Nexus as the first handset to sport it. Now it seems there’s another Android Nexus phone packing Ice Cream Sandwich, and it’s not the one you expected.

The almost obsolete Google Nexus One – predecessor to the Google Nexus S – has received a minor update to its operating system. Google has begun rolling out Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread (Build: GRK39F) for it and we’ll guide you on how you can install this update manually, right now.

We first heard yesterday about the possibility of Google’s Android 2.3.4 bringing video calling to the Nexus S, thanks to a tweet from a supposed Samsung employee. Now Google has confirmed that this is indeed the case, and the update will arrive in the ‘next few weeks’.

The wait is finally over ! If you haven’t got the OTA update notification on your Nexus One yet, you no longer have to worry. The official Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread for Nexus One is now available for download. You can install it manually by following the instructions posted below.

Yes you read that right ! Google has confirmed that Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread OTA (Over-The-Air) update for both Google-branded phones: Nexus S and Nexus One is rolling out now. But be patient as the OTA rollout may take a few weeks to complete.

The SDK version of Android 3.0 Honeycomb has been ported successfully to Google Nexus One. Dubbed as Honeycomb N1 alpha v0.1, this tablet-optimized version of Android will bring all the goodness from the latest and greatest version of Android to Nexus One.

Why do the likes of Google and Apple think that if they won’t roll out an update officially, it will never come the consumers way? Maybe they have that holier than thou attitude but developers in the more free world have the brains and tools to do so. Without actually waiting for the term official attached.

The latest and the greatest Android phone, the Google Nexus S is finally available now for purchase in US at Best Buy stores. Customers in UK will be able to purchase it starting from December 20th.

Google today has officially taken the wraps of Android 2.3 Gingerbread. Version 2.3 brings lots of new features to the Android platform. Some of these include: UI refinements for simplicity and speed, Faster, more intuitive text input, one-touch word select and copy / paste, improved power management, control over applications, and new ways of communicating, organizing (Internet calling, Near-field communications, Downloads management and camera).

I have been complaining a lot lately about how Google is taking a lifetime to release the Android 2.3, aka Gingerbread for its users. We had reports of it coming with the release of Nexus S from Samsung last month but that was postponed for some reason.