Am I the only one who is concerned that Google abandoning the Nexus One might spell future trouble for the Android platform? They already said they have no plans for a successor, so the Nexus One will for all means remains the only device that gets new Android versions as soon as Google finishes them. If there is no officially "Google-blessed" other phone in the future with the same capability, this could be bad news not only for developers, who will then lose a valuable testing hardware for new Android versions.
I also believe that the Nexus One was a pretty significant kick in the butt for handset makers and carriers as an Android showcase, not only for new Android versions, but also as some sort of a gold standard hardware-wise which gives them a spec target they should aspire to. It enabled us to tell handset makers and carriers "...see, new Android versions on the Nexus One bring pretty nice improvements, we want those in all the other Android phones as well" and "...see, the Nexus One has pretty decent specs, all Android devices should have least something comparable to this under the hood". This put mindshare pressure on them to make better Android devices and equip them with the latest Android versions.
But now, with the Nexus One being slowly phased out and no spiritual successor on the horizon, I fear that Android device makers will be even more lazy in adopting the latest new Android versions. They are already lagging, but until now, there always was at least the Nexus One to show what we were missing, so the handset makers had some pressure to bring newer Android versions even to older devices. But now? What incentive should OEMs have now to make new Android versions available, the Nexus One was the only one to get them on time and the only one which was even promised to get any update at all.If we now try to put mindshare pressure on them, they can all say "well, we would love to, but this is a lot of work and there is no other phone with the brand new Android version anyway, so who cares?". Look at the slow pace of getting Froyo to Android devices and then tell me you are not even a little bit concerned this might happen...
And without something like a regularly updated hardware gold standard like the Nexus One was, maybe Android device makers will try to bring out more cheap Android devices with subpar hardware, which will give you a pretty crappy Android experience. I think this is what is happening in the Android tablet space at the moment: There is no "gold standard" Android tablet, so a lot of the Android tablets seem to be quickly cobbled together, with crappy specs, which slow them down and make for a poor tablet experience. I have no trust in handset makers that they will not try to make somethink similar in the smartphone area.
Lastly, I think the dreaded fragmentation problem could become much worse if Google no longer has a gold standard device like the Nexus One. Android 3.0 and beyond seem to bring quite significant changes to the Android UI and with the Nexus One, you would get at least one device with the pure, unaltered Android UI experience. But without that, things like Sense UI or Motoblur could become even more prominent and dilute Android, especially when the pressure to provide new Android versions goes down without something like the Nexus One. Also, handset makers could try to hang on to old Android versions they have already tested and deployed much longer, which would mean the new features introduced in new Android versions could be delayed, since none of the device makers bothers to catch up.
Sure, the community can alleviate some of those concerns with custom firmware and stuff. But without a successor to the Nexus One, I fear the need for tinkering will become bigger and bigger and would put a serious damper on the mass appeal and the future growth of the Android platform. I think it is no coincidence that all other smartphone makers either design their own hardware or otherwise put pretty strict definitions even on their hardware (like Microsoft will do with WP7), I think in significant part because of some of the concerns I am having.