The screen on the Galaxy Nexus is there for more than just good looks. I’m not sure why this has not been stated, or how it has been overlooked. Bear in mind that Google has stated that ICS will be the official merger of phones and tablets for Android, I guess with all the other excitement, most people are overlooking the obvious is the phone now has the same resolution and aspect ratio of Honeycomb tablets. It is the single reason why I knew for a fact that the 720p rumor was going to come to fruition.
So why is this important beyond eye-candy? APPS! The single largest problem with Honeycomb based Android Tablets has been the lack of apps designed for an HD screen. There are several reasons for this ranging from poor Emulator performance, to smaller market share. This could change all of that. Yes, yes, yes we have scaling in Android, but you and I both know that’s not the same thing. This phone and the phones that follow its example in the coming year, not only merge the separated Android branches; they merge the pool of apps available for phones and tablets. They decrease the time needed for developers to release Apps that work on both platforms in the same way. As Simon pointed out to me shortly before putting this, up, it could prove to be a boost for the development of Google TV apps as well.
This will obviously not happen overnight. In fact we may see a few months where our brand new Galaxy Nexus feels just as lonely as the Xoom did at launch, after that though, its game on.  Let’s just hope the issues with the Honeycomb emulator have been worked out under the Ice Cream Sandwich SDK.
