Supposedly the lack of updates for the Galaxy Nexus was down to the TI CPU they used. TI stopped working on mobile SoCs shortly after the Galaxy Nexus was relea

Supposedly the lack of updates for the Galaxy Nexus was down to the TI CPU they used. TI stopped working on mobile SoCs shortly after the Galaxy Nexus was released, so they no longer supported it and wouldn't provide any updated firmware needed for newer Android versions. The Verizon version was worse still for updates, but that's little surprise. Either way, you're comparing 2 year old phones. I also got tired of fighting with Android and installing custom builds, but it's not really necessary these days. Stock builds are much more polished, and many of the more advanced features from OEM and custom builds have been integrated into stock Android. I recently got a HTC One and have found little need to root or install any custom ROMs on it - it does everything I need and doesn't seem worth the hassle any more. I do agree with what you say about Google not "finishing the job". Many apps and services have been released with a lot of promise, but then been left relatively unchanged from early versions. If Apple Pay succeeds where Google Wallet has failed to gain traction, it will almost certainly be down to Apple making more of an effort to get merchants and services to support it. Perhaps they simly have more influence, but Google isn't exactly a small company, yet they often seem to fail in these areas. In particular, they make little effort to support things (Google Wallet NFC payments is one example) outside of the US. They're an international company, they have offices in many other countries, and yet many of their services remain US only, or take at least a year to be offered elsewhere.