For developers and enthusiasts on Sprint that own the Galaxy Nexus, the wait is over for a proper recovery image of the Jelly Bean build.
The image was uploaded to the official Android Developers repository and comprises Jelly bean version 4.1.1. The image can be used to recover the phone in case of serious issues with software development or testing, though the recovery and reinstallation process requires that the phone’s bootloader be unlocked prior to the recovery process and oddly, be relocked immediately afterwards in order to complete the process with the fastboot tool found in the SDK.
The release of the recovery image follows months of waiting for the image to be made available, as many variant ROMs are being developed for the Nexus that use the recovery image as a base for additional work. That the Sprint version is one of the last to be made available also underscores the issues present with support for CDMA Nexus devices, as both Verizon and Sprint variants of the Galaxy Nexus have had varying levels of direct support from the core Android development project due to the closed nature of the CDMA standard compared to GSM and its variants.
