If this is true, maybe I can play licensed Nintendo games on my shield portable.
Or maybe you don't.
Seriously guys, what makes you think that, if this turns out to be true, this Android-
based OS would be as holey and unsecure as other Android OSs?
Nintendo is and always has been a very strong fighter against piracy and all that comes with it.
It took AGES (especially compared to the DS and Wii) to come up with a piracy solution for 3DS and the Wii U itself isn't even hacked yet.
My guess is that Nintendo would put in strong safety measures so that piracy will not be a concern, at least for a long time in the NX's life.
Android is not simply an OS for smart devices. It's an OS, period. If there was an available branch for it you could use it as a regular OS like Windows, OS X or Linux.
How capable it is depends on the hardware it's running on.
What if the NX would run on Windows 10 with Direct X 12? Would that make it automatically more capable than the Wii U? What if it ran on the same hardware as the Wii U? Think about that.
About Google "wiretapping" the OS: There are Android branches that have everything that connects and/or sends data to Google removed and/or replaced. Nintendo would without a doubt do the same. Remember that new account system they are developing with DeNa? That's most likely what they'd use instead. So as long as you don't opt in to anything Google-related you will definitely not send any data to Google, knowingly or unknowingly.
You all just jump to conclusions because you have no fricking clue what Nintendo is actually doing with the OS or if they are even using it.
Truth be told, neither do I but you don't see me running around spewing my conclusion jumping to the people as if it were fact, being angry at it myself and blabbering all-around nonsense just because I couldn't think about the fact for 5 minutes.
So if you please would just think about what it could actually be instead of thinking "Herpderp, it uses Android, so it must be an underpowered device because Android is what smartphones use" and "Herpderp, this will get pirated so hard because smartphones are pirated so hard" then I would greatly appreciate it, because it makes this thread look a good bit smarter than what it has been for the last 10/20 pages.