They ditched the OS for another, delayed the updates for the ditched OS and after the pathetic numbers, not because "it's a developper phone" but because of poor marketing probably planned from a member of this open source community.
Everytime Linux tries to do something new to become mainstream its fanboys jump to it and take ownership and close its doors to any sort of evolution to become a mainstream-class OS.
We've seen several attempts in the past decade but the conclusion has always been always the same: The problem is not linux, it's the selfish attitude of some members of the community towards the general public.