[Macworld]

Post your comments for Google Nexus Q Hands-On: The buggy streaming story here

[soulatrium]

What problem is this product solving that hasn't already been solved by others? Apple TV can play your iTunes library, and my Roku (which starts around $50) has plenty of music apps both for streaming your iTunes library as well as Pandora and other streaming channels.

And with Roku and Apple, you get the added benefit of solid customer support instead of support from Google, which has a fairly horrendous track record in providing 1-to1 support for consumers.

[Stewsburntmonkey]

It is a bit frustrating to see a company with so many great engineers continue to turn out such unpolished products. If I were an engineer at Google I'd be completely pissed off that products keep getting shipped out the door in such a fashion simply because there is not a management culture existent at the company with anything approaching the level of quality or commitment the engineering staff possesses (and no indication Google is patricianly bothered by the disconnect or is doing anything to improve the situation).

This post has been edited by Stewsburntmonkey: 29 June 2012 - 11:39 AM

[Stewsburntmonkey]

soulatrium, on 29 June 2012 - 11:38 AM, said:

What problem is this product solving that hasn't already been solved by others? Apple TV can play your iTunes library, and my Roku (which starts around $50) has plenty of music apps both for streaming your iTunes library as well as Pandora and other streaming channels.

And with Roku and Apple, you get the added benefit of solid customer support instead of support from Google, which has a fairly horrendous track record in providing 1-to1 support for consumers.

Additionally pretty much every AV component these days from TVs to BluRay player to Receivers has streaming built-in (as well as having Netflix, Hulu, etc.). It would have seemed to be a better play to create a streaming platform work with component makers to get it shipping on devices (like Microsoft has with Windows streaming).

[rthuringer]

Looks like a new (and expensive) Pet Toy. I can see the family pooch eying the new ball on the entertainment center to fetch. Here Boy, where did you get the ball with all the cords hanging out of it? NOOOOOO NOT THE Q-BALL!!!!!!

[wbs9]

Seems to be a much inferior and much more expensive device than AppleTV.

[soulatrium]

The more I think about it, the more it seems that Google has a problem saying "no" to releasing mediocre or inferior products. What I love about Apple is that history has shown they will axe a product that just wouldn't have made a splash in the market.

Google's strategy seems to be releasing as much new stuff as possible, and hoping that a few of those releases end up being successful. And we all know what happens to the products that don't - they lose support and eventually disappear.

Now, it's annoying enough when this happens to a web service, but the consequences can be far greater when people are putting money down for a hardware product...

[wardoggie]

soulatrium, on 29 June 2012 - 12:13 PM, said:

The more I think about it, the more it seems that Google has a problem saying "no" to releasing mediocre or inferior products. What I love about Apple is that history has shown they will axe a product that just wouldn't have made a splash in the market.

Google's strategy seems to be releasing as much new stuff as possible, and hoping that a few of those releases end up being successful. And we all know what happens to the products that don't - they lose support and eventually disappear.

Now, it's annoying enough when this happens to a web service, but the consequences can be far greater when people are putting money down for a hardware product...

The problem is that Google doesn't have a strategy. As you said, they just release stuff and hope that something sticks.

Apple has a strategy behind its cool products. That's why the "hobby" Apple TV was kept around. It's part of a larger content selling/renting/delivery strategy.*

* This is, of course, pure speculation on my part

[Algorithmo]

I may be missing something, but it looks like a buggy, ball-shaped apple TV that costs 3 times as much. But it has shiny lights. Oh boy, another battery sucker. I want my smart-TV box to be a quiet little box that can be controlled by remote, not an accident prone, LED ridden ball. Google tried to copy apple's design sense, but only managed to take the pretty side. I don't think any sane person will buy this.

[dleany]

What really pisses me off is that they bought SageTV, which had excellent hardware and software, shuttered it and pulled all their hardware off the market, then totally ignored everything Sage had learned. There is no way in hell that I'll buy this piece of crap. I just picked up an AppleTV, and I can buy two more of them for the price of one of these disco orbs. I don't need or want blinky lights.

[Swift2]

Great. A premium product that is shoddily made. Way to go, Google. Now everybody's going to be saying that we just can't manufacture things in the U.S.

Focus, Google! Search, sure. Web services, sure. Maybe one thing that you make, perfectly. Right now, the crazy billionaires that run you have ADD. They pick up a hundred projects, and perfect nothing.

[markbyrn]

Hey folks, you can save yourself $290 and get a Magic Eight Ball.

[FlopTech]

Stewsburntmonkey, on 29 June 2012 - 11:39 AM, said:

It is a bit frustrating to see a company with so many great engineers continue to turn out such unpolished products. If I were an engineer at Google I'd be completely pissed off that products keep getting shipped out the door in such a fashion simply because there is not a management culture existent at the company with anything approaching the level of quality or commitment the engineering staff possesses (and no indication Google is patricianly bothered by the disconnect or is doing anything to improve the situation).

Google's engineering culture was formed way back when all Google did was publish web pages and web apps. They could post a late-beta release just to get something out there, then fix it later by pushing an update to their servers. All users immediately got the update. Easy. Just ship it now and fix it later.

Not so easy with hardware products. And if you take the "ship it early" philosophy to the extreme, your products won't even be designed well. Fixing bugs post-release is trivial compared to fixing a bad overall design or half-baked product concept post-release. Just ask the few, the proud, the Google TV owners of the world about half-baked product concepts.

[Stewsburntmonkey]

FlopTech, on 30 June 2012 - 09:44 AM, said:

Stewsburntmonkey, on 29 June 2012 - 11:39 AM, said:

It is a bit frustrating to see a company with so many great engineers continue to turn out such unpolished products. If I were an engineer at Google I'd be completely pissed off that products keep getting shipped out the door in such a fashion simply because there is not a management culture existent at the company with anything approaching the level of quality or commitment the engineering staff possesses (and no indication Google is patricianly bothered by the disconnect or is doing anything to improve the situation).

Google's engineering culture was formed way back when all Google did was publish web pages and web apps. They could post a late-beta release just to get something out there, then fix it later by pushing an update to their servers. All users immediately got the update. Easy. Just ship it now and fix it later.

Not so easy with hardware products. And if you take the "ship it early" philosophy to the extreme, your products won't even be designed well. Fixing bugs post-release is trivial compared to fixing a bad overall design or half-baked product concept post-release. Just ask the few, the proud, the Google TV owners of the world about half-baked product concepts.

True, though I think it goes beyond that. They have a culture that doesn't value overall product design. They produce cool tech which makes for interesting individual features, but they don't seem to have anyone who cares about putting together a product as a whole, integrating those cool features into a really good user experience. Things like Google Wave were very cool, but they were so focused on launching it as basically a single feature product that they failed to create a viable product out of it. They are doing this sort of thing more and more now, which is a great shame.