Nexus Q launch delayed indefinitely, no longer available for pre-order | Hacker News Reader

Nexus Q launch delayed indefinitely, no longer available for pre-order

arstechnica.com

39 pointsllambda54 comments

I much prefer the headline "Google redesigns Nexus Q, refunds every pre-order and promises to ship a free one to everyone who preordered" since it seems more accurate and less like random Google bashing.

Feedback from previewers meant they needed another cycle. That's good, since the same detractors tend to be the ones who accuse Google of shipping half-baked products.

The headline is stating the facts, what you are suggesting is stating the google spin. Its usually a better idea to report the facts rather than the spin. There is no Google bashing in that headline.

There was a lot of negative feedback to this, and this is probably a good step. Its also nice to see the goodwill gesture of fulfilling preorders for free.

I think both the real and proposed headlines are stating facts; the question is which facts to emphasize.

Thats only a question fanboys from both sides keep bringing up.

Seriously? After all the Apple apologist, are we now going to see a Google apologist.

The headline is accurate and not inflamatory. Your proposed summary reads like PR puke on the other hand.

NO part of the headline is inaccurate or disingenuous.

If you wanted a Nexus Q then you will not be able to get one. Simple as that. And this little exercise in product development is about as half-baked as it comes. You do product development/marketing BEFORE shipping not after.

"If you wanted a Nexus Q then you will not be able to get one."

From the article:

"To placate those who did pre-order the device, the same preview version of the device (now called "dev units") that was given out to I/O attendees will now be provided to pre-orderers at no cost according to an e-mail sent to those who had already placed orders."

Well, this does seem to fit in well with the "Customer Development" phase of startups, doesn't it? After all, they demoed a prototype, received (negative) feedback, and are now iterating the product to make it better tailored to the customer's needs.

It's easy to snap-criticize, but as a start-up community, maybe HN'ers can look at this in a positive light.

They didn't "demo a prototype" - they launched a product, took pre-orders, and then bailed before shipping. Makes you wonder about their product development process.

Oh true! The whole "took preorders" part somehow escaped me :(

For those of us who wanted a Nexus Q for what it was, this is a fantastic outcome. I still get a Nexus Q but I get my $300 back.

yeah, all product launches should be done this way!

No, but certainly all failed launches should end this way.

But "what it was" is going to change. The Nexus Q could lose the built in amplifier and HDMI port and released 2 years from now.

Refunding customers is the least they could've done.

Yes, so I still get what I ordered (a hackable device which can drive a set of good 2.0 speakers from my desk), I don't get charged for a half-baked product, and I have the opportunity to hack on it.

So you're right. Google didn't do the least they could do; they still will give me what I paid for but they're also giving the money back. This approaches the most they could have done.

I'm still happy with the outcome. I get to hack on the device for a product idea I have _before most developers can even touch one_. And what consumer is going to be upset about Google pulling the launch of a product that was getting panned in the press anyways?

Yes, it'd be better to just hit a home run as you launch the product. Obviously that didn't happen, and no one is claiming it did. This is just the best way to fail they could think of.

What reality are you living in ?

This isn't a startup we are talking about. This is Google. One of the largest companies in the world. Heads need to roll if they couldn't work out the obvious problem that the Nexus Q had a massive product positioning problem.

Just remove the stupid amplifier. Or release one without and one with. God knows why someone thought including an amplifier was a good idea.

I personally think integrating an amplifier is a good idea, although I don't think the Q is a great implementation.

I would think that - at a given price point - a combined box would offer better quality and better feature integration (e.g. volume control, balance etc). Physically, I also don't want a separate amplifier box - can you explain what benefits a separate amplifier box offers vs the integrated approach?

It's as much an individual preference thing as anything else, but I much prefer high-quality discrete components that I've selected myself. Digital amps have come along a lot recently (see nu-force), but if it were me, I've already got a really good system that I could be tempted to augment with the Nexus Q - so that rules out me and others like me. Then there's the college student argument, but they've probably got a pair of logitech or similar powered computer speakers or an HT-in-a-box system which are more than enough for a party in a flat/hall of residence.

At the end of that, I can't really imagine too many people willing to pay all that money for a box which they still have to go and buy a pair of passive speakers for - particularly because the people in the market for passive stereo speakers wouldn't event glance sideways at the nexus q as a serious amp choice.

I definitely agree that at the ultra high end ($1000+) people will want to pick and choose components.

I was hoping for a Raspberry-Pi level computer paired with a reasonable amplifier and a reasonable DAC; certainly not competing with top-end discrete components, but well-designed (e.g. to reduce any electrical interference) so that the mass market could get reasonable quality audio.

I think the failing of the Q is that the price point ended up in the middle ($300 without speakers), and that the initial functionality was way too limited. I'd hope you could make something with the functionality of the Google TV with a reasonable amp for around $100 - $150 retail (without speakers). I hope someone tries making a device like that, without the Q's quirks (e.g. spherical touch-sensitive box & locked down functionality).

Do you know what the amp in the Q was like? I'm not trying to be accusatory- i just haven't heard sound quality ever mentioned when discussing the Q.

I have one here and haven't actually wired it up yet to speakers, because it uses banana clip connectors (another slightly odd decision).

My guess is that the sound quality is good, but not excellent. Better than computer speakers, better than the cheapest bundled units, nowhere near good enough for audiophiles. But that is only a guess based on what should be achievable.

With the limited functionality, it's just too much effort to order banana cables / connectors. I was hoping Google would announce it was now "unlocked" and they were supporting running more apps (the hardware & software are fully capable of running general Android apps with the Android SDK tools, but there's no easy way to interact with the apps). It looks like that's not going to happen now.

No offence but your 'guess' is not very useful.

e: really, is downvoting appropriate here? I can quite easily speculate that i don't think the nexus Q sounds that great (and thats what i'd put my money on), but the electronics exist, and cheap enough, to allow it to potentially sound fantastic. I was hoping someone might have some first hand experience to get better than speculation.

The best argument I heard was that it is equivalent to having a DVD player in your TV. Or a computer in your car. You end up pairing a long lifespan device with a short lifespan one. One half of the resulting device will get broken or obsolete long before the other half.

Moore's law applies to all the devices cell phones have been replacing for the past 5 years. Thus the cell phone is pairing with devices of similar lifespan. An amplifier is a different class of good. Their prices have not plummeted and their lifespans have only gotten better.

Good point, but I think we're talking about throwing away a $25 amplifier when the $50 computer is obsolete. And if the computer is essentially "just" a wireless audio player I'd imagine you can get a solid 5 years out of it without any problem - i.e. it can still run Siri, because the brains are in the cloud.

Physically mounting a computer in your $20,000+ 10-year lifespan car when it is totally outclassed by the phone most people carry in their pocket and replace every year or two... I agree that is insanity!

Well, its not that hard to install and uninstall a car computer, Intel-architecture computers are not outclassed by phones, and there are companies that cater to this niche, e.g., http://mitxpc.com/.

I think a lot of people who are interested in these streaming devices have separate component for their AV stack and would rather use their setup rather than the 25W amp in the Q. The other set of consumers would most likely hook the Q up directly to their TVs. The only use case where I would find the integrated amp useful would be in an office, kitchen, or some place similar.

Yeah, useful or not, this is the aspect that i suspect makes this thing quite hot, at all times. Like, even if you have it off, but plugged in, it's hot to the touch. Worrisomely hot. Underside of an old macbook, hot.

That might have a lot to do with why it was sent back to the drawing board.

For a brief second I thought a "stupid amplifier" was a amplifier of stupidity, perhaps referring to the phrasing of the title.

Works either way.

The amplifier is one of the reasons I want it, though!

Maybe they're copying Sonos.

This is something that awes me about Apple every time they do it.

At the press event:

"Great new product..."

"We think it's the best ever iYada, yada yada yada..."

"And you can order it today."

How the hell do they do that?

Tim Cook.

...and a world-class supply chain, which might best be summarized as: Tim Cook.

I wonder if this means they didn't get enough interest to bother making a larger run of the device. (I assume they're not giving away millions of dev units to the existing preorders.)

They sold out, so presumably they got more interest than they were expecting.

I bet they simply gained some self-doubt based upon all of the feedback and were worried about having a real failure if they stuck with the plan. Good on them, really, and the refunding of pre-orders while still promising the unit is amazing.

This really isn't surprising at all. They basically came out and said "We wanted to launch this at I/O, but it's not really done. We'll release it to the general public when it's done."

This isn't surprising? When in the history of humanity have you previously heard of a company abandoning pre-orders, giving out free devices to pre-orderers, and saying they'll relaunch it when they add more features because of customer feedback? Name one other example in history.

Isn't surprising at all? This is the most unexpected thing that could possibly happen. Maybe losing only to all shipped devices turning into flying pigs who shoots laser from their tails. Other than that, this is the most unexpected thing that could happen.

I'm actually wondering if it's entirely because of Ouya. I'm sure someone at Google saw that Kickstarter explode and took a look at the trickle of Q preorders.

Is it just me or does the Nexus Q look like the Empire's probe droid from the Empire Strikes Back?

It looks nothing like the probe droid from Empire Strikes Back.

It's the right move.

I've used my Nexus Q for all of 20 minutes since I installed it. Without Netflix, without Hulu, without streaming from my desktop computer, it simply isn't useful. Yet it's the same cost as my much more capable Xbox 360 and three times the cost of an Apple TV or Airport Express (with its audio out port).

Getting a piece of pure consumer electronics into the market is a big move for Google. Pausing to re-tool the software harms their credibility far, far less than launching an obvious dud.

Shaking things up in the stagnant living room tech space can only be good news for consumers. So I want these guys to succeed. A nicely hackable piece of hardware is a fantastic counterpoint to Apple's polished but locked-down approach.

But no wine before its time.

I don't get why they don't just make a Nexus TV settop box that combines the full Google TV Android experience with the music sharing stuff the Q was supposed to do.

Makes more sense than the Q by itself and it would tie nicely into their Google Fiber tv service for those lucky enough to have it.

This is a bit embarrassing for Google. They have always released a product that have stayed in Beta long after it has launched. That probably works for a software product but not for hardware.

Why? Everyone else iterates on hardware, they just don't refund it and admit that maybe it's not ready. Think how many people have shitty android tablets or iPhone 4's they have to use the kung fu grip on.

This is just Google taking the opportunity to back off on shipping a product while still doing right by their customers. After the kerfuffle with Nexus 7 order volume messing with their fulfillment, it's nice to see them get a bit proactive.

Edited out a very telling typo.

Why not? Kickstarter trends certainly seem to be showing otherwise

What credibility a promoter of a failed kickstarter would have if they launched a useless hardware product that over-promised and under-delived? Would Google want to be in their shoes? The free dev devices is just a PR stunt they stole to make them look a little less bad.

I'm guessing it's related to one of the following: Google Fiber, the Kickstarter Android game consoles (and/or hackers getting games running on the Nexus Q "dev units"), the high availability of cheap media-pc-on-a-usb-stick Android devices.

(I presume they really are improving, didn't mean to imply they were running or anything).

Simpler: it's more limited than the two existing devices closest to it: the Sonos and Apple TV (in the context of Apple's ecosystem), and three times the price of the latter. A third-party API of some kind would go a long way towards making that price tag much easier to swallow.

A third party API? Isn't it a full fledged Android device?

Technically. Out of the box, all it's capable of doing is streaming music and video from Play and YouTube.

That's kind of my point. I think they saw what "hackers" did with it and saw the reactions and put two and two together. I think if they tossed the amp and opened it up as a Google TV like device, it would pair great with Fiber, Nexus 7 and would give them a Google TV device that is similar to their Nexus devices in terms of their level of control, etc.

Absolutely. It was hard to see why you'd get a Nexus Q instead of (or even with), for example, a Vizio Co-Star. If it were "Nexus TV" (with a lower price point), though, it becomes much more interesting.

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