Exaggeration perhaps, but hardly desperation. The thing is Google and many of the Android device manufacturers really do thow shoddy goods out the door. not always, not every product, not every time, but embarrassingly often. Anyone remember the first generation Google TV boxes with unusable UIs in which vital controls would be completely hidden by other UI elements, rendering the whole thing essentially unusable? Even in the official unveiling demo they hit problems like that. Or the big push for Flash on Android in which, during the launch presentation, ever single attempt to run Flash lead to a crash and system lockup? Good times. Then there was the early nexus 7, with crippled flash memory drivers that led to chronic system performance degradation that they didn't fix for a whole year.

Of course eventually some issues like this get fixed. The first few products may be duds, but the 3rd or 4th iteration might be quite good, and the fifth might be fantastic. Of course that's where these companies want to get to. But meanwhile how many thousands of customers bought the first few versions? Who's standing up for them?

Sure Apple can bring out duds too, products that fail to take off, or have serious limitations. Some of the early Macbook Airs couldn't play full-screen video properly, but at least they could play video. When was the last time Apple brought out a product that was truly unfit for purpose?