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.

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.

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

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?

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.)

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."

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'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.

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.

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).