Re: (whispers) Google aren't a very good product company ...
Google aren't a very good product company
You probably want to change that to hardware company or consumer business.
I think Google often does things for reasons other than we anticipate. It clearly isn't very interested in becoming another Apple and the pricing also shows that it's not following Amazon's loss-leader approach. The role of the Google-branded hardware has changed over the years but might now be coming to an end. Initially it served as an incentive for manufacturers to produce Android phones with some kind of guaranteed volume, more recently it's become a chance to showcase newer features. But with the betas becoming open to other manufacturers this has less relevance. My guess is that we won't be seeing many more of them. Android is established and most Android's run at least one of Google's data-grabbing services.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
