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One of the interesting things about Google's recent forays into products is that it appears to be able to outsource its risk and subsequent losses. Imagine if A

One of the interesting things about Google's recent forays into products is that it appears to be able to outsource its risk and subsequent losses. Imagine if Apple released products as unsuccessful as GoogleTV and Chromebook — it would be a bloodbath. On the one hand i guess this makes being a product manager at Google less stressful. On the other, just how committed is Google to any of this?

VonGuard 15y ago
If they succeed, like Android, Google is VERY committed. It's like they get other companies to test their grenades, and the ones that don't blow up in faces, they stick with. Hence Google buys Motorola, but not, say, Acer.
philwelch 15y ago
> Imagine if Apple released products as unsuccessful as GoogleTV and Chromebook — it would be a bloodbath. AppleTV? iPod Hi-Fi? MobileMe? Need I go on?
- SigmundA 15y ago
  Apple TV 2nd gen is selling over 500,000 units per quarter?
  - rapind 15y ago
    I have a 1st gen ATV and Apple pretty much abandoned it. The 2nd gen is pretty sweet though if you're cool with streaming only (and wouldn't prefer a WDLive or Roku).
jonknee 15y ago
Final Cut Pro X? Ping? iAds? Apple doesn't bat near perfect. Some good stuff has come out this endeavor though--Cloud Print has been integrated into Chrome and is fantastic. Beats the pants off of AirPrint from Apple (for starters, you don't need to buy a new printer).
- dextorious 15y ago
  Let's stop the Final Cut Pro X was inferior meme. FCPX was a new codebase. To build upon. There was no "dumbing down" (as some idiots suggest every time the see a redesigned UI), it's still a full professional app. It lacked features, because you can't have everything carried over and ship in a timely manner (ask the TextMate programmer). Those will be added in future releases, until then people can use the old version. FCP was a tangled mess of a codebase, inherited from a different company, in a different era and OS version, and never rewritten to take advantage of Cocoa frameworks et al. The could have piled some new features to the old bloat and called it a "new release" (Adobe does it all the time, especially with Photoshop and Illustrator). Instead they took time, effort and money to build something they can build upon for the next decade. Think of it like the transition from OS 9 to X. Was 10.1 perfect? Not by far. Did it lack OS 9 features? It did. But it was the foundation to take us where we are today, while OS 9++ would have gotten us nowhere.
- netcan 15y ago
  Sure, but the OP still has a good point. Google can put out major, 'change the way we do X' products out there and completely flop without much fuss. They get back on it with a new products with the hope that one of them will take off. Apple bats much higher and rarely misses on the big products. They make big announcements and put a lot of credibility behind never seen by the public products. Out of the major product categories, a lot caught fire fast: ipods, iphones, ipads, OSX, istore, itunes, air. Several didn't catch fire like that but still picked up decent usage: appleTV, icloud, iwork, ilife It's actually a remarkable experiment. Evolution vs intelligent design. Both are way better than the average but each approach probably has an advantage in certain situations. Apple's approach is probably better for hardware-software products. You need scale and certainty to get prices down and the wow factor to jumpstart sales.

VonGuard 15y ago

If they succeed, like Android, Google is VERY committed. It's like they get other companies to test their grenades, and the ones that don't blow up in faces, they stick with. Hence Google buys Motorola, but not, say, Acer.

philwelch 15y ago

> Imagine if Apple released products as unsuccessful as GoogleTV and Chromebook — it would be a bloodbath. AppleTV? iPod Hi-Fi? MobileMe? Need I go on?

SigmundA 15y ago
Apple TV 2nd gen is selling over 500,000 units per quarter?
- rapind 15y ago
  I have a 1st gen ATV and Apple pretty much abandoned it. The 2nd gen is pretty sweet though if you're cool with streaming only (and wouldn't prefer a WDLive or Roku).

jonknee 15y ago

Final Cut Pro X? Ping? iAds? Apple doesn't bat near perfect. Some good stuff has come out this endeavor though--Cloud Print has been integrated into Chrome and is fantastic. Beats the pants off of AirPrint from Apple (for starters, you don't need to buy a new printer).

dextorious 15y ago
Let's stop the Final Cut Pro X was inferior meme. FCPX was a new codebase. To build upon. There was no "dumbing down" (as some idiots suggest every time the see a redesigned UI), it's still a full professional app. It lacked features, because you can't have everything carried over and ship in a timely manner (ask the TextMate programmer). Those will be added in future releases, until then people can use the old version. FCP was a tangled mess of a codebase, inherited from a different company, in a different era and OS version, and never rewritten to take advantage of Cocoa frameworks et al. The could have piled some new features to the old bloat and called it a "new release" (Adobe does it all the time, especially with Photoshop and Illustrator). Instead they took time, effort and money to build something they can build upon for the next decade. Think of it like the transition from OS 9 to X. Was 10.1 perfect? Not by far. Did it lack OS 9 features? It did. But it was the foundation to take us where we are today, while OS 9++ would have gotten us nowhere.
netcan 15y ago
Sure, but the OP still has a good point. Google can put out major, 'change the way we do X' products out there and completely flop without much fuss. They get back on it with a new products with the hope that one of them will take off. Apple bats much higher and rarely misses on the big products. They make big announcements and put a lot of credibility behind never seen by the public products. Out of the major product categories, a lot caught fire fast: ipods, iphones, ipads, OSX, istore, itunes, air. Several didn't catch fire like that but still picked up decent usage: appleTV, icloud, iwork, ilife It's actually a remarkable experiment. Evolution vs intelligent design. Both are way better than the average but each approach probably has an advantage in certain situations. Apple's approach is probably better for hardware-software products. You need scale and certainty to get prices down and the wow factor to jumpstart sales.