The Apple way – do it right, or don’t do it at all. If you do it wrong, can it quickly and pretend you never made it in the first place (or, alternatively, call it a “hobby”).
The Google way – do it, put it out there regardless of the state it is in, hope to be able to fix it or upgrade it later to something worthwhile.
I am not saying one method is better than the other in all cases (Gmail and the iTunes Store are enormous successes of the two respective philosophies) but when it comes to something like this, I can’t see a future where GoogleTV has been fixed or upgraded to make it worthwhile. It is exactly he kind of thing that you don’t bother launching until all the partners and especially all the content is in place.
Otherwise you’re just doing damage to the brand, and later on when you do have the partners and the content, all anyone will remember are the jokes from the early days about how you don’t have anything to watch and can’t buy a screen with it built-in anyway.
Getting the tech right and the content wrong is a classic error, and Google should be smarter than this. It’s not like that film; just because you build it doesn’t mean they will come.
HT @engadget
Still waiting on a serious announcement. Nothing on the horizon.