It's as if they are an eventually consistent system that is constantly moving towards a state of consistency that they never completely reach.
They have some products which were nearly perfect. For instance, the Chromecast is more or less finished. It's not intended to be a game console or something to have apps in on a television. It's an extremely cheap device that allows you to stream a tab or from apps. That vision is well-executed, because it is cheap and works well for streaming. Of course, some people will have gripes about the Chromecast, but the fact that a device that looked incredibly boring at the start is now a pretty big success indicates that for many people it's exactly the product that they want.
But I agree that Chromecast gets things just right. I want the ability to "throw" an image or video from my PC, tablet, or phone to my big dumb screen on the wall--whatever proprietary smarts the TV manufacturer is trying to make me interact with--and that's exactly what Chromecast does.
However, it's terribly advertised, and it still annoyingly says "beta" all over stuff. I feel like I bought it out of some kind of anonymised side-door at the back of the warehouse.
Maybe it's different where you are, but where i live the chromecast is literally useless due to the restriction and nobody has one.
Why the Chromecast has the ability to run it's own Wi-Fi network to only connect to another is a design decision I don't understand. The other parts of it are great, but it's a shame that for such a small and portable device, it's such a pain in the ass to use away from home.
I can certainly see how for some people it's not useful, but its of people do have reliable internet access where they'd want to use it and aren't limited by that requirement.
I know what you mean, but I'd actually say the opposite:
Google has a history of dumping a bunch of resources into a first release. Which may be quite good (Google Books), barely a proof of concept (Wave), somewhere in between (Hangouts), or bizarro what (Plus). And then withdrawing all resources, never iterating on it again, never delivering any major improvements.
In fact, this, it seems, is what Glass-purchasers felt for the past year and a half -- So, this is a good first draft, but when's it gonna get better? Answer: Never.
Presumably the projects which start looking like they will make money for Google receive further investment.
If people think SDLC is hard, what about traditional hardware product lifecycles?
I think it's interesting that Google, being built around continuously moving, never-really-finished, web products, has tried to move into really-has-be-finished-to-ship hardware...and I think it's been hard for Google to do, it's just not in their blood.
Occasionally something comes out, the Chromecast, or early 1st round versions of something. But then they seem to get lost in the weeds, not to mention weird cancellations of products right before they're ready to ship.
It kind of reminds me of what I've been reading about what went on inside of Atari during the boom days.
I've always felt that consumer products were going to be really hard for Google to pull off. It reminded me of Intel trying to make an LED wristwatch in the early 80's. Too much consumer 'hands on', too much industrial design. Neither of which Google are strengths.
I expect glass is dead, all the money they might have invested in making it real they spent on Magic Leap, and now its up to the Leap guys to be the 'visual interface to Google.' The small android experience will fold into the IoT part of Google (Nest) and that will be that.