Logitech Calls Google TV a 'Big Mistake'

An anonymous reader writes "Logitech CEO Guerrino De Luca spoke bluntly about Google TV yesterday, referring to it as a 'beta' product and saying that relying on it for the Revue set-top boxes was a mistake. Logitech will stop production of the Revue, and plans to implement significant price cuts to get rid of their remaining inventory. 'He said there are "no plans to introduce another box to replace Revue." Further, he predicted that the "grandchild of Google TV" might succeed but not the current product. For now, that leaves Sony televisions with the Google software for people looking for the Google TV experience.'"

Re:Too bad

[SlappyMcgee]

You mean like the ones that SageTV used to make before Google bought them? http://www.sagetv.com/index.html [sagetv.com]

Re:As Predicted...

[UnknowingFool]

The first gen AppleTV used more expensive hardware like a Pentium M but had storage. It suffers from the same problem as Jobs outlined in that it tried to be like a TiVo but not quite. The 2nd gen AppleTV launched after D8 2010 takes on a slightly different purpose and acknowledges that Apple made mistakes. It's more of an add-on to connect your TV to the rest of your computing devices. It has less functionality but is cheaper.

Re:FAIL

[peter hoffman]

When I started watching TV there were two dials with fine-tuning rings and an on/off/volume knob. Today I have 56 buttons on just one of my remote controls, not to mention that some buttons have multiple functions depending on the history of button presses.

I think the Google remote is a reasonably good design; it's one of the features I like.

Re:As Predicted...

[Kohath]

You are simply wrong. People don't do what their cable boxes allow because they just don't really care. And if they do care, then they can make it work. It's not crazy difficult. It's imperfect and slightly annoying.

The guy who can't spent 2 minutes to set a DVR recording isn't going to buy a $2000 TV from Apple to do DVR recordings for him. The guy who is "intimidated" by buttons isn't going to buy a $2000 TV from Apple or anyone else.

Apple could improve TV human interfaces. But they can't do it enough to make it worthwhile because no one is going to pay a large premium for a small improvement. TVs just aren't fundamentally interactive.