Google On-shores Manufacturing of the Nexus Q

An anonymous reader sends this quote from the NY Times: "Etched into the base of Google's new wireless home media player that was introduced on Wednesday is its most intriguing feature. On the underside of the Nexus Q is a simple inscription: Designed and Manufactured in the U.S.A. The Google executives and engineers who decided to build the player here are engaged in an experiment in American manufacturing. 'We've been absent for so long, we decided, "Why don't we try it and see what happens?" ... It has become accepted wisdom that consumer electronics products can no longer be made in the United States. During the last decade, abundant low-cost Chinese labor and looser environmental regulations have virtually erased what was once a vibrant American industry. ... At $299, the device costs significantly more than competing systems from companies like Apple and Roku. Google says this is in part because of the higher costs of manufacturing in the United States, but the company expects to bring the price down as it increases volume. The company is hoping that consumers will be willing to pay more, though it is unlikely that the “Made in America” lineage will be part of any marketing campaign.'"

Comments

It *should* be part of the marketing

[therealkevinkretz]

"The company is hoping that consumers will be willing to pay more, though it is unlikely that the “Made in America” lineage will be part of any marketing campaign.'"

People excoriate execs and companies who move parts of their businesses offshore (often rightly, and also often without questioning the policies that contribute to it often being cheaper and easier to employ people thousands of miles away in other countries).

They (and especially the most indignant among them) should be happy to pay a little more to keep the work local; after all, they're demanding that others do it.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[SJHillman]

"Keeping jobs on American soil. There's a phone for that."

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[sudden.zero]

Amen Brother! I will definitely be taking a look at this one!

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[metalmaster]

I've met many people that say they'd be more than happy to pay premiums for things that are made in America, and I believe them. The problem being is that tech isnt really their thing; certainly not a media server. The people with this attitude are often those who know nothing about tech and dont care to learn.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[TheGratefulNet]

its not just americans that want things made-in-usa.

I'm quite aware of how bad manuf in china can be. CAN be. not always but most times, assembly is under too tight of a schedule and quality is not important; # of units is!

the US workers may not be under such slavish work conditions and chances are that they are treated better and make a living wage. sweatshops as not a US phenomenon anymore (well, if you excluse software houses, but that's a different tangent..)

the world would like to see china lose its foothold on 'all' manufacturing. collectively, we are tired of the bullshit that is china and their 'sell and run' mentality.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Kergan]

(Or $299 to get a player like the cheaper apple tv.)

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[halfEvilTech]

Except this is not the phone or tablet. This is their social media player.

The Nexus 7 tablet is not what is being discussed here and that is still at $199

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[beltsbear]

The Nexus Q is a media box for the TV, not a tablet so it is really competing with the $99 Apple TV not the $399 iPad.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[halfEvilTech]

The tablet is $199 for the 8GB model and $249 for the $16GB model.
https://play.google.com/store/devices/details?id=nexus_7_8gb

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Issarlk]

+1 Brillant!!

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[squiggleslash]

No because the Nexus Q is a media player (Roku/Apple TV/etc type), not a tablet.

The Q is that black round thing that, at first glance anyway, appears to be a Roku alternative. It's controlled by Android devices rather than a remote, and the idea is that the device is more democratic in its availability and controllability.

For example, at a party, just as someone who wanted to play a song back in the 1980s might take a single with them, and then put it on the record player's play stack thing (I don't know the technical term, but those you old enough to have experienced the wonder of vinyl records knows what I'm talking about), you can do something broadly equivalent with the Q, pairing with it and then selecting something from your Google Play Music collection to add to its playlist.

I must admit to not seeing that feature as worth the extra $200 over a regular media player, but I'm also the person that never thought in a million years that a 10" iPod Touch would sell at $600.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[h4rr4r]

I would like to, but I will not pay for the Q if I made it.

I was hopeful that it would be an android computer for the living room, like a googletv but with more power. Instead it seems to be just for streaming music and video, stuff my HTPC handles just fine. An android computer would have been something I could replace the HTPC with, instead the Q only does a subset of what I want.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Eponymous Coward]

I think he was suggesting that a 7" tablet made in the US would be $299 and was asking if people would be willing to pay that just because it's made in America.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[jedidiah]

Just like GoogleTV wasn't competing with the $99 Apple TV or the similarly priced Roku?

People generally have enough of a problem spending more to get more. Nevermind spending more to get the same but with a much less established brand.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Guspaz]

They (and especially the most indignant among them) should be happy to pay a little more to keep the work local; after all, they're demanding that others do it.

It costs three times more ($299) than the closest competitor (Apple TV, $99) that it seems to have a similar feature-set to. That's not "a little more", that's "nobody will buy it because it costs three times more".

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[therealkevinkretz]

I didn't say it was a good product, or a bad one, or that it was worth it. I said that its place of manufacture should be mentioned as it's relevant to many people - whether it's this particular product or any other, especially in an industry whose manufacturing largely occurs in other countries.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[SomePgmr]

Yeah, though it's hard to bug anyone about getting them mixed up. Nexus S, Nexus Q, Nexus 7... uhg. What would've been so wrong with: Nexus Phone, Nexus TV, Nexus Tablet? Then just call later generations, "second generation", etc.

Someone over at Google needs to hire away a marketing genius from Apple and give them the reigns on public facing decisions like that.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

I live and work in China and my students are always mystified as to why a rich westerner would own any products that were made in China. I can't blame them for that, the Chinese products I buy here in China are of significantly lower quality than the ones I buy in the US.

More than that, companies don't offshore work because they want better quality, offshoring generally means that it's harder to maintain quality as it's harder to monitor the quality by the CEO and staff.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[AngryDeuce]

They (and especially the most indignant among them) should be happy to pay a little more to keep the work local; after all, they're demanding that others do it.

Abso-fucking-lutely. Look at how many people out there gladly pay the Apple Tax for devices that are really not that different, on a fundamental level, from their competitors (and before I get screamed at over that, Apple obviously agrees, otherwise we wouldn't be watching this patent war bullshit unfold at every turn). If they're willing to spend extra because it's got a shiny case and "It Just Works! (TM)(R)(C)" then I see no reason why Made In America wouldn't be a selling point, especially these days.

The concept of it being "cheaper" to hire people in other countries is bullshit, anyway, because it depends on ignoring very real costs that are put off on those developing countries. If we paid the real cost of manufacturing in China, to include the future cost of environmental clean-up, not to mention the social ills that come along with those sweatshops, then I doubt it would really be that much cheaper to manufacture overseas. The costs go so far beyond the typical rants about hourly wages and regulations that don't allow factories to dump the byproducts of electronics manufacturing (noxious shit) into the environment like they do over there...

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

I think many people would be willing to pay $20-30 more to buy a device like the Q that was made in the US over a Chinese made one, but when it costs three times as much as the Apple TV, I suspect the average consumer will just end up buying the cheaper of the two.

I'm like that with Garlic (Chinese vs Japanese), and as much as I want to support the farmers of the country I am resident in, I'm not paying them 3-4 times the price for something that is not clearly any better.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[lordfoul]

Well Apple keeps Jobs in American Soil, That has to count for something.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, in the case of the Q and the 7, I think just think of the shape of the Q, kinda roundish with something sticking out of it, and the 7 being... 7 inches? Is it? Anyway, Q is easy to remember.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[cptgrudge]

Well some of the folks at Google I/O have been dutifully hacking away at these, which were in the goody bags.

I know it isn't a perfect solution, but maybe Google will see the potential. And in the meantime, if it turns out to be as hackable as the Nexus phones are, hooray for us.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Alien Being]

Apple soils American jobs.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Kergan]

Actually, I merely mixed up Google products. They all seemed to be called Nexus.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Webcommando]

"The company is hoping that consumers will be willing to pay more, though it is unlikely that the “Made in America” lineage will be part of any marketing campaign.'"

People excoriate execs and companies who move parts of their businesses offshore (often rightly, and also often without questioning the policies that contribute to it often being cheaper and easier to employ people thousands of miles away in other countries).

I use to work in manufacturing (wrote machine vision algorithms back then...fun stuff) and the cost can be very competitive with overseas. The key is design for manufacturing and automating as much as possible.

Labor isn't your highest expense when you have high-speed chip shooting lines and automated assembly processes. For a high volume builder such as Apple, the economies of scale work in it's favor too. Low volume manufacturing needs a board house to do the work otherwise capital equipment goes under utilized. That's not Apple or Google's problem.

I'm sure Apple and everyone's designs fit in the designed for manufacturability category so why not assemble in the states. Invest the capital on equipment and put some assemblers back to work!

I know having a lack of locally sourced parts (they are all over seas now, right?) will make it hard, but I would love to see leading brands bring manufacturing back to the states. For Apple, this would be a blessing in minimizing knock-offs and leaks anyway and a little less margin isn't going to put them out of business.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[homsar]

The Nexus Q doesn't have a screen either. And the Apple TV has 8GB of flash; neiher 8 nor 16GB is particularly useful for storage of video content. The devices are meant to sit on the network and get the content from there (either from your machines or an online service).

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Daniel_is_Legnd]

Well the Nexus Q is a play on the word "Queue" since multiple people can control the play queue with their android devices.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[forand]

The Nexus Q is what is being discussed. Not the Nexus 7 tablet. Neither the Apple TV nor the Nexus Q have a screen.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Bongo]

Yeah but they want our money.

Later when they've grown a middle class, they can demand more like we do.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[jasomill]

Sure, but even so, what if those who "excoriate execs and companies who move parts of their businesses offshore" are only a small minority? Also, so long as "components sourced abroad and assembled in a Saipan sweatshop" is "made in the USA," the mark isn't particularly informative (not that this is what Google is doing, but it does suggest some sort of additional marketing would actually be useful).

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[bickerdyke]

They (and especially the most indignant among them) should be happy to pay a little more to keep the work local; after all, they're demanding that others do it.

You know that for most of the people neither Taiwan nor the US actually counts as "local"?

Or in other words: This ist not much more than off-shoring. From China.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Guspaz]

To Americans, perhaps. To me, living in Canada, I'm not sure there is any marketing value in which foreign country it's manufactured in. The US is a big market, but not the only market.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[bickerdyke]

I think the technical term is "Thing that drops 10 records at once from medium heights on the needle"

I had a record player that had one of those as a child but never found out what was actually supposed to make sure that only one record will fall down.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[PopeRatzo]

They (and especially the most indignant among them) should be happy to pay a little more to keep the work local; after all, they're demanding that others do it.

I will definitely replace my Motorola Atrix 4G with this phone.

I have often said right here that I'm willing to pay up to 2x for a product made in the US, up to 3x for a product that's made in the US by union workers, and up to 4x for product that's made locally by union workers (meaning within 30 miles).

I have done exactly that with my dress shirts and suits, my guitars, my ukuleles, all sorts of services, and I will absolutely do it with my phone. I even own a Lyon & Healy upright grand piano, that was built about 7 blocks from where I'm sitting right now (except it was built more than 25 years before I was born). That factory still makes the most beautiful orchestral harps you have ever seen.

The only thing that I happily buy foreign is my harmonicas. Those are all Hohner (German), Seydel (German) or Suzuki(Japanese). However, when Bushman made chromatic harmonicas in the US, I bought two. When you don't have a choice, you don't have a choice. I would like a choice.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[blackfrancis75]

That's not "a little more", that's "nobody will buy it because it costs three times as much".

or, two times more.
FTFY.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Kjella]

In good times that's easy to say, but in tough times and faced with paying $50 more many people end up in the store thinking "I really could use that money, and my #1 priority is looking out for myself, my family and the local community. This $50 won't make or break the US economy, but it matters a lot to me. I'll get the American next time, when the economy's better..." even if that's not what they tell their friends.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[lolcutusofbong]

As a Canadian, you should care very much about buying American. Our countries have each other's biggest trade relationship by a significant margin, so buying American (or for me, buying Canadian) keeps money in the loop instead of it being squirreled away in China.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[MarkGriz]

It doesn't even appear to support Netflix.
$300 for a glorified jukebox? Looks like a failure right out of the gate.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[MMC Monster]

A jingle from the 80s: "Hey, hey, what do you say? This one's made in the USA...What do you say in the USA, make it with Junior Achievement."

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[itsdapead]

Abso-fucking-lutely. Look at how many people out there gladly pay the Apple Tax for devices that are really not that different,

Except in the case of the Nexus Q vs. the Apple TV (...or the WD TV Live) we seem to have a Google tax of 200%.

(TFA is talking about the 'Q' media streamer which is bizarrely more expensive than the new Google tablet).

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[hendridm]

so it is really competing with the $99 Apple TV not the $399 iPad.

Or a $49-$99 Roku.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[symbolset]

What a coincidence. All Microsoft mobile products appear to be called "Windows (x)" even though Windows has nothing to do with it.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[poetmatt]

For those experienced with android it tells you something:

Nexus = owned by google = apple equivalent experience = things will work right.

Buying non-nexus products = responsibilities on the shoulders of either the mfr or the carrier if it's a phone = shoddy experience = things are broken and will not be fixed.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[symbolset]

It runs Android just fine, and this will be worked out. The CoStar at $99 does too. No worries.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[hendridm]

Raise your hand if you want "social media" mixed with your TV watching experience. *crickets*

Facebook wall activity: "Charles is watching Gilmore Girls on CWTV."

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[symbolset]

It will support Netflix. Reed Hastings is the founder and CEO of Netflix, and he sits on Microsoft's board of directors. To give Netflix advance notice on Android device developments would be suicidal.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[symbolset]

People will pay more for good audio equipment.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[ArsonSmith]

I know, being a US citizen makes me stupid and uneducated, but I do seem to remember Canada being in America, or am I mistaken?

Ohh yea, I'm fat too.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[ryzvonusef]

excoriate

I learnt a new word today. Thank you!

I also agree with most of your point, but I wonder, just how much of a premium are those people you mention willing to pay? 10%? 20%?

P.S.
For those wondering what it means...
https://www.google.com/search?q=excoriate

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Bob the Super Hamste]

I am more than willing to pay for quality. I gave up on made in china boots after my last pair of steel toed ones only lasted 6 months before completely falling apart. They started falling apart about a month after purchase and were priced in the mid range for boots and looked to be well made, unfortunately they put all the effort into making them look well made instead of actually making them well. The current pair is from a relatively local (50 miles away) company that actually gives a shit about quality and has a reputation for making some of the best boots. Granted there were over twice as expensive but are actually well made. I really care about quality as it is cheaper in the long run even if the up front cost is higher as I have been burned a few too many times by the it is cheaper than its competitors. Hand tools are like this and while I don't buy the absolute best (Snap-On or Mac) as they seem to be only marginally better I have no problem buying Stanley, Craftsman, Irwin, etc as they are all quality products, won't be going under, and carry a lifetime warranty. I stay away from the store brand and bargain bin stuff as even though some of it is made in the US it is still all crap (MiT and Grip I am looking at you)

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[SomePgmr]

I agree on the very different levels in quality of experience (that goes triple for us AT&T customers), and I don't think there's anything wrong with the Nexus part.

I just think they should swap the cryptic letter or number on their devices for something descriptive. I mean, this is an android friendly, relatively device savvy geek site, and the first handful of posts all got the devices mixed up. It ain't gunna be much better than that for the rest of the world.

Let's just hope they don't call Project Glass the Nexus C, for "See". ;)

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[PIBM]

but but but .. it has an integrated 25W hifi amplifier!!!

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[AngryDeuce]

Hell, they'll pay more even if it's not any better than the competition...Monster Cable stands as testament to that fact.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[SuricouRaven]

But manufacturers don't pay those costs. That's the whole point. It's called 'externalising the costs.'

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[gothzilla]

So does this mean I now have to avoid buying tech products made on Mondays and Fridays?

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[ShanghaiBill]

Raise your hand if you want "social media" mixed with your TV watching experience. *crickets*

You are asking in the wrong forum. I have no interest in this, but I think my wife would like it, and I am sure my kids would love it.
Slashdot is not a good place to get a representative sample of the consuming public.
 

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[phantomfive]

This kind of thing was popular in the 80s, when Japan was a rising star and everyone was afraid they would overtake us.

Turns out it didn't make a whole lot of difference, people would rather pay less for a similar product, and a lot of times the foreign product was superior (think Toyota vs Ford in the 80s).

So they've probably realized such a marketing campaign wouldn't have a real effect on sales.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[P-niiice]

I am happy to pay more for an American-made product if it gives me the features I want.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[N!k0N]

IIRC (I was still a kid when records "died out"), the turntable had a pair of "fingers" in the spindle, which were set approx the thickness of a record apart. Dunno the specifics though (i.e. whether both were "open" while a record was playing (so one record by itself, with N above it), or if one was holding all N records, then the second one opened before the lower one closed to allow only one to fall).

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[kaatochacha]

Because we're not rich anymore.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[kaatochacha]

WTF are you talking about?
I'm American, and I check manufacturing location and factor that into decisions when purchasing.
My order of preference is:
1) US/Canada
2) Europe
3) Mexico
4) everyone else except
5) China.

See that? US/Canada. Sheesh!

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Anonymous Coward]

The only winning move is not to Google Play.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[davester666]

and by a 'little' more, they mean 2-3 TIMES more (most other similar devices are in the $75-$150 range, vs $299 for this device).

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[demonbug]

Hell, they'll pay more even if it's not any better than the competition...Monster Cable stands as testament to that fact.

Speaking of Monster Cable... check out how much they want for 6' of speaker cables.

And how about the crappy, low-sensitivity, poor frequency-response speakers they are pairing with it (of course, with only 12.5 watts per channel to work with it's pretty tough to find a decent pair of bookshelf speakers that will work well)?

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

"Keeping jobs on American soil. There's a phone for that."

It's not about that. They needed not only a hardware reference model for third party manufacturers, but, having trouble with takers, like Microsoft, forced one into existance at the consumer level to show it was viable. As the goal is to convince Samsung and friends to make them, making them in the more-expensive US is simply a non-threatening gesture. Should a third party pick up the ball, easy to take market control via price advantage.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[mrchaotica]

It's too bad: I'd seriously consider paying $299 for a Nexus 7 made in the USA (especially if it were the 16GB version at only a $50 premium).

Unfortunately, I don't see the point of the Nexus Q and am not planning to buy it regardless of price or country of origin. I just hope that Google doesn't blame being made in the USA for its eventual failure in the market.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Alex Zepeda]

Interesting argument. Mac, Stanley, Craftsman, and Irwin are all predominantly made in China, however. Snap-On is getting there.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[s73v3r]

often rightly, and also often without questioning the policies that contribute to it often being cheaper and easier to employ people thousands of miles away in other countries/quote

By "cheaper" and "easier", you mean not having to treat employees like people, and not having to care about the environment?

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Guspaz]

OK, if you'd like to define everybody who lives in the Americas as being American, what is your preferred term to refer to people living in the United States of America?

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[mrchaotica]

If the $299 was for the Nexus 7 16GB version (so only a $50 premium), I'd probably pay it.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Guspaz]

He was referring to "your position" meaning "your country's position" referring to the US government's tendency to prefer buying domestic, and not including Canada in the definition of "domestic". Which is technically accurate, even if the US and Canada are in many ways a common market.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[spire3661]

And what a wonderful excuse it is. I use it everyday for airplay.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[amRadioHed]

You're mistaken. Canadians are North American's, but they are as of yet not a state in the US.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[s73v3r]

I will definitely replace my Motorola Atrix 4G with this phone

With what phone? The Nexus phones are still made overseas. The streaming media player is what's made here.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[ColdWetDog]

Nexus-6, yeah. Confusing.

Was the Nexus-6 made in the USA?

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Eponymous Coward]

I would too. I think that is actually more than what the price difference would be.

Apple once said that if they made the iPhone in the US, it would $40 more per handset. The problem with building stuff in the US isn't the cost of labor, it's manufacturing flexibility and supply chain issues.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[The Great Pretender]

I know a fair bit about tech and this does add a plus for me to purchase this phone. It's a marketing ploy that I can support.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[AmiMoJo]

Wrong sort of "social". The idea is that everyone in the house can use the TV and hifi system, unlike phones and tablets which are generally single user. TVs and PVS are usually shared, although I'm not sure the arguments over which show to delete to make room for the new series of Desperate House Wives could be described as "social".

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[bill_mcgonigle]

I just hope that Google doesn't blame being made in the USA for its eventual failure in the market.

Yeah, that's exactly what seems likely. :(

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[AmiMoJo]

I think we can assume it will do more than the Apple TV though, hence the higher price. The Nexus 7 is cheap so I doubt they would randomly make the Q expensive for no reason.

In short we don't know enough about it yet to really judge the price.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[AmiMoJo]

For example, at a party, just as someone who wanted to play a song back in the 1980s might take a single with them, and then put it on the record player's play stack

Public performance. You owe the RIAA $27,000 in lost revenue.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[bickerdyke]

Then most likely one of those fingers were broken in the one I had...

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[PeanutButterBreath]

The people with this attitude are often those who know nothing about tech and dont care to learn.

Disagree somewhat. I know plenty about technology and because of that I don't care to spend my money on tech gadgets. Nonetheless, overall, most of the "made in America" enthusiast I know are more into spending money on food, booze, clothing and housewares. They buy tech, but usually less often (and, FWIW, almost always from Apple).

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

That's not a Google tax (since it isn't shared across all Google equipment), it's a "Paying American Wages instead of Chinese Wages" tax. Cost of living in the US is higher.

Please pardon my ignorance, but is this really true, or is it that Google felt their product should be priced higher for whatever feature set it has? I haven't seen a before and after comparison and I have trouble believing Google would tout it being American made with that much more cost associated with it.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[geekoid]

Which is important when you travel with it. Or digital is the only way you are getting music.
Also, how well do the other device integrate with android phones?

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[shutdown -p now]

Personally, I would care a lot about it being made in a country which has 8-hour work day (which is actually enforced), minimum wage laws, and independent unions. In other words, some of the crucial things that make a civilized society in this day and age, and those things that I want to see preserved - and which are being eroded by outsourcing manufacturing to countries which don't respect any of that. Whether the precise country of manufacture is USA or Canada or Germany or Brazil is not a big deal.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[geekoid]

You aren't paying for the wire, you are paying for the design, and the fact that it matches, and quality*.

*presumable, I have actually seen them, so I have no idea how well they have been manufactured.

And the speakers are fine for that size.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[ceoyoyo]

Actually, since that fact is the biggest reason people here use for not telling your government to go to hell when it gets pushy, I much prefer things that are NOT made in the USA. The more diverse our trading partners the less power you guys have to make us enact unconstitutional copyright laws, sell you our resources, and criminalize marijuana.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[AvitarX]

Yeah, basically they said is was the shitty working conditions, not the shitty pay (waking people up from their sleep, giving them coffee, and throwing them on 12 hour shifts).

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Raenex]

Nexus = owned by google = apple equivalent experience = things will work right.

Any time I see a product owned by Google, I assume it's spying on me for advertising purposes and have no interest in buying it.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Mike Buddha]

Perhaps I should give these Nexus devices a shot? I'd given up on Android after trying a Motorola Droid, Droid X, and Xperia Play after seeing the same bugs not getting fixed update after update. It felt like Linux on the desktop, with new gee-whiz features being added, but nobody fixing the niggling annoyances that I dealt with every day.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Bob the Super Hamste]

They didn't use to be which is when I did most of my tool buying. Although I do see lots of other tools now made in China there are still some made in the US, like Stanley (last I heard), Hobart, Miller, Lincoln, but they are getting rarer. I think I was most disappointed when I saw that Milwaukee tools and Schrade knives were now being made in China but I guess made in the USA isn't a selling point like it use to be. I remember when Craftsman ran commercials proudly stating that their stuff was made in the USA. Of course other than my recent welder purchase I haven't bought many other tools in the past 15 years but I did recently get a dolly and hammer set for doing auto body work and those were made in Germany and those weren't cheap and were fairly difficult to find (just finding a dolly set was a pain let alone a good one that wasn't cast iron).

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[hendridm]

I can see kids liking it because they like stupid things, but I can't imagine many adults wanting their television viewing experience to be as awful as Facebook. Perhaps I'm just not with the times, and that's fine with me.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Solandri]

Nexus S, Nexus Q, Nexus 7... uhg. What would've been so wrong with: Nexus Phone, Nexus TV, Nexus Tablet? Then just call later generations, "second generation", etc.

There's a balance which needs to be struck between easy to remember, and informative. The problem with "second generation" is that it tends to be dropped in marketing materials. A little over a year ago my cousin almost bought a Macbook which was on sale at a great price (for a Macbook) at his school's store. But he pretty well-versed in "if it sounds too good to be true..." so he gave me a call. After a lot of discussion over the phone having him look for something, anything which could distinguish it from other Macbooks, I finally figured out that it was an ancient Core 2 Duo Macbook some 3 years out of date. Definitely not worth even the "fantastic" sale price.

Personally I think failing to note the exact model and selling an old product using only the same name as the current model amounts to advertising fraud. But if you over-simplify product naming to something like "Nexus Phone, Nexus TV, Nexus Tablet," that sort of thing is going to happen all the time.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Fjandr]

Contrary to TFS, somehow I doubt the manufacturing location will be absent in Google's marketing campaign. You don't choose to manufacture a device in a higher-cost location, lose out on competitive price-points, and then completely fail to capitalize on the one major marketing advantage that is present as a result of that decision.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[R3d M3rcury]

Well, let's see...

$199 for Nexus 7 (8GB) + $299 for Nexus Q = $498.
$399 for iPad 2 (16GB) + $99 for AppleTV = $498.

So you get more storage in an iPad 2 but the display isn't as good as the Nexus (1024 x 768 @ 132 ppi vs. 1280 x 800 @ 216 ppi), the CPU isn't as good (dual-core A5 vs Quad core Tegra). Arguably, also, since you're in your living room, you have convenient cloud access so the storage isn't that important.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Patch86]

I'm European, so what does it matter to me? We trade plenty with the US, yes, but we also trade plenty with the Asian manufacturing economies. Should it really bother me if the money I hand over for my products goes abroad to America or to Asia?

I'm far more likely to care about the amount of money leaving my pocket and my country being 3-4 times more for one product than another.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[icebraining]

Yes! The Chinese workers don't have rights, so lets shit more on them by putting them out of work!

The idiocy never ceases to amaze me.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[icebraining]

I live in an European country. Fifty years ago, we didn't have those rights either. Do you know how we got them? By having jobs, which improved our life conditions, which enabled people to fight for those rights instead f worrying that their child might not have enough to eat if they strike for a day.

By refusing to buy from those countries, you're helping them stay in poverty and without rights. Well done.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[icebraining]

not to mention the social ills that come along with those sweatshops

The alternative is what they had before: unemployment, poverty and famine. Of course, that doesn't create social ills, no siree.

Maybe you should ask yourself why are those people applying for the sweatshops. It's not like the farms where they worked before disappeared.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[shutdown -p now]

What European country do you live in?

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Aighearach]

I can see kids liking it because they like stupid things, but I can't imagine many adults wanting their television viewing experience to be as awful as Facebook. Perhaps I'm just not with the times, and that's fine with me.

Presumably to people who like it it would sound like wanting their television viewing experience to be wonderful as Facebook.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Areyoukiddingme]

Depends on what part of the automation you're talking about. A wave soldering machine works on any design. A pick and place machine can be reprogrammed to pick and place different parts. Actually packing boards and batteries and various other bits into a case, that gets tricky. Robots for that may have to be purpose-built, in which case the new design is a problem. Foxconn skips that problem by doing the assembly part sweat-shop style. The new design can be taught to your assembly line in an afternoon. Rebuilding a robot could take weeks or months. And now you know why Foxconn does so well.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Aighearach]

Frequently there is lever or hinged arm that has to be correctly positioned for the feature to work properly. In normal use it is retracted for easier operation.

There is also a spring-loaded release mechanism and if you force the bottom record partway onto the lever, or if two records are stuck together by a foreign object, it messes of the timing and the action and the whole stack will fall. Typically this happens after the needle arm is moved out of the way, but vibration could cause it to work down and slip off too.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[icebraining]

Portugal. Until 1974 we were under a fascist dictatorship, where striking was illegal, unions were state controlled and there were certainly no 8-hour work days for most people.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[4phun]

For those experienced with android it tells you something:

Nexus = owned by google = apple equivalent experience = things will work right.

Buying non-nexus products = responsibilities on the shoulders of either the mfr or the carrier if it's a phone = shoddy experience = things are broken and will not be fixed.

But things went horribly wrong for Google a few hours ago.
The new Google Android flagship Nexus that was just released Monday has been banned in the USA by an emergency court injunction obtained by Apple.

http://gigaom.com/apple/apple-gets-another-injunction-this-time-on-samsungs-galaxy-nexus/

To make matters worse for Google and Motorola six key senators just visited the FTC and warned them they were watching how the FTC dealt with accusations of FRAND abuse (read Google/Motorola vs Apple). Don't you just love an election year?

http://www.theverge.com/2012/6/7/3071117/ftc-standards-related-patents-can-cause-substantial-harm-when-used-to

Be careful.
Can anyone really loose their voice by excessive screaming in anger and pain?

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[shutdown -p now]

According to a quick Google search, in Portugal, 8-hour work day was put into legislation as early as 1919 after a massive national union strike. I can certainly believe that the law was ditched under Estado Novo (though not necessarily so - not all fascists were opposed to worker protection laws; indeed, neither the classic Italian fascists nor Nazis weren't - even as they banned independent unions and such). But even if so, that was done for political reasons, not because of life conditions, and so the reversal of that also had nothing to do with life conditions.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[interkin3tic]

If you can't hear crickets over the sound of you raising your hand, you should really see an orthopedic surgeon or something.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[lennier]

Was the Nexus-6 made in the USA?

Designed by Tyrell Industries in Los Angeles. Made in the offworld colonies. By underage replicant slave labour. Who all died horribly. Which is a design feature. How do you like our owl?

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[DMUTPeregrine]

$50 for 6 feet? It's not so bad as to be sickening.
http://shunyata.com/Images/Reviews/RobertHarley_012012.pdf
Read that review. Note that the prices are considered quite reasonable, since they are under $10,000 per meter. ($2250 per meter for the top end, $995 per meter for the low end cable.)

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[gl4ss]

the integrated "hifi" amp makes no sense at all - I doubt if it's really 25w/channel even. you still need speakers to connect it to. I guess it's so that it can function as airplay replacement.

the thing is, there's plenty of android boxes available at 100 bucks. but they don't come with the sw this one comes with.

what's really crazy about q's pricing is that nexus 7 is just 200 bucks.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[icebraining]

My whole point is that improved life conditions enabled political struggle by the regular people (and not only the activists who dedicated theirs lives to it).

And I don't care what the legislation was. From your earlier post:

which is actually enforced

I know plenty of people who worked in the big factories, including my grandmother (who has serious lung issues because they worked without protection in a place filled with cork dust) and they didn't work anything near eight hours.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[tommituura]

This kind of thing is more complicated than that. At the end of the day, businesses only care about the bottom line. While it's true that hitting companies will also hurt their workforce in reduced work to be done (and be even somewhat paid for), sometimes it's the only way to drive the point home to those companies that the customers simply do not want to have this work done under slave-like conditions.

But then again, customers have to care enough to fork over the cash, in the form of so-called "inflated" prices. I'm not holding my breath to see that happen, sadly.

At the end of the day, the only language the manufacturing companies (actually, any companies) really understand and obey is written with numbers on their financial statements. Driving petitions, customer demonstrations, shouting on top of soapboxes and whatnot is all fine and dandy in the feel-good way but unless it also shows up as numbers on company finances, it tends to amount to... absolutely nothing.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[icebraining]

I know that, and I don't advocate for petitions and other useless bullshit.

My point is that the reaction to those changes in their bottom line won't be "well, then let's give the Chinese workers a decent pay, working conditions, etc" but "well, if we have to pay for a decent salary, then China is no longer interesting" and will leave them worse off, for no good reason except self-righteousness.

Salaries in China have been rising steadily over the years. If we actually want to help them - as opposed to feel good about ourselves while they starve - then we should stop this nonsense.

This article from '97 explains it well:

Why does the image of an Indonesian sewing sneakers for 60 cents an hour evoke so much more feeling than the image of another Indonesian earning the equivalent of 30 cents an hour trying to feed his family on a tiny plot of land--or of a Filipino scavenging on a garbage heap?
              The main answer, I think, is a sort of fastidiousness. Unlike the starving subsistence farmer, the women and children in the sneaker factory are working at slave wages for our benefit--and this makes us feel unclean. And so there are self-righteous demands for international labor standards: We should not, the opponents of globalization insist, be willing to buy those sneakers and shirts unless the people who make them receive decent wages and work under decent conditions.
              This sounds only fair--but is it? Let's think through the consequences.

        First of all, even if we could assure the workers in Third World export industries of higher wages and better working conditions, this would do nothing for the peasants, day laborers, scavengers, and so on who make up the bulk of these countries' populations. At best, forcing developing countries to adhere to our labor standards would create a privileged labor aristocracy, leaving the poor majority no better off.
              And it might not even do that. The advantages of established First World industries are still formidable. The only reason developing countries have been able to compete with those industries is their ability to offer employers cheap labor. Deny them that ability, and you might well deny them the prospect of continuing industrial growth, even reverse the growth that has been achieved. And since export-oriented growth, for all its injustice, has been a huge boon for the workers in those nations, anything that curtails that growth is very much against their interests. A policy of good jobs in principle, but no jobs in practice, might assuage our consciences, but it is no favor to its alleged beneficiaries.

http://web.mit.edu/krugman/www/smokey.html

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Branciforte]

It was designed from the start, by Google, to be hackable.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Alex Zepeda]

Stanley owns Mac and Irwin. Most Craftsman hand tools are made by Danaher (now APEX). Both Stanley and Danaher make most of their hand tools in either China or Taiwan.

Craftsman tools in Canada have long been made in SE Asia, so it's only a pretty recent development that you can walk into a Sears store in the USA and see wall after wall of imported Craftsman branded tools. Stanley has been making tools overseas for decades under their own brand. In any case, it's becoming increasingly difficult and expensive to find tools that aren't made in SE Asia. Oh well.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[cthulhu11]

Both my Boxee Box and my TV have native Facebook clients. We've never used them. If I read correctly, the Nexus Q won't mount local media over the net. So here's a thing that costs >50% more than my Boxee Box and can't even do what I need? I'd be delighted to buy someone built domestically, but it has to be a useful product first.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[cthulhu11]

It's called a "changer".

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[poetmatt]

You can replace google with every company that exists on the planet there - and you'd still be accurate. What's your point? Microsoft, apple, nokia, samsung, credit cards, paypal, ebay, etc.

You're already compromising your "spying" by buying anything in the first place.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[poetmatt]

Are you joking? This injunction isn't even enforceable, and if anything is going to make apple get more than warnings for anticompetitive behavior. DOJ's already investigating.

FRAND abuse means really nothing, the investigation was sparked by *microsoft* and a few senators were dumb enough to believe them.

Be careful? please. Guarantee even 6 months from now the Nexus will never stop being sold in the US.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[eriqk]

Was the Nexus-6 made in the USA?

Yes, by Tyrell iirc.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[Raenex]

That's true, except that Google's primary business is selling advertising information, and I already give them my search queries and I prefer to minimize what else I give them.

Re:It *should* be part of the marketing

[poetmatt]

except google maintained - so updates will come from google and won't wait on the carrier = stays up to date.

"Experiment"

[Huntr]

Not sure how that "experiment"in American manufacturing is going to work out, considering one of the major complaints is that it is over-priced compared to similar items - roku, apple tv, xbox/ps3. I know the amp adds cost, but manufacturing overseas can be done cheaply. That's why companies do it.

Re:"Experiment"

[h4rr4r]

The real issue with this thing is it is too limited. Why does it not also act as a googletv?

Then it could run onlive, netflix, google play, etc. You could also side load your own apps. Instead this is a streaming media player for way too much money.

Why does it need a good amp? I have a receiver, that is where the good amp lives.

Re:"Experiment"

[jedidiah]

That's just one side of it.

It's fine for something to be more expensive. It just has to be able to wipe the floor with the alternatives. That or it has to have a cult of personality associated with it.

If you don't have either then you're kind of doomed and all you are going to do is give on-shoring a bad name. People will intentionally confuse the issue of why the thing failed.

Re:"Experiment"

[eakerin]

I'm one of the people out at I/O that was given one, but I've only taken it out of the box to look at it so far (too many sessions, not enough time).

To go along with the expensive design part. The device has a lot of mass. It was designed to sit on a table, and be interacted with locally. The top half of the Q spins (I believe as a volume control, but I have not had a chance to set it up yet) If you look at the breakdown diagrams they briefly show in the introduction video - there's also a complex set of components inside of the device. So that increases the assembly cost as well.

It's not meant to be a simple video player, nor just a slave to the TV. Hooking it up to a TV is technically optional.

I'm glad it is being produced in the US - we need more companies demanding device manufacture and assembly in the US - it will only help drive down the US assembly costs due to volume. We used to (10 years ago) do a LOT of assembly in the US for all sorts of devices, but the economic downturns drove a lot of assembly over seas (increasing some costs, decreasing others).

Re:"Experiment"

[ebuck]

The real issue with this thing is it is too limited. Why does it not also act as a googletv?

Then it could run onlive, netflix, google play, etc. You could also side load your own apps. Instead this is a streaming media player for way too much money.

Why does it need a good amp? I have a receiver, that is where the good amp lives.

You know, GoogleTV has had a few bumps in the road. Basically, if it is to have much value to Google in the future, Google needs to get more companies committed, as Google isn't in the business of boutique products (like Roku is). Perhaps by releasing this device, they intend to bolster confidence that GoogleTV isn't a niche to be avoided due to market penetration.

This could be Nexus One of the GoogleTV crowd. Not really poised to dominate the market, but poised to show there is a market, and poised to provide a good dev platform to attract the developers that will keep that market happy.

Re:"Experiment"

[iluvcapra]

Not sure how that "experiment"in American manufacturing is going to work out, considering one of the major complaints is that it is over-priced compared to similar items - roku, apple tv, xbox/ps3.

Being overpriced is just the most noticeable difference; since it's American-sourced, it'll also be the first Internet STB that leaks oil and burns out its clutch after 15000 miles.

Re:"Experiment"

[Huntr]

Well, yeah, that's my point. Look at what it doesn't do compared to the roku, et al., at a much higher price. And for what, an amp and a "Made in the USA" stamp? I just don't see how this is gonna work out positively for google, as it sits.

Re:"Experiment"

[gl4ss]

I thought it does act as googletv? it has hdmi out anyhow?

"Q the music... and movies, TV shows and videos"

 

The only problem is...

[fufufang]

Quite a lot of the components inside the device are probably imported.

Re:The only problem is...

[Anonymous Coward]

Have to start somewhere ...

Re:The only problem is...

[TheGratefulNet]

devices are made entirely by robot. chips, transistors, etc.

but *assembly* of a phone or tablet or pc is still by hand.

so it DOES MATTER that G is making this in the US. as much as I dislike G these days, I'll give them a solid attaboy! for this one!

good job, G. unexpected but good job nonetheless.

Re:The only problem is...

[Teresita]

They don't have robots that can fix robots yet. You gotta call me, supertech.

Re:The only problem is...

[symbolset]

Actually yes, they do have robots that can fix robots. And repurpose existing robots with modular designs, snapping in new tools at need.

Re:The only problem is...

[tobiasly]

Quite a lot of the components inside the device are probably imported.

TFA is blocked for me at work but pretty sure it's the same one I read yesterday; they actually go into detail about the lengths Google went to to try to find all the components they needed onshore. As you suspect, it wasn't always possible, but whenever it was that's what they used.

Re:The only problem is...

[tobiasly]

I'll give them a solid attaboy! for this one! good job, G. unexpected but good job nonetheless.

I think they'd prefer you bought one :) Yeah they're getting plenty of attaboys but if the thing bombs the experiment will likely fail too.

I'm kinda surprised they aren't playing this up more though. They could have made a nice video about all the American jobs that went into making this thing, and gotten lots of PR from it.

Hell, that would probably have a decent halo effect for Google/Android as a whole. Sure, some weird $300 glowing orb-like media thingy isn't exactly on most consumers' wish list but when they're in the Verizon store looking at an iPhone and a Galaxy S III they may think "oh yeah, Google is that company that makes things in the USA and Apple makes them in China."

Industry clusters are also important.

[Kergan]

"low cost Chinese labor and looser environmental regulations"

Those aren't the only factors. The fact of the matter is that pretty much everything is clustered in SE Asia nowadays, and that the labor market is a lot more dynamic. Need slightly shorter screws? Call the factory down the street, they'll start arriving within the next hour. Changed the specs for your unibody case? The factory downtown will deliver new ones the same day. Need a new assembly plant? Build it and staff it by next week. Everything is done locally, reducing ETA and shipping costs in the process. These things also count tremendously.

Re:Industry clusters are also important.

[It's the tripnaut!]

"low cost Chinese labor and looser environmental regulations"

Those aren't the only factors. The fact of the matter is that pretty much everything is clustered in SE Asia nowadays, and that the labor market is a lot more dynamic.

China is not in SE Asia.

Re:Industry clusters are also important.

[geekoid]

All of which can be done in the US.
Do you think their aren't manufacturing hubs like the in the US?

Re:Industry clusters are also important.

[Kergan]

Do you think their aren't manufacturing hubs like the in the US?

Sure there are. But for producing consumer electronics en mass, wouldn't you agree that the action is at the other end of the Pacific?

Re:Industry clusters are also important.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, you could proceed the Brazillian way, and toss in a 100% tax on any consumer electronics not assembled locally. (Foxconn is setting up an iPhone plant over there, so Apple can work around the tax.)

Re:Industry clusters are also important.

[AngryDeuce]

Yeah, really. I don't know about you guys, but I kinda like the fact that my employer can't force me to live in a fucking on-site dormitory so he can come and press me to work an additional 12 hour shift on top of my already 70 hour work week so that we can fill a rush order of another few thousand units.

It's hysterical how many people bitch and complain with a straight-face about our regulations, especially our labor regulations, knowing full fucking well that if their own employer did the same thing to them they would go thermonuclear in a second. I've seen people go into a passive-aggressive rage over the fact that the person who drank the last of the coffee didn't make another pot and now they have to spend that precious 3 minutes doing so themselves before they can get their cup, usually on their 3rd 10-minute coffee break of the morning.

If the person bitching about those regulations isn't willing to work as a Chinese slave-laborer themselves, they need to shut the fuck up. It's like they don't even realize what a fucking hypocrite they are...either that, or they don't care.

Re:Industry clusters are also important.

[Charliemopps]

Not anymore there aren't.
My father runs a small custom electronics manufacturing plant. They basically build one-off type parts for companies. For example, building a gas station chain? Need a coin-op for your car washes? Well, you only need 100 of them... it's hard to get an order like that done out of asia. So that's where his company fits in. One of their biggest problems is sourcing parts. EVERYTHING is in asia, and everything is geared to that market now. It wasn't that way 20 years ago but it certainly is now. Often it's cheaper for them to buy pre-assembled boards designed for something out and remove the components they need to put on the new product. One time they found a lamp at the home depot that had a part they needed in it, that met spec. The lamp was cheaper than ordering the part from anywhere so they bought 5 pallets of the lamp from home depot and set about tearing them down. Silly, but it got the job done.

Re:Industry clusters are also important.

[Grudge2012]

Yeah, really. I don't know about you guys, but I kinda like the fact that my employer can't force me to live in a fucking on-site dormitory

So which manufacturer might that be? It isn't Foxconn, that's for sure. http://www.marketplace.org/topics/world/apple-economy/reporters-notebook-both-sides-gates-foxconn/ - "240,000 people work here. Nearly 50,000 of them live on campus in shared dorm rooms."

Maybe you are talking about the US Military?

hmmm

[slashmydots]

"But where do all the parts come from?"....anyway, it's expensive as hell to make something here but there's some business value and even cost saving in the fact that they can get any manufactured phone to any place in America in 1 day with Fedex. Even the fastest but still economical shipping methods from Asia are 2-3 weeks lead time at least because it's all ship-based. Get your stuff held up at the port? Time to order another couple thousands then because you've got waiting customers. The other option is to just over-order and pay lots of money to ship and guard your expensive inventory state-side and then have to put them on clearance when the sales figures don't match up with their overblown estimate. Do you know how much Nintendo lost on Wii shortages? Do you know how much HP lost on excess tablets? So there's some value in making things in the US from a cost saving perspective.

Re:hmmm

[geekoid]

" it's expensive as hell to make something here "
moderately more expensive, not 'expensive as hell'

Re:hmmm

[thesandbender]

The logistics don't work quite like this. First, for companies like HP, Apple and Nintendo, they work with their logistics provider to setup a Customs pipeline months before the product actually ships. U.S. Customs has a process for this and FedEx and UPS have departments dedicated to just setting it up. The end result is a rubber stamp process that clears the product through in hours, not days or weeks. Also, ships aren't practical for shipping small electronics. A 747 or 777 can carry a metric crap load of iPhones and the shipping costs distributed over all those phones is a fractional part of the overall cost. You need to get up to something where the packaging is the size of a TV for ships to become the better option.

Finally, as many have pointed out.. this is just assembly of parts made else were. For the just in time assembly to work as you described, your still going to have to have a large volume the parts on hand to avoid shortages, which means if the product doesn't sell you going to be setting on an overstock of parts instead of final products. Many of those parts (screens, batteries, logic boards) are customized for your product and have no practical resale value.

There are a lot of people who have put a lot of thought into trimming the cost (and risk is a cost) of this entire process and off-shoring remains the cheapest and most practical option. Changes in the world economy will eventually shift this around (just as it dictated the US the world's produce in decades past).

Re:hmmm

[jasomill]

Not at all. From personal experience, it typically takes a non-backordered Apple product 2–3 business days from the origin in China to clear customs in Anchorage, then another day or so before it's ready to ship out of a FedEx Hub in, say, Indianapolis*. So you're realistically only adding about five days to the lead time, and surprisingly little cost (LOTS of iPhones to a pallet — Apple packaging isn't efficient for environmental reasons).

* As a bit of a special case, I live in Indianapolis, so I've actually had Apple products ordered on a Monday ship FedEx from China and deliver by Friday, with standard shipping (officially "5–7 day" shipping).

Re:hmmm

[fermion]

I believe that Apple gets product from Asia to all markets in a day or two. The import thing may of a bigger concern. With manufacturers winning cases preventing import of infringing technology, it might be beneficial to manufacture the final product in the market where it is to be sold. As far as piecewise manufacturing, that is not going to happen in the US. While it is possible in other countries to put workers in dorms and work them as needed, in the US most manufacturing jobs are steady. Thirty years ago I knew of small factories where workers would line up outside and supervisors would get workers as needed, but I no of no one that does this now.

What is happening is the supply chain is becoming sophisticated enough, with parts delivered on demand from around the world, that assembly of non-us parts can happen in the US without requiring huge inventories of those parts. The unemployment rate is also high enough that workers can be had for a reasonable wage. Top this with automation that allows workers to make mistakes without effecting the final product and one can manufacture with a less than skilled or diligent worker base. As such we know see auto manufacturing in areas where education is minimal and worker costs are negligible.

But all this comes at a price, as can be seen by the Fiat in the US. This car is selling, but has rated the lowest quality at delivery. It is manufactured in Mexico. This initial quality is not an issue with a sufficient warranty, but the fact still exists.

Re:hmmm

[Alioth]

Is it really as expensive as hell?

Two examples: at work we need weigh scales for all our offices. We aren't in the US (over the other side of the Atlantic) but an American product (WeighTronix scales) turned out to be the best value and very high quality. Years later they are still all working very reliably.

Personal purchase: Castle ESC for my radio controlled models. Made in the USA by a relatively small company, they are less expensive than many other ESCs, and comparable price to stuff made in the far East. While Castle have had one or two design issues with some of their newer HV ESCs they were on the RC forums explaining their process in rectifying the problem and did a recall at their expense. I'm very satisfied with their products (which also work better than some similar priced far east manufactured equivalents)

Incidentally, I also have RC electronics from Germany which are price comparable with competitors made in the far East, despite EU rules that mean we shoot ourselves in the foot in terms of subjecting European electronics manufacturers to import duties on components which foreign manufacturers shipping finished products don't have to pay.

Re:hmmm

[phantomfive]

"But where do all the parts come from?"..

All over the world, Philippines, Taiwan, Germany. Mostly Southeast Asia. Foxconn is mainly an assembly facility.

Re:hmmm

[slashmydots]

Well I don't know where that work is but at my work, we need worker's comp insurance, SS payments, medicare payments, payroll processing fees, health insurance, OSHA compliance costs, ADA compliance costs, really high rent or real estate prices, really high property taxes, equipment lease use taxes, and really high utility costs. I'm not saying they're bad or I'm against those things, I'm just saying that's why I'm the only one who actually works here. Hiring someone would cost more than I pay myself so oh well.

Re:hmmm

[thopkins]

A lot of high end electronics like smart phones are air freighted, not shipped on the ocean. I used to work in international transportation.

Re:hmmm

[gl4ss]

..getting any manufactured phone to any place in america is not that big of a deal when you're still reliant on getting the shipments from asia to make the thing and the parts you do get from asia are only good for making that one thing you make(it's not like you can stockpile on circuit boards, display units etc, unless you like throwing out stock).

I don't think hp would have been that much better off just throwing away parts for the tablets.

Re:hmmm

[Aighearach]

Well I don't know where that work is but at my work, we need worker's comp insurance, SS payments, medicare payments, payroll processing fees, health insurance, OSHA compliance costs, ADA compliance costs, really high rent or real estate prices, really high property taxes, equipment lease use taxes, and really high utility costs. I'm not saying they're bad or I'm against those things, I'm just saying that's why I'm the only one who actually works here. Hiring someone would cost more than I pay myself so oh well.

Those are a pile of silly excuses to hate America, not things that are actually expensive.

  I dunno about where you are, probably some oversized city on the East Coast, but out here where I am we have some of the lowest utility costs in the world. And I mean payroll processing fees?! Surely a small company is saving money not hiring their own bookeeper. Except if it is just you and then you shouldn't need a bookeeper to pay yourself. You shouldn't even need to pay yourself, you already have your money.

Re:LOL. American made overpriced crap.

[axlr8or]

Ah, finally an Apple user I like! One that makes Apple look bad.

Disappointing. Done right it should cost less

[Anonymous Coward]

I keep waiting for them to replace Chinese workers with American robots. If they did that it could actually cost less. You pay less shipping. Maybe we just don't have a robot that's good enough and cheap enough; but we will. A lot of the outsourced labor is things like cleaning, assembling, etc. Come on Google. If you can program 'bots to drive cars, surely you can program them to polish screens.

No paywall links

[wcrowe]

There should be a rule on Slashdot that no paywall links are allowed to be posted. How can we comment on an article that we cannot see?

Re:No paywall links

[Kergan]

There should be a rule on Slashdot that no paywall links are allowed to be posted. How can we comment on an article that we cannot see?

Copy the URL, google it, and bypass the paywall by clicking the result from there:

http://www.google.com/search?q=http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/28/technology/google-and-others-give-manufacturing-in-the-us-a-try.html

Re:No paywall links

[Anonymous Coward]

SAN JOSE, Calif. â" Etched into the base of Googleâ(TM)s new wireless home media player that was introduced on Wednesday is its most intriguing feature. On the underside of the Nexus Q is a simple inscription: âoeDesigned and Manufactured in the U.S.A.â

The Google executives and engineers who decided to build the player here are engaged in an experiment in American manufacturing. âoeWeâ(TM)ve been absent for so long, we decided, âWhy donâ(TM)t we try it and see what happens?â(TM) â said Andy Rubin, the Google executive who leads the companyâ(TM)s Android mobile business.

Google is not saying a lot about its domestic manufacturing, declining even to disclose publicly where the factory is in Silicon Valley. It also is not saying much about the source of many of its parts in the United States. And Mr. Rubin said the company was not engaged in a crusade.

Still, the project will be closely watched by other electronics companies. It has become accepted wisdom that consumer electronics products can no longer be made in the United States. During the last decade, abundant low-cost Chinese labor and looser environmental regulations have virtually erased what was once a vibrant American industry.

Since the 1990s, one American company after another, including Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Apple, has become a design and marketing shell, with production shifted to contract manufacturers in Shenzhen and elsewhere in China.

Now that trend may be showing early signs of reversing.

Itâ(TM)s a trickle, but some American companies are again making products in the United States. While many of those companies have been small, like ET Water Systems, there have also been some highly visible moves by Americaâ(TM)s largest consumer and industrial manufacturers. General Electric and Caterpillar, for example, have moved assembly operations back to the United States in the last year. (Airbus, a European company, is said to be near a deal to build jets in Alabama.)

There is no single reason for the change. Rising labor and energy costs have made manufacturing in China significantly more expensive; transportation costs have risen; companies have become increasingly aware of the risks of the theft of intellectual property when products are made in China; and in a business where time-to-market is a competitive advantage, it is easier for engineers to drive 10 minutes on the freeway to the factory than to fly for 16 hours.

That was true for ET Water Systems, a California company. âoeYou need a collaboration that is real time,â said Pat McIntyre, chief executive of the maker of irrigation management systems, which recently moved its manufacturing operation from Dalian, China, to Silicon Valley. âoeWe prefer local, frankly, because sending one of our people to China for two weeks at a time is challenging.â

Harold L. Sirkin, a managing director at Boston Consulting Group, said, âoeAt 58 cents an hour, bringing manufacturing back was impossible, but at $3 to $6 an hour, where wages are today in coastal China, all of a sudden the equation changes.â

The firm reported in April that one-third of American companies with revenue greater than $1 billion were either planning or considering to move manufacturing back to the United States. Boston Consulting predicted that the reversal could bring two million to three million jobs back to this country.

âoeThe companies who are investing in technology in the U.S.A. are more nimble and agile,â said Drew Greenblatt, president and owner of Marlin Steel Wire Products in Baltimore, which continues to manufacture in the United States by relying on automation technologies. âoeParts are made quicker, and the quality is better.â

Other factors are playing a role as well, said Mitch Free, chief executive and founder of Mfg.com, an electronic marketplace for manufacturing firms. He pointed to trends including distributed manufacturing and customizati

Re:No paywall links

[Bill Dimm]

How can we comment on an article that we cannot see?

I'm tempted to mod you +1 funny for that.

Re:No paywall links

[XxtraLarGe]

Login: slashdotnyt
password: slashdotnyt

Re:No paywall links

[Sez Zero]

How can we comment on an article that we cannot see?

Wait a minute. You're telling me we're supposed to read the linked article?

Re:No paywall links

[buk110]

There should be a rule on Slashdot that no paywall links are allowed to be posted. How can we comment on an article that we cannot see?

Since when do you expect me to RTFA?

Re:No paywall links

[L4t3r4lu5]

Are those paywall account details or subliminal instructions?

Re:No paywall links

[Anarchduke]

You read the article? Whats wrong with you?

"Don't be evil"

[WMarkFelt]

No on here believes that BS. But at least for some American families this will be jobs and a bit of security.

Re:"Don't be evil"

[geekoid]

Google has held themselves to the ideal very well.

Re:"Don't be evil"

[CanHasDIY]

Yea, "Try to be slightly less evil than the competition" would be a more accurate slogan.

Side note, kudos to Google for taking the first step.

Re:"Don't be evil"

[c0lo]

No on here believes that BS. But at least for some American families this will be jobs and a bit of security.

Don't forget some extra income tax for the US govt. You don't expect the govt to stop from benefiting from this extra security of some american families, do you?

Re:"Don't be evil"

[Branciforte]

When has Google done anything evil? Seriously.

Certainly they have done a few things that, with wild speculation and attention-whore media reports and tragically hip IT bloggers making crazy leaps of logic, could be considered as having the potential to be evil.

But what evil things has Google actually done?

Don`t link to a log in page...

[__aavqan3009]

That`s just distasteful.

Re:I don't care. . .

[hebertrich]

Cause it's jobs for Americans , paid by selling goods to Americans and that America has traditionally made better products than the Chinese.
Cheap is nice .. but jobs and peopple who have money to spend on products built in America makes America grow stronger in the world arena.
Stop thinking it's nationalism and patriotism . Buy American goods to give jobs to Americans. Simple and just what America needs : jobs jobs jobs.

My problem is

[vawwyakr]

That I can't figure out what exactly I would use it for, if this thing was a full on Google TV, plus DVR (and maybe keep those social media things...though really that seems like something that should just be built into Google TV). Then sure I'd be fine with the cost and maybe even more! But this thing seems simply less capable than a product they already put out (Google TV) and costs more. I simply can't find a reason to buy...and frankly with the whole straight from Google and made in the US things I kind of want to want to buy it but I don't. Maybe I missed some aspect of its functionality or future but they didn't reveal anything like that from what I saw.

Re:My problem is

[squiggleslash]

Ah but you're forgetting Sergey Brin's well known Reality Distortion Effect that will convince Google fanbois to buy... oh wait, no, wrong tech leader and wrong company.

It is a very nice device, and it certainly seems nicer than a Roku, but I don't think the differences are worth $200 more. And I also have the "Wife wouldn't want yet another friggin' box, even a nice round one, in front of the TV" problem. She thinks it's bad enough we have a satellite box/DVR, DVD player, and media PC there.

Re:My problem is

[geekoid]

Get a new wife.

Re:My problem is

[MarkGriz]

Get a new wife.

A far more expensive proposition

Re:My problem is

[Anarchduke]

Yes but this time you could import a newer model from China or Japan.

Re:My problem is

[interkin3tic]

Well... it's round?

Re:My problem is

[Aighearach]

And I also have the "Wife wouldn't want yet another friggin' box, even a nice round one, in front of the TV" problem. She thinks it's bad enough we have a satellite box/DVR, DVD player, and media PC there.

It replaces the media PC for people want it to be like a jukebox, where you can both add songs to the queue without turning each other's music off, controlled democratically from any android device. The 25W amp is a hint that it is a wireless networked jukebox. Presumably married customers are buying it for the parlor/dork cave, not for the living room, and single people are putting it in the bar/living room.

Re:My problem is

[squiggleslash]

For me, it doesn't, yet, replace the functions of the media PC. It might in the longer term - supposedly Google is touting hackability as a feature - although with no storage and no TV capture, I doubt it'll happen quite like that. (I guess you could implement these as a box on your network, and use the hackability thing to use the Q to access and control the box, but that's not the case yet...)

What Country Was The Video Transcribed In?

[theodp]

Check out the gibberish closed captions ("nexus ceo their first social streaming media player may trigger the plane home") for the How Nexus Q Works video.

Re:What Country Was The Video Transcribed In?

[symbolset]

This is what happens when you force closed captioning to comply with the ADA of a video supplier with so much volume human provided captioning is not possible. You get machine translated audio, and it's not the best.

On-shores manufacturing must be fun

[Lord Lode]

Feel the sand of the beach between your toes and hear the sea while manufacturing, yay!

Re:On-shores manufacturing must be fun

[TeknoHog]

And once in a while, buy a /bin/csh from one of the ladies.

Re:I don't care. . .

[JavaLord]

Because at the end of the day you will pay either way. Either pay more for your products and give your fellow citizens a reasonable living or pay more in taxes for their unemployment, food stamps and welfare and on top of that deal with the social ills such as higher crime rates that can come when someone has nothing to lose.

I don't get the Q

[TheSkepticalOptimist]

So, this is not a Google TV device yet can connect to a TV with limited functionality. Its too expensive as a standalone network media streamer compared to other products available. I don't need a network device to power its own speakers. Compare this to a $120 Apple TV or even a $190 Boxee Box and its a very over-priced and mediocre competitor. So what is the point?

Obviously if Google is using on-shore manufacturing they are already assuming this as a niche product and don't have to worry about huge demand and high production costs.

I think Google mucked this product up as they are positioning it as an expansive hipster device in a market already saturated with better value and feature rich products. All Google should have done is create a little HDMI dongle that sits on a TV/Receiver that provides AirPlay like connectivity for Android devices which are capable of providing all the same functionality as the Q and could do so for a small fraction of the cost.

Re:I don't get the Q

[DragonWriter]

So what is the point?

I think that Google's point with the Nexus Q is hinted at by several things:

1. The miniUSB port which, at I/O, they made a point of noting provides "hackability".
2. The fact that they highlighted it and handed them out to developers at their annual developer conference.
3. The fact that every third word or so in their discussion of the product is "social", and that the existing functions highlight concurrent interaction with multiple users via mobile devices
4. That they've said the current set of functions is "just the beginning".

Re:I don't care. . .

[Applekid]

Don't forget that it is also manufactured in a country that still puts a little faith in Rule of Law: the workers aren't indentured servants and exposed to thousands of toxic chemicals with no right to know or MSDS disclosures, and that there are limits of chemical releases to the environment.

No Login Article from Business Standard

[Frankie70]

http://business-standard.com/india/news/made-inusa-is-back-as-google-doesretro/478854/

Looks like Business Standard Syndicates it from NY Times

China

[fa2k]

Makes sense that they pull out of China, since the government was so apathetic regarding the hacking incidents, and Google have had a lot of negative rhetoric against China. They could get a "patriotic" boost in the huge US market if they did tout it in their marketing, but maybe they think it will reflect badly on their other products. They can also more easily ensure good conditions for the workers, less pollution, etc, and use that in marketing. US is probably less than 30 % (PNOOMA) of the world market for cheap tablets, and the others will care about "concience" and quality, not moving jobs to US. Quality is probably identical; the same component costs and tolerances go into the calculation. As labour is more expensive, more work will proabbly be automated, perhaps leading to more consistent quality. The environmental and worker quality of life benefits could have been achieved in China as well; probably not a driving force. So to sum it up; antagonism towards (and from) China, patriotism from Google itself & US customers, better oversight .

Re:Just a fad

[hey!]

People might go along with the the "buy American" line for a while, but if they can save money by buying cheaper products with the same or more \better features they will soon turn to doing just that.

Well, that's the question, isn't it? Does an American company building the products it designs nearby have any advantages in quality control or innovation that offsets the slightly higher (China's edge here is often exaggerated) costs?

In an area where innovation is gradual and nobody has a chance of a killer technological lead, I think that cost is likely to be king. I have friends who went to work in the auto industry and were amazed to find that managers would sell their soul for a $1 saving on a $30,000 car. In areas with rapid and radical innovation, there might be an advantage. I don't think you can answer this question generically. It depends on the character of the market, industry and the company.

Apple is an interesting case. Apple didn't start by offshoring manufacturing, and even after they'd gone that route they hung on to their last domestic plant because they thought there was value to keeping designers close to the manufacturing process. And it worked. Even in the pre-Second Coming years when their product line was complicated and supply chain messy, they manufactured very high quality stuff. It'll be interesting to see what happens when that know-how fades with time. People will automatically attribute any decline in quality or innovation to Jobs' death, but if those things happen they may be the result of changes in corporate culture introduced by Jobs.

Offshoring iPods definitely was a winner because of their relatively low cost and high volume, and the need to compete against low cost alternatives. It seems to me that the same factors would apply to the Nexus Q, which is just another streaming media box. But maybe Google knows something we don't. Or maybe Google needs to gain more experience before it can rely on overseas contractors.

Bottom line on the question of on-shoring vs. off-shoring: it depends.

Re:Good News!

[jedidiah]

You laugh that's exactly what the Italians have done. They imported labor so they could still put a "made in Italy" stamp on their stuff. So the next time you are fawning over some overpriced Italian brand, just remember that it was still made by the Chinese.

Re:Google gives America a choice

[meowris]

I'm not quite sure about the "kill your own jobs" part, what I'm expecting more is that it will give unemployed Americans chance to get jobs.

And I will pay more, too

[WOOFYGOOFY]

And I will pay more too, as a self conscious act of affirming the long term importance of having a profitable manufacturing base in the US.

We all buy China junk, myself included. If I could buy all Made IN America at three times the price of Slave Labor in China, would I only buy Made in America? Probably not because, like solar panels, buying ONLY Made In America is a political statement I literally can't afford to make ALL the time as of right now. But will I buy what amounts to fun cool stuff like tablets and audio gadgets for 300 instead of 100? Oh hell yeah I will.

Re:And I will pay more, too

[TrentTheThief]

I agree with you. I might need to skip some things for a few months, but it'll be worth it.

Interesting trend?

[sl4shd0rk]

I wish it would, but I don't see how this will turn into anything exciting for the economy until offshoring gets more cost prohibitive. Thanks for trying Google.

Its more consumer behavior than policies

[perpenso]

People excoriate execs and companies who move parts of their businesses offshore (often rightly, and also often without questioning the policies that contribute to it often being cheaper and easier to employ people thousands of miles away in other countries).

Its more consumer behavior than policies. People's preference for a lower price, people's indifference for where a product is made. Offshoring is *not* some law of nature that will inevitably arise. Offshoring is a result of consumer behavior, the willingness to trade "local" manufacture for a lower price. Some people like to say that corporations will always seek the lowest cost of production, however they are only stating the first part of the "rule" and leaving off the "all other things being equal" caveat. In truth corporations meet consumer demand. If consumers are indifferent to where production takes place then corporations will outsource. If consumers show a consideration to where something is manufactured then corporations will be less inclined to outsource. Outsourcing is just a tool. If it negatively affects sales it will be discarded by corporations.

Google is correct that it could be an interesting experiment. However now we are back to the "all other things being equal" caveat. The functionality has to be comparable. The price difference can not be too large. Otherwise the experiment is flawed.

Re:Its more consumer behavior than policies

[DrgnDancer]

It's a vicious cycle to an extent. The poorest people like to go to Walmart and pay the lowest possible prices for cheaply made Chinese manufactured products. People with a little more room in their budgets might be willing to pay for quality, but the poor can't afford that luxury. Seeing how well places like Walmart are doing, and how well manufacturer that outsource productions can control costs, more and more stores become like Walmart, and more and more manufacturers offshore production. This increases the number of poor people as more manufacturing jobs leave and more retail places try to squeeze the last penny out of their labor costs. So fewer and fewer people have the extra room in their budgets to pay for quality and more and more of them buy cheaply manufactured goods at Walmart.

To make matters even worse, the premium for quality manufacture keeps going up, because fewer and fewer places are doing it, and the economies of scale fail. So those of use with regular middle class incomes who could still afford to shop at local stores and pay a bit more for quality find it harder and harder to even find the stores and products to spend more money on. Outside of major metro areas, almost everyone buys cheap crap from big box stores, whether they can afford better or not. There's nothing else available.

Err Phone For You its a Mr Teller ...

[RobertLTux]

right you can't require somebody to work 80+hour weeks to meet a deadline in the US

i have 2 words for you

Mr Teller could you get Mr Penn to explain those words??

It's a play on words...

[nonameisgood2]

Well Apple keeps Jobs in American Soil, That has to count for something.

I get that. Funny.

Re:It's a play on words...

[geekoid]

Jobs isn't leaving American soil anytime soon.

Unplug the DVD player

[tepples]

To make room for this, could you unplug the DVD player and play DVDs on the media PC?

Re:Unplug the DVD player

[squiggleslash]

Alas no, because it's an HD DVD (yes, seriously), and we still have a collection of HD DVDs. At some point I need to get the X-Box HD DVD drive I bought set up so I can rip them to a hard drive.

Re:Unplug the DVD player

[spire3661]

Just DL it from Pirate Bay, WAY easier.

Re:LOL. American made overpriced crap.

[gid]

I don't mind paying a little more for something not made in China, but you're dead on about the features. It looks like it does one thing and no doubt does it very well. But the Nexus Q website seems to say that this thing can ONLY play back from the cloud. I don't really want to be upload 100 gigs of HD home video to the "cloud". Nor do I want my 60 gig mp3 collection uploaded to the cloud either. I buy most of my music now, but ~15 years ago when I was a broke college student with ethernet and napster, I didn't. I have lots of stuff that I wouldn't even know where to begin looking for it to purchase, nor do I have the time or desire to.

In short, screw the cloud, and hence, this device. This coming from someone who usually admires what Google is doing. They're just going the wrong way with TV technology it seems. It needs to be a mix of local and internet streaming services.

I have no idea what this thing does...

[realisticradical]

So I watched google's video introduction of the Q. http://youtu.be/s1Y5dDQW4TY

I have absolutely no clue what this thing does or is or anything really. Except that apparently it will let people come to your house and play music from their phone. The video feels like dot com boom marketing. It's like zombo.com.

Re:I don't care. . .

[c0lo]

Cause it's jobs for Americans , paid by selling goods to Americans and that America has traditionally made better products than the Chinese. Cheap is nice .. but jobs and peopple who have money to spend on products built in America makes America grow stronger in the world arena. Stop thinking it's nationalism and patriotism . Buy American goods to give jobs to Americans. Simple and just what America needs : jobs jobs jobs.

Hmmm... let's see.

Assume $100 for Made in china and $200 Made in US. Further, assume that the extra $100 is a difference that goes into the cost of labor (so an american employee will have it)... everything else stays the same (Google profit, Google corporate tax, cost of components/raw material/energy/env protection).
* Buy Made in China - "US citizens" are less $100
* Buy Made in US - US population is worse by -$200 (price) + $100 (wages)=-$100 - the same, isn't it? Except... hang on... income tax for the $100 wages? Say 10%? Well, US population: -$110, US govt: +$10.

WTF? Either I'm wrong somewhere (where?) or US population is worse of and only US govt gets to profit?

Isn't to have "jobs, jobs, jobs... production costs/price be damned" somehow better for the population only if you can export what you produced? And, outside your own country, can you find a market willing to pay higher for an item that does the same as a cheaper one?

How Apple should market AppleTV

[swb]

Apple really should push the AirPlay device mirroring angle. I see it really being the ultimate iPad accessory -- it's awesome to be able to mirror stuff directly to the TV or play videos.

Re:How Apple should market AppleTV

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Apple really should push the AirPlay device mirroring angle. I see it really being the ultimate iPad accessory -- it's awesome to be able to mirror stuff directly to the TV or play videos.

I just recently have been exposed to this and I have to say not only that I'm impressed, but I hope we get some competition going here.

To those who haven't seen it, it works like this: You have your iDevice and you want something on it to appear on the screen. Double Click home button, swipe, and click the "Air Play" button. As long as you're on the same network, blam, it's on the screen. It reminds me of Iron Man, Tony Stark flicking things from his phone to the displays. At my house now it's like "Wanna see a funny video I found on Youtube?" *video on TV*

Sounds like Google's laying the ground work to do this, too. Awesome stuff.

Re:I don't care. . .

[BanHammor]

Still, we can see that the best guitars, for example, are made in either US or Japan. And you can definitely tell the difference between sweatshop manufacture and these. Country matters, ahem.

Weak feature set and connectivity

[swb]

This device seems kind of poorly thought out.

First of all, the dumb shape. I want my AV devices flat and preferably stackable. At least AppleTV is flat, although its small size dictates it be on top if stacked (or just wall mounted..). A round device? No thanks.

Connectivity -- no optical output, only HDMI? That may work for people who use their TV as an HDMI switcher and leave the stereo on a fixed input, but it's nice having both for parallel output. The direct-connect speaker connection is silly.

And streaming only? WTF? I realize Google is all about networked storage, but even though I use iTunes, I'm not ready to commit to anyone's cloud based media storage.

The problem I've seen with USA is quality

[Exrio]

I see Americans bragging left and right about the quality of Made in USA products without anyone ever questioning, but if I think about all the Made in USA products I've personally had which have been surprisingly many - and I make an exception for professional tools with which I've been satisfied but are not of a comparable category - I've found most of them to be sorely lacking in quality compared to similarly priced, sometimes even cheaper, alternatives made elsewhere. I have an American friend who is into guns (I'm not at all so excuse my lack of details) and has observed the same thing, he tells me everyone keeps bragging about $gunbrand that is Made in USA and not particularly cheap, but all the times he has tried it he has found it troublesome to operate while the "cheap Chinese ones" work just fine, and when he complains about this everyone shrugs him off as being "too inexperienced to appreciate the subtleties of $gunbrand". Admittedly the Made in USA things I've had are more of the "made of plastic"/"made of metal"/"made of ceramic"/"electrical-not-high-tech" kind of things but, while I'm sure Google has choosen much better partners for manufacturing, what happened with CircuitCo and the Pandora's PCB a few years back doesn't exactly put me at ease about this either. Hope to be proven wrong of course, but I, for one, have yet to see that "great American quality" everyone brags about in a consumer product.

Re:The problem I've seen with USA is quality

[CompMD]

I had firearms training as part of my old job, and own several for recreation and personal defense. Here's some facts:

- my 70 year old Mosin-Nagant (Russian) rifle operates flawlessly.
- my 40 year old HK (German) rifle has a sticky charging handle, but otherwise cycles perfectly.
- my 60 year old Cugir (Romanian copy of a Russian design) semiautomatic pistol has operates flawlessly; in the several years I have owned it, it has NEVER failed to fire or jammed. I trust my life to it.
- my 25 year old Ceska Zbrojovka (Czech) semiautomatic pistol works perfectly if I give it quality ammo. Laquered case rounds jam it up when the ambient temperature is hot.
- my 10 year old Mossberg (American) shotgun has rust, a flimsy pump, and the mag tube is stuck on. The weapon is operational, but I can't break it down.

I've been at the range too many times watching guys delicately treating their AR-15s that jam up, while I blast away with my beat up HK 91. Yeah, good luck getting me to buy another American made firearm.

Made in the USA. Another tool in the patent wars??

[Pontiac]

I have to wonder if there is another motive to bringing manufacturing back on shore.. It's easy for a judge to decide to block a few shipments of phones from china because of a patent dispute. It's going to be a tougher decision to lay down a patent ruling that may shut down a factory putting US workers on unemployment.

I'm game

[Sheik Yerbouti]

I just voted with my wallet I just ordered it and the tablet. In large part because I like Google and what they do. In many ways they add value without being dicks and support programmers, hackers and open source. And the fact that they on-shored the manufacturing. I hope it gets Netflix and Hulu though.

Re:I'm game

[Sheik Yerbouti]

It's already been hacked, it runs android I suspect it will run Linux too.

Re:I don't care. . .

[Grudge2012]

Don't forget that it is also manufactured in a country that still puts a little faith in Rule of Law: the workers aren't indentured servants and exposed to thousands of toxic chemicals with no right to know or MSDS disclosures, and that there are limits of chemical releases to the environment.

So it isn't manufactured in the US after all.

I'm Okay With Made In The USA

[Ukab the Great]

As long as it doesn't lead to TV or Radio ads done Bob Seger or Bruce Springsteen or that could in any way can be misconstrued as a Real Men of Genius spoof.

Patent impact of onshoring: No ITC blocks possible

[DragonWriter]

I have to wonder if there is another motive to bringing manufacturing back on shore.. It's easy for a judge to decide to block a few shipments of phones from china because of a patent dispute. It's going to be a tougher decision to lay down a patent ruling that may shut down a factory putting US workers on unemployment.

The thing to understand about patent law in the US is that there are effectively two separate systems of patent enforcement -- there are regular infringement cases that go through the federal district courts, and there are actions to block imports that go through the International Trade Commission.

These systems are governed by effectively different law, which makes defenses that would be applicable in regular federal court unavailable in ITC proceedings. It is thus often possible to use the ITC process to block import of products (at least temporarily) when it would not be possible to win an infringement case in the regular courts.

Onshoring is complete protection against the use of the ITC process, which has been an important weapon in the ongoing patent wars.

I don't think its the main reason Google did it with the Nexus Q -- the ability to shorten cycle time between design, engineering, and manufacturing that they've cited is a compelling reason that fits with what has been well-documented about Google's general approach to products -- but given the patent wars raging between Apple, Microsoft, Google, and -- for the latter two -- affiliated hardware manufacturers, its a valuable benefit.

Nice gesture, wrong product

[demonbug]

Nice that they are manufacturing in the U.S., but by the look of it the only reason they are doing so is that they realize this is a niche product with limited sales potential so they are doing very small manufacturing runs. For the relatively small runs they must be doing, it is doubtful that getting manufacturing set up in China would be significantly cheaper - the economics work out when you are doing hundreds of thousands or millions of units, not a handful of thousands that I would guess they are looking at for this. I'd suggest the reason they aren't pushing the "Made In USA" angle is because if the product does somehow take off, they probably plan to move manufacturing overseas.

That said, I really don't understand this device. It doesn't match the functionality of competing media streaming boxes (even Google's own). The amp adds complexity and cost, but it is so small that it is only ever going to be enough for a pretty small room - 12.5 watts/channel doesn't go very far even if you have very efficient speakers (speakers extra). The only market seems to be as a tech toy to show off to your buddies, maybe something an executive would stick in their private office to impress people - except it isn't even outrageously expensive enough for that (maybe if it was $3,000). I just don't get what they are trying to do with it, though the design does look kind of cool.

Re:Nice gesture, wrong product

[ajlitt]

If you were going to put together a new manufacturing line and supply chain, wouldn't you want to trial it with a low volume product versus something you plan to make in the millions? The experiment is largely done now that they have finished products in quantity. It's likely that Google wouldn't have made a big deal about this at I/O if it was an untenable prospect for future products, now that the expectation is there.

Re:Nice gesture, wrong product

[R3d M3rcury]

Another possibility is robotics.

Way back in the NeXTCube days, NeXT built their own factory in Fremont, CA and invested quite a bit of time and effort into automated assembly. Perhaps Google is taking a similar tack.

Nexus Q has optical audio output

[DragonWriter]

Connectivity -- no optical output, only HDMI?That may work for people who use their TV as an HDMI switcher and leave the stereo on a fixed input, but it's nice having both for parallel output.

It's so nice to have both, that Google decided to put a TOSLINK digital audio output on the Nexus Q alongside the HDMI. I don't know where you got the idea that it had only HDMI and no digital output.

You win!

[KingSkippus]

Congratulations! You just won the "Best Comment King Skippus Has Read in a Long Time" award. Yes, it's not exactly something you can show off on your mantle, and there's no cash prize associated with it, but at least you have the satisfaction of knowing that you connected with some random anonymous person on the Internet who read what you said and thought to himself, "Oh hell yeah, THAT person gets it!"

Not designed for volume manufacturing

[Animats]

Look at the picture. There are wires with screw lugs being attached by hand. Why aren't all the parts on one board? Whatever happened to "design for manufacturing" and "vertical assembly", which is how Sony built Walkmans cheaply with expensive labor.

(What probably happened is that nobody at Google ever worked in a big production plant.)

Why not advertise where it's built?

[rnturn]

``The company is hoping that consumers will be willing to pay more, though it is unlikely that the âoeMade in Americaâ lineage will be part of any marketing campaign.''

Why the heck not? Based on the number of people I've talked with that complain about everything being made in Japan, China, or anywhere else across the big ponds, they ought to make that phrase part of the darned product name. Their sales certainly wouldn't be hurt by boasting about it being manufactured domestically.

Re:Why not advertise where it's built?

[gl4ss]

they do advertise where it's built.

fucking everyone knows it's built in USA, but nobody knows how much ram it has or what soc it's built on.

Backwards

[bill_mcgonigle]

Raise your hand if you want "social media" mixed with your TV watching experience. *crickets*

Facebook wall activity: "Charles is watching Gilmore Girls on CWTV."

That's backwards. It's "Bill is watching videos his friends posted to Facebook. Hasn't watched TV in ages."

Re:Backwards

[Lemmy Caution]

"Lemmy is reading a live-stream of Bill posting a video of Charles watching Gilmore Girls on CWTV."

Re:I don't care. . .

[N0Man74]

I was about to point out many of these same flaws, but you more thorough than I would have been.

The important concept to take away though is that effects of buying American doesn't end with the purchase of one product. The effects have the potential to compound.

Failed Product.

[crhylove]

While the rest of the I/O stuff was awesome, I see this as an already failed product. I certainly don't have a use for it, whereas I'm ecstatic to purchase a Nexus 7 at some point. Let's hope the good idea of on-shoring doesn't die with the bad idea/price of the Q.

Walmart originally carried US made goods

[perpenso]

It's a vicious cycle to an extent. The poorest people like to go to Walmart and pay the lowest possible prices for cheaply made Chinese manufactured products.

Yes and no. Walmart originally was stocked with largely US made goods. Their lower prices were through volume purchases, better distribution, etc. Walmart was actually an IT pioneer. They wired up their cash registers and stores in the 1970s, sent near real time sales data to headquarters to track sales and improve distribution and stocking, reduce inventory, etc. They opened their near real time data to manufacturers in order to get these manufacturers to participate in Walmart's pioneering digit purchase order and restocking programs. Walmart did data mining to further improve distribution and stocking, to respond to seasonal trends and news driven events (ex. weather).

Walmart going nearly entirely imported goods came after all this. And again, it was guided by consumer preference. As Walmart experimented with lower priced imported goods its customers abandoned the domestic goods. So even in the Walmart case offshoring was driven by consumer preferences.

You are correct that there is a feedback loop, but at its core the consumer still drives the system. I am a bit skeptical that Google's experiment is a good one but if more corporations conducted such experiments there is the opportunity to move things in the opposite direction. Especially with respect to goods that are not necessities needed to "get by".

Made in America, perhaps

[phorm]

Paying more for a domestically built device (ok, same-continent, since I'm Canadian) is one thing.
However, supported applications lists:
    Google Play Music
    Google Play Movies and TV
    YouTube

Where's the Netflix etc?

A device that costs more and potentially does less than other devices currently on the market? Not likely to do so well unless Google has some new tricks coming soon.

I'm also wondering about some of the other specs:
    32 RGB perimeter LEDs

What are those for? Rave simulation mode? Oh wait "The 32 LEDs that ring Nexus Q shift and change color in time to your music. Choose your favorite effect and put your Nexus Q where it can be seen, and touched." Uhhhhh OK

And the best part. There's apparently no remote. So you need an existing Android device to use that. Add a few hundred at least to the pricetag if you haven't got one of those already.

Chinese marketshare is growing...

[schlachter]

China will be the dominant market for iOS devices and Apple products in general in the very near future.

Combined with the rest of Asia, I think the value of getting hardware anywhere in China within a couple of days will be as much of a concern for Apple as getting hardware to Americans in a similar timeframe.

No strictly true

[thetoadwarrior]

It should probably say assembled in the US. I find it really hard to believe it's all American from the ground up.

Made in the USA, or assembled?

[Skynyrd]

Obviously it won't built here, from 100% US sourced parts. The real question to me is what percentage of it is made here.

If it's an injection molded box, made here, filled with bits from China, it's "assembled in the US", it's a marketing ploy, If substantial parts are made here, it's something to get excited about, and pay a premium for.

Time will tell.

I hope they use non union labor

[IGnatius T Foobar]

I hope they have chosen to use NON union labor. Otherwise they are just trading one set of communists for another.

Re:Disappointing. Done right it should cost less

[tommituura]

Then they would need to pay for workers to service those robots too. I kind of suppose (and somewhat hope) Google isn't yet able to build robots to service other robots yet.