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Google Delays Release of Android Wear 2.0 To 2017 (techcrunch.com)
Google announced today the next generation of its smartwatch platform -- Android Wear 2.0 -- won't be seeing the light of day this year. The company says that it will release the final version of Android Wear 2.0 in early 2017. From a TechCrunch report: While Google never talked about a final release date for Wear 2.0, its original schedule called for about 30 weeks of alpha and beta testing, which would have put the release date somewhere around the middle of December. Google, however, now says that it has gotten "tons of great feedback from the developer community about Android Wear 2.0" and that it is "committed to improve and iterate based on them to ensure a great user experience." Because of this, the plan is to continue the preview program into early 2017 at which time the first watches will receive the new version.CNET reported recently that three of the top Android Wear smartwatches maker -- LG, Huawei and Motorola -- had confirmed that they won't be releasing new smartwatches until next year, at least.
To paraphrase a quote from Miyamoto, a delayed project is eventually good, but a rushed project is forever bad.
Not everyone who buys Apple products is some kind of crazed zealot, but they do have a small fan base that will give them a lot of slack while they iron out the kinks. I don't believe that Google really has anything like that, and if they ever did it's probably not as prominent after releasing half-baked products like Glass or killing off popular platforms like Google Reader so they can't afford to push a sloppy response out the door unless they want to be taken as seriously as Microsoft when it comes to future products.