You misunderstood, so I'l have to explain...



Actually I'm basing it off my research into the Logitech and Sony versions of GoogleTV. As a backgrounder on my opinion of Google design, I have the entire history of Google efforts colouring my opinion however. I rest my case.





No, I'm not talking about fitting into a mold, I'm talking about making it clear to the consumer/customer what the device is for and what it does, even if it does 3 or 4 things. Your HTPC example is good. Google TV is not an HTPC though. It is not clearly defined, which is like many other Google efforts unfortunately.

A good way to describe an HTPC/PVR to the layman is "it's a digital/tapeless VCR" - sort of implied by "Personal Video Recorder" but some people need it broken down further.

Boxee is a media player. You can simply call it a digital video player for some people. That's how you describe and position it. More in depth, it is a video player capable of playing your videos, rental videos from multiple providers, internet video for free and by subscription. Each one of those can be further broken down of course. As a media player it also handles music and photos - but like all other products that do this, the UI is quite sucky. The only decent solutions for music at an entry price are from Slim Devices and Sonos. And maybe the Apple TV is now good at photos.

GoogleTV isn't a TV. I know it can play some videos - can it play local sources? They don't seem to play that up. Does it need a keyboard and ugly-ass remote? Seems like it's WebTV. It totaly undefined and that's going to be a hard pill for customers to swallow. Google is simply used to banking on the Google name without actually doing the hard work that other companies need to do to distill their product vision into a sharp and easy to understand concept.