The end has come for the Nexus Q as Google has pulled the plug.  Today, the Nexus Q’s status in the Google play store has been changed from “not for sale at this time” to “no longer available for sale.”  This is the final nail in the coffin for the device.

The full cancellation of the device has been long time coming since the original Q announcement in June 2012.  Shortly after pre-sale orders, Google pulled the device.  The only Nexus Q’s in hand were the ones given to the developers or the free ones given to those who had already preordered.

Hopefully Google will overhaul the design and release a new, cheaper version, or develop a Nexus TV to replace it, but we can’t say we are really surprised to hear this was canceled.  With all the media streaming devices on the market, the $299 price tag was a bit much for consumers to swallow, teamed up with the fact that it really had limited functionality.

Are you disappointed the Q won’t be released or not the least bit surprised? Conversely, were you one of the few individuals that managed to get a free Q, if so what do you think of the device based on your experiences with it?

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If you were one of the few folks out there dying to get your hands on the Nexus Q, we have some bad news for you- it seems that Google is delaying Nexus Q for now. According to Google, they received enough response that more features and services were wanted for the Nexus Q and they have decided to delay the device in order to beef up the features it has to offer. From the sounds of it, the Q itself isn’t probably changing in the hardware department, instead the changes will probably be on the software side. The Nexus Q was geared as a social sharing device but for $300 it seemed rather limited in what it could do, even against much cheaper multimedia player solutions out on the market.

When is the Nexus Q going to get released now? At the moment Google isn’t narrowing down an official date, simply stating it is “coming soon” on its site. It isn’t all bad news for Nexus Q fans though, at least if you happened to be one of the few people that pre-ordered the device. As a way of saying thank you to these individuals, Nexus Q is sending out “preview” devices for free to these customers. The preview device is basically the full Nexus Q as we currently know it, though its unclear whether or not the Preview Nexus Q will update to become the official product or not. Considering they are giving it away for free, I wouldn’t count on it though.

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Ever since I modded my original Xbox to run XBMC, I’ve been a pretty big fan of this media player program. Fast-forwarding to today, XBMC has become a very powerful media viewing tool primarily for PCs- well no longer, XBMC for Android is now on its way.

According to the XBMC Team, the Android version has all the features you’d expect to see on the standard desktop version and doesn’t require any special hacks, mods or rooting to work on Android, instead it works just like any other app. Of course its not exactly in a full stable build yet and unfortunately only offers software-based decoding of audio and video for most devices, with the big exception being the Pivos XIOS DS Set-Top Android Box. The XBMC Team has extensively tested and worked with the XIOS DS to ensure great hardware-based decoding, but even for devices that use softtware-based decoding, the XBMC Android experience is actually quite good.

The source code is available for tinkering right now and APKs will soon hit their site for beta testers within a few weeks, though XBMC has no plans to bring their efforts officially to Google Play until the program is further along in development.

If you are looking for a solid media player for your tablet, smartphone or set-top box, XBMC is hard to beat, even if it isn’t quite ready for prime-time just yet. The idea of XBMC coming to Android even brings more usefulness to the recent CM9 port for Nexus Q. Once both of these ports get all their bugs worked out, they could make for a wonderful combination on the Q.

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One useful thing about the Nexus Q though is its inclusion of a USB port, which gives it a bit of extra flexiblity when it comes to hacks. Many in the developer community have had interesting ideas for the Q, but Jason Parker is the first to port a full version of Android to the Nexus Q, using the CyanogenMod 9 Tuna/Maguro build as the base for the job. Right now the port isn’t 100% functional, but WIFI and Bluetooth work just fine at least. For an early build, it’s rather stable but issues with things like sound prevent it from being truly useful in its correct form.

You can rest assured that if Nexus Q already has an early some-what stable build of Android running on it, its only a matter of time until the Q has the full unlocked potential of Android under its belt. While the Q is meant as a sharing device, the power of Android could open it up as much more capable media solution for the living room. Not only could this mean using the Q as a full media device with programs like XBMC for Android, but it means that the Nexus Q could become a great casual gaming device and general living room app system as well.

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There is something extraordinarily alien looking about the new Nexus Q media player. This odd shaped media player is a ball that plays music, movies and other social activities. This is the evolution of the Android@Home standard that was unveiled by Google earlier last year and is supposed to have unique style that catches the eye and will become a staple of the living room.
The Q can connect with your family and friend’s Android devices for such things as building playlists of music and videos and allows easy sharing. You can connect multiple Q devices simultaneously and send separate media to each of them as well.

The Q will have access to the Internet without pulling from your device and content sent to it isn’t actually pushed from the phone/tablet its sent from, its all down from the cloud basically. Honestly, I’m not particularly excited by the Q. This box costs a massive $299, which I at least feel is pretty pricey considering Roku boxes and Apple TV can do many of the same unique things at much more affordable price points. The device has less abilities from the sounds of it than a tablet and yet it costs more than the new Nexus 7, to me that just sounds like a bad strategy, but I’ve been proven wrong before. What do you think?

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