Technically Nexus devices have always been "at cost" to Google, since it's the OEM who gets the profit off the hardware sales in exchange for Google controlling the experience. So Rubin's statement about "selling through" the Nexus 7 actually says very little since that's always been the case. The real issue (and what the media is mostly missing) is whether ASUS is selling it at a loss or not, and considering the Memo the Nexus 7 was refactored from was originally going to be sold at $250, it seems unlikely.
I think they might. Carriers get part of the 30% share of Play sales if you have a cell phone, but I don't know who gets that for WiFi tablets. OEMs getting it is certainly one possibility (Google keeping it is another, of course). There's similar revenue sharing for some of the search traffic as well, IIRC.
"Because the FRAND abuses originated by Motorola and supported by Google is some of the most disgraceful behaviour seen in the industry since the days of Rambus. You don't participate in the creation of a standard and then turn around and sue companies who adopt those standards in good faith. It undermines the entire industry."
You do if you're grasping at straws to defend yourself against the initial patent aggressors. Can't really blame them.
No you absolutely, unequivocally do not. Under any circumstance.
Because it sets an example where every tiny little contributor to a standard can hold every implementer at ransom. It would be the unravelling of the entire IT industry.
The Android tablet ecosystem was stuck in a chicken/egg problem where nobody would develop for it until there was a market, and they'd be no market until there are tablet apps. A successful Nexus tablet increases the value of the entire ecosystem.
Also keep in mind that there -is- a margin for ASUS. Google's reference devices have always been a split where the OEM gets the hardware profit and Google controls the entire experience. The Nexus 7 follows the exact same model all of their previous efforts have.
I think that was more down to 4.0.3 not being stable than anything else. Even the T-mobile Nexus S had that OTA pulled after 2 weeks, so made no sense to push it out to the 4G.
"Indeed. Google could have implemented it on iOS if they had wanted to, but that was a pretty big selling point for some people to get an Android phone over iOS."
No they couldn't, Apple controlled the app, Google was just the pipe. A recent WSJ article claims that both Google and Apple wanted feature parity/turn by turn, but Google wanted an increased amount of Google branding in exchange which Apple refused so they ultimately couldn't come to terms.
It's pretty important to user satisfaction that Joe can say to Sally "You have an iPhone, right? Check out what they can do now!" And Sally be able to say "Mine does that too? Awesome!"
Sally won't be able to do Turn by turn if she has a 3GS or iPhone 4, whereas even out of date Android's on 1.6 can.
"Sure, with iOS there are updates and features that don't get patched into older devices. But those situations are vanishingly few compared to Android."
But the "vanishingly few" are often the most significant features of a particular years iOS upgrade, whereas Google's 1st party apps are for the most part decoupled with the major differences between 4.X and 2.X being UI.
The situation is much more nuanced than you state.
The T-Mobile Nexus S you're referring to had its 4.0.3 OTA pulled within the same month it was released due to mass complaints with Android OS wakelocks/battery drain, instability and other misc things.
For 3 months after that, even their current flagship the yakju Galaxy Nexus was stuck on an "old" version of Android 4.0.2 whilst they worked on a fixed version of 4.0.3 which they eventually shipped in March as 4.0.4.
While I'm not saying you should be pleased at the complete lack of communication/respect given to you, I think their decision to stick with an older, stable version of the OS on the Nexus S 4G as opposed to pushing an update they knew was broken was the correct one.
