Since its unveiling last week at Google I/O, Google's Nexus Q media streaming device has attracted quite a bit of attention thanks to the fact that the device is made in America. At a time when the vast majority of our electronics are manufactured in Asia, the Nexus Q's 'Made in the U.S.A.' branding is a very rare thing indeed. So what made Google decide to build its latest device in its own backyard?
For Google, it was all about speed. Speaking to Reuters, the company said they wanted to see how fast the product could go from concept to finished product, and a Chinese manufacturer would have lengthened the process. John Lagerling, Google's senior director of Android global partnerships, told Reuters that cost wasn't the number one priority.
"We wanted to innovate fast. This is the first end-to-end hardware product that Google has ever put out," he said, adding that Google wanted to see if it could do fast design iterations rather than flying engineers across the world. "This is not this big initiative that things had to be made in the USA," he said.
Google's Nexus Q will launch next month priced at $300. However, Google hasn't yet discussed the manufacturing bill of materials (MBOM), so we don't yet know how much of an impact its American assembly has had on the overall price.