Nexus 4, Nexus 7, Nexus 10, Nexus Q... Who would have thought just a year ago that Google would ever be able to build its own family of branded consumer electronics products so rapidly and much in the way Apple has built its iPhone, iPod and iPad lineups. Now, I opined in May that Google becoming a handset maker could spell trouble for Apple, not just concerning the iPhone maker's thermonuclear war on Android but also realizing the vertical integration advantage this acquisition makes possible - even if we have yet to see Motorola-made Nexus phones born out of that partnership.
But Google becoming a hardware company changes market dynamics drastically, especially with much of the innovations in the Android camp happening in software right now. John Lagerling, Google's director of business development for Android, sat down with Brian Chen of The New York Times to talk Nexus devices and how Google goes about designing them, here's what came out of him...