Edible Apple

You might say it’s becoming a pattern, but it appears that Google has bitten off more than it can chew. Again. The latest story invovles Google TV, Google’s well-intentioned yet poorly executed effort to improve the way users experience and watch Television.

Already beseiged by TV Studios unwilling to make certain content available on Google TV enabled HDTV’s, now comes word via the New York Times that Google has asked hardware partners to hold off on showcasing new TVs running Google’s search software.

Citing people familiar with the situation, the report relays that Google wants more time to improve its software, which has thus far received less than stellar reviews. And who’s getting clipped in the crossfire? Why Google’s partners, of course, who up until recently thought their Google TV’s were good to go.

Google has a long history of putting out new products and then revising them on the fly. But in the consumer electronics market, companies place big, well-timed bets — to attract holiday buyers, say, or back-to-school shoppers.

This year, for example, computer makers waited for Google’s new ChromeOS software so they could ship new types of Web-based laptops. But delays at Google led the manufacturers to miss this year’s holiday season.

Keeping Gmail as beta software for years on end might work in the online world, but high-end consumer electronics is an entirely different ballgame, and Google is quickly finding out that the fast and loose rules of the web simply don’t apply to every one of its initiatives.