Oh Nexus Q, you’ve gotten so much shit. Google’s social media streamer might have a lot of potential, but said potential definitely doesn’t show without hacking the device. With its limited out of the box functionality, developers are hard at work in attempt to make the Nexus Q, well, usable. Over the weekend, XDA member KornyOne decided to do some dev magic and breathed a little life into the orb.
For the tinkerers out there, achieving this might be over your head, but the video below shows a home replacement launcher running on the Nexus Q, as well as a nice helping of applications, like Netflix. This is definitely a preview of what’s to come, but so far it looks like it’s coming along well for a device that has only been (unofficially) out for less than two weeks. There are a lot of applications that don’t play nice but that will probably change in the future.
With similar innards as the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the Nexus Q could eventually replace Google TV. And of course, this begs the question: Why didn’t it? Limiting the content to YouTube and Google Play purchases just wasn’t smart, and being priced at $300 isn’t going to interest the average consumer any time soon. Still, with developments like this, it might find a place among the Android hackers circle.
We’d really like to see Google update the Nexus Q with Google TV-like features. For one, the Q needs to be able to stream content that is on your home network and officially support applications and games. Of course, Google wants you to consume content through Google Play and lock you into its own ecosystem with the Nexus Q but we have our doubts about the success of that strategy. Google is no Apple.
Whatever you think about the Nexus Q, it’s still an interesting device that should serve up quite a few more tricks when it’s more widely available. We definitely don’t see it becoming a huge success but we do see it gaining some more ground as long as developers continue doing their thing with hacks like this.
A How-To guide is available on XDA here if you really want to give it a whirl.