They are trying to be Apple even the design seems close to what Apple might do at least to my eye. The thing is Apple does this and gets business because there was a core of important and vital products and software that got people using Apple for a different reason. So if I buy (as I have) Apple's Airport extreme it's because I am buying other Apple products. I can't say if that weren't the case that would be what I would go with. (I mean I might but since I am already buying the brand I am biased and just go for the IBM choice so to speak...).

My point is that a company can't simply take a product here and a product there and hope to have great success with just a great isolated device for a particular purpose.

Which means that since google is not stupid they must be doing this for another reason (as others have mentioned). They aren't doing it because they honestly expect and need to sell routers and make money from that or even another play that they are building on that we don't know about. Must be something else going on here.

Lastly, end users in flyover country don't care about all of this unless they know about or have a particular problem. And how many people even have these problems? (I don't as only one example..) If they did they would be protesting outside of cable companies and demanding better remote controls for their fios or comcast dvr's.