[ryanbrunner]

Google did this early on with android - originally the Google devices (Nexus) were lower end, and high end devices were left to other manufacturers. They've flipped around recently, but I think the Nexus line was a decent enough idea at the time.

[lern_too_spel]

The Nexus devices were initially badly designed high end devices, starting with the Nexus One, which was among the first smartphones with an OLED screen but had too little internal storage to be useful. There was no intentional strategy there to build a bad product, just bad product designers making bad design choices.

[numpad0]

Nexus was supposed to be reference platform with a harmless quirk or two, not necessarily low or high end. The idea was everyone builds for Nexus and apps run everywhere.

[ryanbrunner]

Maybe "lower end" isn't quite accurate, but the point I was getting across was that Google wasn't competing for the high end market.