Head-to-head doesn't necessarily mean competition

As we've already seen with the Motorola Xoom, releasing head-to-head doesn't mean competition, and even less so with the Nexus device which we all know will launch Ice Cream Sandwich into the market. The Motorola Xoom had more advertising behind it than any Nexus device, and probably more consumer excitement as well, but it still fell flat when compared to the iPad, mostly due to low developer support. The story will be a bit different for the Nexus Prime, but not markedly so.

Keep in mind that Nexus devices have always been niche devices. They are designed for developers, early adopters, and a generally more geeky crowd. No Nexus device has ever officially been sold by either of the two biggest carriers in America - Verizon and AT&T. Nexus devices have been offered through Google that run on AT&T, but that's a far cry from seeing it sold in the official stores across the country. The Nexus S, which had far better marketing and availability than the Web Store-only Nexus One, only sold approximately 500,000 units in its first two months in the market (based on Gingerbread OS share in February, when the Nexus S was the only phone running Gingerbread.) If the iPhone 5 sells less than 500,000 just in pre-orders, let alone half of launch day, every analyst in existence would call it a failure. 

And, that's the real point, even if Google rushes out Ice Cream Sandwich to launch in October, it'll still only be running on the Nexus Prime. The Nexus S and Gingerbread launched at the beginning of December last year, and even the Nexus One had to wait until the middle of February 2011 for the official update. Even today, a full 8 months after its release, Gingerbread is still less than 25% of the Android ecosystem. Even if Google pushed out ICS in time for October, the upgrade turnaround for manufacturers kills any illusion that ICS will ever really compete with iOS 5 at any point in its life cycle. The only possible incentive for Google to push out a product that may not be ready is the hope that other manufacturers could then have ICS devices available for the Christmas season, but that is a pretty big reach.