“Google TV Takes An Enormous Step In The Wrong Direction,” Says David Pogue (GOOG)

Yep:

Silicon Alley Insider

New York Times gadget reviewer David Pogue just gave Google TV one of the most negative reviews we’ve read in a long time.

He says it’s too complicated, it’s filled with inconsistencies, it’s flaky, and it’s just not worth the money.

Of all the big gadget reviewers we pay attention to, Pogue seems to represent the common man better than most. If he he thinks this thing is a dud, it’s a really bad sign for Google TV gaining widespread adoption.

Here are some of Pogue’s problems:

“This much is clear: Google TV may be interesting to technophiles, but it’s not for average people. On the great timeline of television history, Google TV takes an enormous step in the wrong direction: toward complexity.”

“The search function is unpredictable. Sometimes, it searches all TV, Web and apps. Other times, it just opens the address bar of the Web browser, so that you wind up searching the whole Web instead of just videos. In still other situations, it searches only the program you’re using (the Twitter app, for example).”

“It’s all customizable, unfamiliar and mostly baffling, and you don’t get a single page of instructions. (I learned how to use Google TV by shooting a fusillade of questions to the Google P.R. people — an option I’m guessing won’t be open to you.”