The short answer is yes.
Google likes to put things out in Beta status and for early testing. Apple often keeps things under wraps until they feel they have gotten it close enough to perfection. With that being said, Airtunes has been out and in customer's hands for a LOOONG time now. And of course they were testing it well before it became available where Google hasn't even put anything similar out yet in "Beta". They're new to this.
Airtunes (and now Airplay) is tightly integrated with iTunes, Bonjour, Home Sharing, and all the technologies Apple has been working on for the last decade or so to make storing and sharing content on local networks easier and simpler for the average person. Apple has a long tradition, patents, and history of developing technologies for local networking.
This is a new game for Google. They don't make home computers like Macs, full operating systems that support networking protocols like Snow Leopard, home routers like Airport Extreme, Express, and Time Capsule, no iTunes like software that manages stores and shares content on a home network, and don't have much experience, software, or products dealing with home networking technology for consumers. They've only recently started getting their feet wet in some of these areas. They're a web search company, after all, which they are very good at. But not this yet at least.
So yes, it is perfectly fine in my opinion to say that Apple has been working on this type of stuff and trying to perfect it long before Google. If Google does what it usually does, it will try to make up for it by rushing out a half finished "Beta" product and fix it as they go along over the years to make it better than the competition. That strategy works well with free products like Gmail. Not so much when customers will be paying $300 for a Logitech box they expect to work as soon as they get it home.
100% agree with this. Google has always moved products and items to the marketplace much more quicker than a company like Apple does. As you noted, they are big on big public open betas for stuff. So while Apple may have been working on something for 4 or 5 years before they release something, a more likely cycle for something similar in Google is probably 12-18 months before it is available. Obviously when you involve hardware it changes it up some, but Google does not spend near the amount of time in development of things behind closed doors as Apple does.
TV2 release. $229 list for the Boxee and $299 list for the Revue.
