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Microsoft Says Google Trying To Undermine Windows Phone

First time accepted submitter Bent Spoke writes "In a bit of delicious irony, Microsoft laments Google is not playing fair by excluding access to meta-data on YouTube, preventing the development of the kind of powerful app readily available on Android. From the article: 'In a blog post on Wednesday, Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Dave Heiner said the software giant has spent two years trying to get a first-class YouTube app running on Windows Phone, but to no avail, thanks to the Chocolate Factory's stonewalling. "YouTube apps on the Android and Apple platforms were two of the most downloaded mobile applications in 2012, according to recent news reports," Heiner wrote. "Yet Google still refuses to allow Windows Phone users to have the same access to YouTube that Android and Apple customers enjoy."'"

476 comments

  1. What goes around comes around by mrpacmanjel · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Microsoft, you have just experienced the concept known as "khama".

    1. Re:What goes around comes around by YukariHirai · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Indeed. Given what Microsoft has done to undermine other operating systems and their vendors, it is amusing to see the same thing done to them and them crying foul.

    2. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Khama, Sir Seretse |käm|
      (1921–80), Botswanan statesman; prime minister of Bechuanaland 1965 and first president of Botswana 1966–80.

      Quite the strange concept to experience NO DOUBT!

    3. Re:What goes around comes around by gigaherz · · Score: 0

      GAH! I can't +insightful and +funny at the same time, and I couldn't decide which to use, so I decided to reply instead... ;_;

    4. Re:What goes around comes around by MurukeshM · · Score: 3, Informative

      I believe you mean 'karma'.

    5. Re:What goes around comes around by MMC+Monster · · Score: 5, Funny

      He was a bitch.

      --
      Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
    6. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed they did. This is for all the crappy stuff you did to Novell, Corel, Adobe...

    7. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bullshit! Microsoft has experience karma already by paying large fees in courts.

    8. Re:What goes around comes around by guitarMan666 · · Score: 5, Funny

      Maybe he's from Boston?

    9. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Fees so large that they were dwarfed by the profits made by the unethical and illegal behavior.

    10. Re:What goes around comes around by blind+biker · · Score: 1

      I believe you mean 'karma'.

      Non-western Buddhists indeed use the word "kamma" for "karma".

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    11. Re:What goes around comes around by EETech1 · · Score: 3, Funny

      I believe it's Baaastin...

      Cheers!

    12. Re:What goes around comes around by coofercat · · Score: 1

      It's one of those smushed marketing words. It's a combination of "khazi" (meaning toilet) and karma, meaning, well, karma.

      http://www.encyclo.co.uk/define/Kharzi

    13. Re:What goes around comes around by 1s44c · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Indeed. Given what Microsoft has done to undermine other operating systems and their vendors, it is amusing to see the same thing done to them and them crying foul.

      I'll admit it's very amusing but I'm morally torn on this one. Is it right to do wickedness to wicked people just because they would do the same to you?

      They say turnabout is fair play but they also say be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.

    14. Re:What goes around comes around by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      Maybe he's from Boston?

      Khama only applies to Boston Brahmin.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    15. Re:What goes around comes around by smittyoneeach · · Score: 1

      The 1972 operation at Allianz Worldwide Care marked the first gender re-assignment surgery ever performed to take a dog from hound to bitch.
      Asked exactly why an otherwise astute investor would spend such a pretty penny (the fee was rumored to be £50,000) on a completely useless veterinary act, George Soros presaged a later villain: "He has failed me for the last time."

      --
      Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
    16. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      As in chameleon?

    17. Re:What goes around comes around by davydagger · · Score: 0

      where are mod points when I need them

      +1

      MS is the last company to complain about "fair".

      The latest victim "Nokia" wants to know.

    18. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft, you have just experienced the concept known as "khama".

      "Khama" is an attack of mispelled punctuation. I believe "Kharma" is the word you are looking for... :-)

    19. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft, you have just experienced the concept known as "khama".

      "Khama" is an attack of mispelled punctuation. I believe "Kharma" is the word you are looking for... :-)

      "Kharma" - oops... lol

    20. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      by that you mean virtually only Japan?

    21. Re:What goes around comes around by TWX · · Score: 1

      Nah, it doesn't come and go...

      --
      Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
    22. Re:What goes around comes around by babblefrog · · Score: 1

      Some do. One is Pali, one is Sanskrit. In my experience, Theravada Buddhists use Pali, and Mahayana use Sanskrit vocabulary.

    23. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Only by Pali speakers, the original Sanskrit word contains an R. (Though many early Buddhist texts are written in Pali) The concept is brahamanic, which no Buddhist would dispute.

    24. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or, more accurately, Buddhists who use the Pali Canon, primarily the Theravada school. Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, and most other traditions use the Sanskrit word "karma" from which the Pali word "kamma" is derived. It has nothing to do with Western or otherwise.

    25. Re:What goes around comes around by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      I'll admit it's very amusing but I'm morally torn on this one. Is it right to do wickedness to wicked people just because they would do the same to you?

      No.

      That you asked the question makes me think you dont understand what "moral" means.

    26. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      A Boston brahmin. OH SNAP!

    27. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kamma kamma kamma kamma kamma chameleon.....

    28. Re:What goes around comes around by gmuslera · · Score: 1

      No, they already know what is karma. Microsoft employees and directors are being forced to use Windows 8, now when Ballmer yells Developers! and throw chairs really mean to hit them for what they did. Google, please, can't you feel their pain? Don't make them suffer even more.

    29. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who are "they"? Why do you listen to them?

    30. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      khama, khama, khama, khama chameleon...

    31. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Non-western Buddhists indeed use the word "kamma" for "karma".

      That's nice, but the post was in English, and the English word is "karma".

    32. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft, you have just experienced the concept known as "khama".

      Well now they now what it feels like and they dont like it Ohh didums are the naughty non windows world making it hard for you shame guess what
      Suck it the Fuck in shirtlifters@ms

    33. Re:What goes around comes around by HeckRuler · · Score: 0

      Is it right to do wickedness to wicked people just because they would do the same to you?

      When it's Microsoft, yes.

      Also, it's "have done", past tense. They have done the same to me and mine.

    34. Re:What goes around comes around by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      To me, the question is, do you treat others as wickedly as you treat the original wicked person. If you're teaching the original wicked person a lesson, then turning around and treating everyone else fairly, I have difficulty arguing against it. If you treat everyone as badly, then that's just perpetuating the same wickedness and (IMO) you're even worse than the original.

    35. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft is free to write their own applet using the API calls and UI doctrine of their choice.

      All this means is that they are incompetent at application development.

    36. Re:What goes around comes around by 1s44c · · Score: 1

      I'll admit it's very amusing but I'm morally torn on this one. Is it right to do wickedness to wicked people just because they would do the same to you?

      No.

      That you asked the question makes me think you dont understand what "moral" means.

      Fair enough answer but there is a difference between knowing what something means and being that thing.

    37. Re:What goes around comes around by jellomizer · · Score: 1

      Yea it sucks to the maker that doesn't have the majority of third party software.

      No matter how good or bad your product is, It needs to have the majority of software in order for it to be popular.

      --
      If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
    38. Re:What goes around comes around by bdwebb · · Score: 1

      Wickedness is now equal to not helping create a smooth functioning YouTube app? SOMEONE SOUND THE ALARM BELLS!!!

      I understand what you're saying but the way I read it, Google isn't doing anything but preventing other players in the market from using their service without properly licensing it. The article is pretty sensationalist (from the Register of course) and seems like it is making quite a few assumptions. Nowhere does it say that Google has refused Microsoft's efforts to license the tech. Even if that is the case, maybe a *tsk* *tsk* @ Google but calling it wickedness is a bit silly IMO...ultimately it is good business to keep competition between the already established players in the market. Fuck Microsoft and their late starter attitude...early bird and whatnot.

    39. Re:What goes around comes around by bhartman34 · · Score: 0

      I don't think "khama" is a thing (real or not).

      Karma, on the other hand...

    40. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'll admit it's very amusing but I'm morally torn on this one. Is it right to do wickedness to wicked people just because they would do the same to you?

      I think the general spirit of good "justice" systems can be applied here. First we stop them from doing additional harm and then we try to rehabilitate them. If rehabilitation is shown to be prohibitively hard we keep them separated (e.g. imprisoned or dead) from our valued assets (people, property, etc).

      Microsoft has repeatedly shown itself to be a destructive force to innovation where ever they're successful. Since rehabilitating them is prohibitively hard, we try to keep them out of new markets. All I can say is: Microsoft, try not to drop the soap.

    41. Re:What goes around comes around by hairyfeet · · Score: 0

      No they didn't, and its "karma" not "khama". The simple fact is the moronic Ballmernator killed Windows phone before the first unit ever shipped. You see the carriers want to take a page out of Ballmer's book and "Fucking kill Skype" because it cuts into the hefty profits they make, Ballmer like an idiot bought Skype (for waaaay too much money) and now the carriers wouldn't piss on a Windows phone if you gave it to them free.

      Is Google being dickish about YouTube? Probably, after all like Ballmer and Skype they too paid waaay too much money for the thing and want to squeeze every last penny out of the property, but they might as well not bother screwing WinPhone because Ballmer did a better job than they ever could. I don't think in all my years in tech I've seen a company run THAT poorly before, but Ballmer can bitch and whine all he wants because as long as MSFT owns Skype you can give it up chuck, the phones ain't going nowhere.

      --
      ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
    42. Re:What goes around comes around by datavirtue · · Score: 1
      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    43. Re:What goes around comes around by pseudorand · · Score: 1

      Morally torn? Don't be a Google fanboy -- Google is totally in the wrong on this one.

      I like Google as much as the next geek, and I'm appreciative of all they do. But I'm a consumer first. I WANT Windows Phone to no suck quite so bad. I WANT lots of good options in the smart phone market. If Windows Phone dies, it should be because M$ screwed their metro-sexual UI, not because lack of Youtube kept people from buying it even though they liked the other features.

      As consumers, we shouldn't play favorites or they'll walk all over us. That's what Apple does. Because they've got loads of Apple fanboys they get to overcharge for hardware with mostly the same specs and software that's just as buggy as most everything else out there.

      The concept of 'brand' should be dead. Consumers should buy and use the best product without even looking at the company who made it. And we should demand that if Google wants to let us watch Youtube for free (or for sitting through commercials) it should let us do so on the device of our choice, not put up barriers to try to funnel consumers into their (often crappy) Android devices.

    44. Re:What goes around comes around by davester666 · · Score: 1

      Kamma Kamma Chameleon song by Culture Club totally makes sense now.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    45. Re:What goes around comes around by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      It's hard to say, but there's a few caveats here:
      1) Microsoft is not a person. It's a corporation. Despite what Mitt Romney says, corporations are not people. I don't really have a problem with someone doing something mean to MS, because they've earned it, and they've done much worse things over and over and over again throughout their history. If Google gets in trouble for this, it isn't fair, because MS never got in serious trouble for their antics. You can't let one entity get away with murder and then punish others for the same thing that affects the one that profited unfairly.
      2) Google isn't really doing anything "wicked" here. They're just denying them a bit of information. It's not like they're assassinating MS executives or hacking into their systems and wreaking havoc. And again, I think they have that right, due to MS's prior actions which have been very similar.

    46. Re:What goes around comes around by Grishnakh · · Score: 1

      Yes, exactly. As long as you're decent to everyone else (until they give you a good reason not to be), I have no problem with treating a wicked person poorly. They've brought it on themselves, and they don't deserve to be treated well. Even back in ancient times, tribes of humans have treated bad people poorly in some way, in order to protect the rest of the tribe. If their crime wasn't great enough to kill them outright, they could just "shun" them, and cast them out. There's nothing wrong with that; if you can't act properly within a group, the group is under no obligation to keep you around and help you.

    47. Re:What goes around comes around by Darinbob · · Score: 1

      Depends upon if the wicked person has stopped their former wicked ways and apologized.

    48. Re:What goes around comes around by Yvanhoe · · Score: 1

      I am as amused as anyone, but it is still wrong on Google's side.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    49. Re:What goes around comes around by DuckDodgers · · Score: 1

      I understand your point, but consider that Microsoft doesn't blink at suing Android device makers for patent infringement. If some other search company, like DuckDuckGo or whatever, was withholding access to APIs from Microsoft for no reason, it would be a case of Microsoft being in the right and the other side being wrong.

      In this case, it's just a battle. "You sue my partners to get some money and make products with my software more expensive? Fine, I block your API access to the most popular video sharing website on the net. Here's the licensing requirement for API access to Youtube: stop suing Android manufacturers, and it's all yours."

    50. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unfortunately, this actually affects WP users. Granted, here on ./ the mentality is that anyone who chooses to use WP should be skinned alive and burned, so I doubt anyone is going to awknowledge that this is actually a problem. That said, Google probably has a good reason for doing what they are doing. I'll wait and see how they respond.

    51. Re:What goes around comes around by sjames · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't say it's right, but it also isn't right for MS to complain at all about the same behavior they have claimed is acceptable when they do it until they have at the very least fully repented including a public confession of prior wrong-doing and demonstrated their new resolve through positive actions.

      As a mitigating factor, MS has been using patent shenanigans to grab a piece of every Android phone, it's not too hard to understand Google not wanting MS to use more of Google's work for their own profit.

    52. Re:What goes around comes around by Sigg3.net · · Score: 1

      Anyone else read that as "Caaame aaan!" ?

    53. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Nokia. Nokia is dead on Windows Phone and breaking free from Elopgate with Ubuntuphone looks good to me.

    54. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      (Shrug) What does 'moral' mean, anyway? It's just an expression of society's collective opinion at a particular time and place. There's no objectivity behind it.

      Do as you will shall be the Whole of the Law has nothing to do with Laveyan Satanism, it's the code that Microsoft lives by. Live by the code, die by the code. Morality has nothing to do with it.

    55. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If Google gets in trouble for this, it isn't fair, because MS never got in serious trouble for their antics. You can't let one entity get away with murder and then punish others for the same thing that affects the one that profited unfairly.

      Holy shit could there be any more of a Google fanboy than you? Where have you been for the last 10 years? Obviously not in the computer industry. They were convicted of being a monopolist, have had to shell out billions of dollars in fines, had years of anti-trust oversight and in europe they aren't even allowed to ship their operating system with their own default browser. If you really believe what you've written you're either a blind fanboy or you're just completely ignorant of the facts.

      2) Google isn't really doing anything "wicked" here. They're just denying them a bit of information.

      Oh right, just like Microsoft did to Intuit, they just denied them a bit of information, obviously that wasn't ok and you're double standards will tell you it wasn't ok but the only reason is because it's Microsoft, and the only reason it's ok in this case is because it's Google.

      Both are terrible players in business and both engage in terribly unethical behavior, but people like you have been lured in by Google and drink the koolaid such that you'll believe anything Google shoves down your throat. FWIW there were (and probably still are) those who will tell you that Microsoft did nothing wrong by denying them a bit of information, but those people are just as ignorant and biased as you are.

    56. Re:What goes around comes around by fido_dogstoyevsky · · Score: 1

      Indeed. Given what Microsoft has done to undermine other operating systems and their vendors, it is amusing to see the same thing done to them and them crying foul.

      I'll admit it's very amusing but I'm morally torn on this one. Is it right to do wickedness to wicked people just because they would do the same to you?

      They say turnabout is fair play but they also say be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.

      Is it the only way to deal with a monster that has not only regularly done this in the past (as Plan A) but gives every impression of regularly doing it in the future (Y/N)?

      Killing the monster may not be pleasant but it really looks like being necessary.

      --
      It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
    57. Re:What goes around comes around by blind+biker · · Score: 1

      Or, more accurately, Buddhists who use the Pali Canon, primarily the Theravada school. Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, and most other traditions use the Sanskrit word "karma" from which the Pali word "kamma" is derived. It has nothing to do with Western or otherwise.

      I do admit that I have experience almost exclusively with Theravada Buddhism and Buddhists. Thank you for informing me.

      --
      "The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
    58. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Indeed. Given what Microsoft has done to undermine other operating systems and their vendors, it is amusing to see the same thing done to them and them crying foul.

      I'll admit it's very amusing but I'm morally torn on this one. Is it right to do wickedness to wicked people just because they would do the same to you?

      They say turnabout is fair play but they also say be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.

      "Either you die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." (Gotham City District Attorney Harvey "Two-Face" Dent)

    59. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Karma is a Sanskrit term. Kamma is a Pali word, which was the language of the Buddha during his time. It is a term used commonly in Theravadan Buddishm, a branch which translates literally as "the teaching of the elders". It is a branch that sticks the closest to the Buddha's original teaching.

      Both words mean the same thing, although the Buddha had a slightly different take on it than was conventional at the time. For example. in the Hindu Vedas, it is possible to slaughter a goat ritualistically without it creating bad kamma. The Buddha refuted this, saying that there was no way to "purify" a deed - killing living beings intentionally would always constitute bad kamma.

    60. Re:What goes around comes around by LulzAndOrder · · Score: 1

      wrong, "tit for tat" strategy in game theory is, in addition to be optimal, entirely friendly, fair, and universally at least as moral as any other ethical code. Christians may be required to turn the other cheek, but that's not the only definition of morality.

    61. Re:What goes around comes around by Dextrously · · Score: 1

      The answer to that is 'no'. There is plenty of evil in the world without anyone helping to add to it. If bad things happen to bad people, so be it, but no one should become an avatar of the distasteful and evil willingly. We become what we regularly do, and if you do evil regularly, no matter the reason, you will become evil.

      History has shown time and time again, that you need not become evil to defeat it. Martin Luther King, Jr. birthday is coming up, and he should be a big reminder of what it means to stand up against injustice without sacrificing your own ideals. I say this in a poetic way, not in a literal or religious one: A victory at the cost of the soul, is no victory at all.

    62. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      microsoft is just big baby huey - cry babies - innovate dumb asses -- don't cry to mama...

    63. Re:What goes around comes around by DirtyLiar · · Score: 1

      Yes, certain phrases seem to come to mind...

      What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
      Turn-about is fair play.
      Sewing what you reap.
      Reaping the whirlwind.
      Your chickens are coming home to roost.
      You've made your bed, now lay in it.

      Hypocratic basterds.

      I'm pleased to see them getting a small fraction of what they've got coming.

      --

      THINK! It's patriotic

    64. Re:What goes around comes around by Baki · · Score: 1

      It is not wicked but just practical: We all know what MSFT would do once they'd get a big smartphone market share: exactly the same and worse. So lets try to hinder windows phone.

    65. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft is not people, it is a company, but the wicked things now are done to the people. The people who did the wicked things at microsoft are now long gone, so this whole goes-around-comes-around BS makes no utter sense whatsoever. It's like you bought a car that someone used to make an accident, and then some dude comes up to you and knives you WTF %-]]]

    66. Re:What goes around comes around by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The lack of a fully functioning YouTube app is not what keeps Windows Phone from not sucking.

      Give them all the meta-data and Windows Phone still sucks and is still a failure.

  2. User Agent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Doing lots of assumptions here, but I was under the impression that simply changing the user agent string to match a known good/working one solves most hassles with web services. Is there any other reason MS can't make their app work?

    1. Re:User Agent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Incompetence?

    2. Re:User Agent? by Issarlk · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Lawyers?

    3. Re:User Agent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

      Airborne chairs?

    4. Re:User Agent? by ultrasawblade · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Desire to have "Microsoft" or "Windows" in user agent string at any cost?

    5. Re:User Agent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Airborne chairs?

      Yes, AI guided Airborne Chairs.

    6. Re:User Agent? by Sockatume · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not an issue with the web service, but the absence of a native application and Google's refusal to provide the tools by which a thirdparty developer could create one.

      That said, it's Google's ball, they don't have to share if they don't want to. I suspect it has more to do with Windows Phone's small installed base than an effort to disadvantage WP. As iOS shows, Google wants to make money off other people's hardware.

      --
      No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
    7. Re:User Agent? by Alien+Being · · Score: 1

      Their two weapons are incompetence and lawyers.

    8. Re:User Agent? by Alien+Being · · Score: 5, Funny

      Their weapons are incompetence, lawyers and flying chairs.

    9. Re:User Agent? by Alien+Being · · Score: 1

      That's their chief weapon... incompetence.

    10. Re:User Agent? by SiChemist · · Score: 1

      No mod points, so I just have to say, "I see what you did there..."

    11. Re:User Agent? by SiChemist · · Score: 1

      Aaaand, I replied to the wrong comment. This day is off to a fantastic start.

    12. Re:User Agent? by S.O.B. · · Score: 1

      I thought their two weapons were surprise and fear.

      --
      Some of what I say is fact, some is conjecture, the rest I'm just blowing out my ass...you guess.
    13. Re:User Agent? by Sique · · Score: 1

      Steve Ballmer is an AI?

      --
      .sig: Sique *sigh*
    14. Re:User Agent? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's all Netstats, netstats, netstats

  3. 3 users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm sure the 3 WP users are extremely upset over this.

    1. Re:3 users by clark0r · · Score: 1

      oh snap!

    2. Re:3 users by RaceProUK · · Score: 1

      I'm sure the 3 WP users are extremely upset over this.

      I can't speak for the other two, but I personally don't really care about this. Can I view the videos on my phone? Yes. That's all I need to know :)

      --
      No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
    3. Re:3 users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I might be one of them! The youtube app on market is just the mobile version of their web page with a side bar to manage personal settings, probably also part of the web page. It is completely usable and I don't think you could ever want more on a phone.

    4. Re:3 users by Quanticfx · · Score: 1

      I agree with you, but I don't know about the other guy.

    5. Re:3 users by Urkki · · Score: 1

      I agree with you, but I don't know about the other guy.

      Impostor! I'm the WP user you claim to be! But I don't know what the third thinks about this, either...

    6. Re:3 users by bkaul01 · · Score: 1

      As one of the others, I'm with you. The website works fine in IE, and the videos play. I'm not worried about whether a separate "app" exists to duplicate that functionality. It is interesting that Microsoft is calling Google out for being evil (they've also intentionally broken Gmail access by Windows Phone on multiple occasions), but from a user perspective, the YouTube thing isn't really a big deal.

    7. Re:3 users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Number two here. While there's no dedicated youtube app, videos play just fine otherwise. You can navigate to the site and basically use their mobile-browser version. Had to do some youtubing last night - not as good as on my android tab, but functional.

    8. Re:3 users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I just picked up a Lumia 822 and was disappointed to only see *one* Google app (Search). Last year Google released the following major updates or applications for iOS: Chrome, YouTube, GMail, Drive, and YouTube Capture. Not a single one is available for Windows Phone (afaik, Google refuses to even develop the applications as well). If you want customers to like a company, don't be an asshat to other companies. Hell, Microsoft even released a SkyDrive SDK/API just for Android: https://github.com/liveservices/LiveSDK-for-Android/. Regardless of a Microsoft's past, it's extremely disappointing to see Google not offering their best experience on all platforms.

    9. Re:3 users by kimvette · · Score: 1

      3 users? Wow, that's 50% userbase growth since last month!

      --
      The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
    10. Re:3 users by bhartman34 · · Score: 1

      Why would WordPerfect users be upset? ;)

  4. L'Arroseur Arrosé by hugetoon · · Score: 3, Funny

    That's how it is called in French :D

    1. Re:L'Arroseur Arrosé by alexhs · · Score: 2

      You should have linked to the YouTube video which, sadly, Microsoft doesn't seem able to access.

      --
      I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
  5. Maybe google already knows the punchline by joeflies · · Score: 5, Funny

    Namely they already know what happens when you let Microsoft embrace your APis. They already know what happens next, and would like to avoid that future

    1. Re:Maybe google already knows the punchline by Eirenarch · · Score: 1

      Yeah Google does not allow Microsoft client access to their APIs because they are afraid MS can extend them... from the client.

    2. Re:Maybe google already knows the punchline by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    3. Re:Maybe google already knows the punchline by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      Your post was modded funny, but I think it should have been modded insightful. There are more than a handful of former Microsoft Partners who have been completely screwed over by Microsoft.

    4. Re:Maybe google already knows the punchline by dave87656 · · Score: 1

      How true. Sybase comes to mind. After Microsoft ended their "cooperative" venture, the Microsoft SQL Server was so similar to Sybase that you could use the sybase driver to access it. They didn't just copy the code, they stole it according to industry analysts at the time.

  6. Fair for the goose... by jbernardo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Maybe, just maybe, Microsoft shouldn't be complaining so much when they block or use non-standard protocols on their devices, in particular WP ones:

    - Skydrive, the more or less standard way to get stuff in and out of Windows Phones, doesn't implement WebDAV in a open manner, making it difficult to use with Linux or BSD;

    - The hardware search button in Windows Phone is tied to bing, and users can't change it;

    - Windows Phone doesn't support standard protocols (standard MTP, USB file access) to access its filesystem, so it doesn't play well with Linux or BSD;

    - Windows RT and Windows Phone specify a locked bootloader, so that users can't install anything else on their devices;

    I could go on and on here, but these 4 examples should be enough... They really should fix their act before complaining that others aren't playing fair.

    1. Re:Fair for the goose... by Nerdfest · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm sorry, but accessible mass storage is an anachronism? So, users are *supposed* to be forced to access their devices through proprietary clients only, forcing them to be tied to single marketplaces, 'approved' OSes, etc? Somebody's been drinking the Apple Kool-aid.

    2. Re:Fair for the goose... by 21mhz · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, but accessible mass storage is an anachronism?

      A file-based access protocol, such as MTP, is not.
      The USB mass storage profile, block device level access which basically forces the media to be formatted as FAT to be interoperable, is.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    3. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm sorry, but accessible mass storage is an anachronism?

      A file-based access protocol, such as MTP, is not.
      The USB mass storage profile, block device level access which basically forces the media to be formatted as FAT to be interoperable, is.

      Isn't the reason you are forced to FAT that the other FS aren't readily available on windows? And that ntfs on other systems can't ever be to microsoft's specs?

    4. Re:Fair for the goose... by jbernardo · · Score: 4, Informative

      - Skydrive, the more or less standard way to get stuff in and out of Windows Phones, doesn't implement WebDAV in a open manner, making it difficult to use with Linux or BSD;

      I'll give you that. Meanwhile, enjoy your Google Drive over WebDAV... oh, you don't have that either.

      No, but I can easily access the files I have on my Android phone, using either USB mass storage or standard MTP. No need to use a cloud service. And, an added advantage over WP7.x (never used 8) is that other cloud services work, with automatic synchronization of folders. On WP7.x you need to copy files by hand, at least with Dropbox and Box.

      Windows Phone 8 does support standard MTP? USB mass storage is an anachronysm.

      I haven't tried yet WP8, but 7.x doesn't support standard MTP, only a hacked non-compatible Microsoft variant.

      BTW, USB mass storage isn't an anachronism, it is just the easiest way to transfer things; in Linux it just works, in windows it just works. MTP has too many quirks and one of my peeves with the recent android releases is that it is used by default, forcing one to resort to workarounds to get the device working in mass storage mode.

    5. Re:Fair for the goose... by jbernardo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yes, they *should*... but regarding this specific instance/thing... why should MS have to change 10s/100s of things not related to Google to use one of Google's things. A thing that is really easy for Google to do, and will make them profit?

      Why shouldn't they? Why are they asking for a standard access to a third party API when they don't follow standards, and even distort them for their own profit? Besides, what profit would Google have in changing their APIs to cater to an almost non-existing smartphone OS? Why not first focus on Bada or Symbian or RIM, which still have bigger market share than Windows Phone?

      PS: I got an Android phone in the meantime. The WP phone was a gift, and it works well as my second phone - receiving calls and SMSs, basically working as a dumb phone.

    6. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They really should fix their act before complaining that others aren't playing fair.

      I think that's their point. "We deserve special privileges. We're Microsoft.." ..
      "..oh wait we've been defunct, irrelevant, and obsolete for over 1,000 years.." (at some distant point in the year 3013)

    7. Re:Fair for the goose... by Pieroxy · · Score: 2

      Microsoft shill much eh?

      They proved that they are willing to lock things down from competitors, and they are complaining that competitors lock things down from them. Don't you see a bit of double talk there? They've been acting repeatedly a lot worse than whatever Google is doing regarding their Youtube API, so they should just shut the fuck up.

      Before criticizing your neighbor's lawn, mow your own.

    8. Re:Fair for the goose... by Eirenarch · · Score: 0

      Standards have nothing to do here. There are APIs that Google hides from the competition and uses to strengthen its own OS. If you are looking for analogy it is not MS's use of non-standard whatever. The right analogy is Internet Explorer using undocumented Windows APIs to gain advantage over Netscape or Microsoft not releasing documentation for server (Exchange if I recall correctly) software and thus preventing other companies for developing competing clients. Standards or non-standards it doesn't matter. All that matters here is that WP devices are not given access to the APIs while Android and iOS devices are.

      Also all this only matters when the product in question is in a monopoly market position. WP can have all the special MS only stuff it wants as it is obvious that locking something out of WP would not influence the market. However YouTube is in a monopoly position and denying access to its APIs can certainly provide unfair advantage to Android.

    9. Re:Fair for the goose... by Eirenarch · · Score: 1

      No. They should sue Google and make them pay up and comply like they were sued and forced to pay and comply.

    10. Re:Fair for the goose... by higuita · · Score: 2

      you can use UDF, all modern OS support it, both read and write.

      the only problem is windows XP, but that is easy, windows XP users require a driver... that can be on the device, as it can read UDF, just cant write to it.

      There, problem solved, no need for FAT.

      Of course, MS could also support OTHER filesystems, as they are the blocking factor. Things like ufs and ext2 are well tested and somewhat simple to support

      --
      Higuita
    11. Re:Fair for the goose... by gbjbaanb · · Score: 1

      in a way USB mass storage is the wrong thing - it exposes the underlying device in block mode, meaning both device and client cannot access it at the same time (they should get a cluster filesystem on these things, but I guess they never thought you could plug a USB device into 2 'ports' at once).

      MTP does expose the underlying files in the filesystem of the client's choice (as I understand it), so it might have quirks, but at least its trying to be the right thing.

    12. Re:Fair for the goose... by Alioth · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Using undocumented APIs is something that Microsoft's done in the past too, to gain unfair advantage.

      Also, back in the day Microsoft smarmily said "We'll port Office to OS/2 only when there's enough users" (knowing full well that no MS Office on OS/2 would help to hamper OS/2's adoption rates). Now it's their turn to take the medicine. I'm sure Google will use the same argument for not porting the YouTube app to Windows Phone.

    13. Re:Fair for the goose... by t0rkm3 · · Score: 2

      Huh... it's still standard enough that all of my linux devices can sync to it... along with my Android devices. So your response is a canard.

      USB mass storage an anachronism? Definitely showing the lace of your shill bloomers. It's a useful tool, one that should be standard across the board.

      The button is a linked to a keyboard action (more or less), and you should be able to change keyboard actions... So, yes I am glad that MS is getting reamed. May the pain continue.

    14. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, how much MS offered to pay for access and why Google refused? Must Google serve those API requests at a loss?

      These are APIs that run on Google's servers and cost them money for every request somebody sends them (CPU cycles and net bytes are not free, you know). Exchange servers would be run on customers' hardware and cost MS nothing to allow access to the API. Your analogy fails.

      I hear "denying access", but nowhere it mentions what they did to try and get access.

    15. Re:Fair for the goose... by Eirenarch · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Yes Microsoft has been using undocumented APIs and they have been taken to court over this and lost. Then they were forced to pay and comply. Same should happen to Google.

      Also note that MS is not asking Google to create YouTube app. They are asking to not be banned from using the APIs (it is not even about documentation). If we need to follow the Office analogy it would be like releasing the Office document formats (which Microsoft has done).

    16. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who gives a fuck about BSD anymore? This isn't the 60's.

    17. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      adb push like a man.

    18. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MS isn't asking google to port their youtube app to WP7,8 , it is asking to get access to the API's their own apps are using so they can create a wp youtube app with normal capabilities, instead of a wrapper around a website.

    19. Re:Fair for the goose... by jbernardo · · Score: 1

      This I can understand, it is a valid argument for using MTP instead of USB mass storage. If only MTP wasn't so unreliable on my arch linux netbook...

    20. Re:Fair for the goose... by lofoforabr · · Score: 4, Informative

      Just as a sidenote, Android Jelly Bean axes USB Mass Storage, in favor of MTP.

      The main problem with block device level access is that you can't access it from 2 places simultaneously, so it means the filesystem must be unmounted from the phone to be mounted on the PC.

      Yes, USB Mass Storage support is everywhere, and getting MTP to work isn't as easy, but I guess it will get better fast.

    21. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's stretching it a bit to say that Windows XP is a 'modern' OS. It's 11 years old...

    22. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Porting a filesystem between UNIX and Windows driver models is highly non-trivial. A Windows filesystem has to interact correctly with the cache manager and Windows uses an async messaging stack where UNIX filesystems can block and use threads. There is therefore a huge inversion of control issue. Finally, Windows and UNIX have different concepts of users and permissions, which would have to be mapped somehow. ufs and ext2 would not be well tested in that scenario, nor simple to support (nor would they be any kind of improvement over the existing options; you'd need to go at least ext3 to make it worthwhile).

      OTOH, Microsoft keep their filesystem DK under lock and key, which is why there are virtually zero open-source filesystems for Windows, so they definitely are the blocking factor, whichever way you look at it.

    23. Re:Fair for the goose... by Nerdfest · · Score: 1

      Of course, you can always support both.

    24. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Their chances of winning against google for this are easily zero. Telling you right now, there is no antitrust or monopoly with youtube. Why? Anyone can upload videos to all sorts of sites. There is competition, and they don't have to change anything involving the API. They set rules, MS isn't following them.

      Or, MS could use that, you know, HTML5 thing - which youtube is fully capable of, is officially documented, and well - basically, exists. So remind me where the problem is? Why, it's almost like adding a query to the end of a video link would solve the issue. My, that must be hard for MS to implement. http://www.htmlgoodies.com/html5/tutorials/how-to-view-html5-videos-on-youtube.html#fbid=CrVosNh7OjW

      MS has used operating system lock-ins, and it goes further with RT. Just wait till courts get around to the locked bootloader issue. You do know that they day they do is the official MS death knell, right?

    25. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I also have a Microsoft webcam (or "lifecam" as they call it) that comes with a single button on top that is tied to MSN chat and prompts me to install it every time I accidentally press it. I also haven't figured out a way to change it or disable it.

    26. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 2

      It is still the most widely used (though maybe only outside the USA).

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    27. Re:Fair for the goose... by Eirenarch · · Score: 0

      Well I hope they do take them to court. I doubt they want to though. Even if they win in 5 year the mobile OS wars will be over anyway. Also either me or you (or probably both) do not understand what monopoly means in legal terms. To me stating that there is competition to youtube is like stating there is competition to Windows (in the 90s) After all Linux and Mac OS did exist back then.

      WP has several apps based on the mobile site or based on crawling the HTML but they want a full featured native app like iOS and Android have.

      WinRT has in no way dominant market position so I doubt anyone would win anything over the bootloader issue. If anything MS wants to have problems with that. That would mean they've actually sold a significant number of RT devices.

    28. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1
      you can always support both.

      Nope: Only Captain Sensible can do that!

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    29. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 2
      You mean do what they have refused to do to everyone else?

      I think it is time to administer their medicine: a red hot poker up the posterior!

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    30. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MTP is built into windows, Google provides an OS X download for Apple users, and Linux users would be using mtpfs.

      It's not ideal, but if it hastens the death of FAT and MS's money machine for extended file names, I'm all in favour of it. Had MS not been granted and enforced their file name BS, MTP wouldn't have come anywhere near Android.

    31. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If we need to follow the Office analogy it would be like releasing the Office document formats (which Microsoft has done).

      That's wrong. What MS has released is very incomplete and contains binary blobs that are not defined. Either due to their standard operating procedure to make it nearly impossible to interoperate, or their own incompetance. The net result is the same either way, there are no MS-Office format specs you can use to be 100% compatible.

    32. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MTP is much better than UMS.

      No, it isn't a problem that you don't get a ExtSdCard (MicroSD card) mounted on device when you mount it to computer to transfer big files to it.
      But it is a huge problem that when you are forced to have UMS to transfer files, you are tied to USB 1.1 speeds (150kt/s) to copy files.

      Even listing directory tree is damn slow over UMS when compared to MTP where you just see it.

      If you copy a 150MB file over MTP and UMS, the difference is that MTP transfer it in about 45 seconds for Class 4 card.
      Using UMS to transfer it it takes about 5 minutes to do so.

      Quess which one you like to use?

      Do you want to quickly get data off/on your card and be done it. Or do you want to be sitting next to your device waiting that transfer is completed?

      I more likely even use WiFi server to copy files than USB2 cable!!!

    33. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But Google isn't banning Microsoft.

      Google offers EVERY THIRD PARTY (that means Microsoft as well) API for Youtube WWW service.
      EVERY ONE ELSE HAS EXACTLY SAME RIGHTS AS MICROSOFT.

      Others are not whining but have made apps.

      What Microsoft now wants, is to get apps from Google so they would get Windows Phone exactly the same experience as does WWW browser users on desktop.

      Hey, not even Android or IOS users get Youtube app what has all functions as Youtube WWW service as Google use SAME APIS AS IT OFFERS EVERYONE ELSE!

      So Microsoft is actually whining that Google has banned itself from developing a native Youtube app with all API.

    34. Re:Fair for the goose... by Missing.Matter · · Score: 1

      Skydrive, the more or less standard way to get stuff in and out of Windows Phones

      Wrong, Windows Phone 8 mounts specific folders on the phone. I can trasnfer documents, music, videos, pictures, and ringtones via explorer without a special client.

      http://www.gsmarena.com/windows_phone_8_to_get_mass_storage_and_screenshot_support-news-4530.php

    35. Re:Fair for the goose... by jcdr · · Score: 1

      USB mass storage is an anachronysm.

      If you never have see a USB memory or USB hard disk, then you can define yourself as a anachronism.

    36. Re:Fair for the goose... by deathguppie · · Score: 1

      Microsoft knew they would lose those court cases. Just like the huge settlement they had to pay to Mosaic for not paying licensing fees, because they gave (the browser they made from it) away for free. So if Google goes to court and has to pay Microsoft, but in the years in between windows phone has no access to youtube.. then yes Google would be playing Microsofts game. It is worth mentioning that Microsoft won using those tactics, as dirty as they were.. don't expect a lot of folks to feel sorry for them.

      --
      once more into the breach
    37. Re:Fair for the goose... by jcdr · · Score: 3, Informative

      Android Jelly Bean axes USB Mass Storage

      False claim, sorry.

      I have a Nexus S updated to Jelly Bean 4.1.2 and it happily support USB Mass Storage:

      lsusb:
      Bus 001 Device 019: ID 18d1:4e22 Google Inc. Nexus S

      dmesg:
      [1109159.988681] usb 1-1.1.4.1: new high speed USB device using ehci_hcd and address 19
      [1109160.081288] usb 1-1.1.4.1: New USB device found, idVendor=18d1, idProduct=4e22
      [1109160.081293] usb 1-1.1.4.1: New USB device strings: Mfr=2, Product=3, SerialNumber=4
      [1109160.081295] usb 1-1.1.4.1: Product: Nexus S
      [1109160.081297] usb 1-1.1.4.1: Manufacturer: samsung
      [1109160.081298] usb 1-1.1.4.1: SerialNumber:
      [1109160.081446] usb 1-1.1.4.1: configuration #1 chosen from 1 choice
      [1109160.083930] scsi12 : SCSI emulation for USB Mass Storage devices
      [1109160.084139] usb-storage: device found at 19
      [1109160.084141] usb-storage: waiting for device to settle before scanning
      [1109165.084680] usb-storage: device scan complete
      [1109165.085272] scsi 12:0:0:0: Direct-Access Google File-CD Gadget 0000 PQ: 0 ANSI: 2
      [1109165.088506] sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] Attached SCSI removable disk
      [1109274.036890] sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] 27957215 512-byte logical blocks: (14.3 GB/13.3 GiB)
      [1109274.037598] sd 12:0:0:0: [sde] Assuming drive cache: write through

    38. Re:Fair for the goose... by jcdr · · Score: 1

      in a way USB mass storage is the wrong thing - it exposes the underlying device in block mode

      While true for a lot of devices, this is not necessary a impossible problem. USB Mass Storage can expose a virtual filesystem that is different from the filesystem used on the physical memory, allowing to handle contention at the files level instead of at the blocks level.

    39. Re:Fair for the goose... by jbernardo · · Score: 1

      Wrong, Windows Phone 8 mounts specific folders on the phone. I can trasnfer documents, music, videos, pictures, and ringtones via explorer without a special client. http://www.gsmarena.com/windows_phone_8_to_get_mass_storage_and_screenshot_support-news-4530.php

      I was wondering when we would get Microsoft's take on the matter... Unfortunately I can't verify if this was really implemented as I only have WP7.8, can you please post something that is not speculation and instead is a clear confirmation that WP8 has USB mass storage support?

    40. Re:Fair for the goose... by lofoforabr · · Score: 1

      Ok, my bad, doesn't seem to be Jelly Bean related, only Samsung (I have a Galaxy S3). However, when I set it up, I remember reading somewhere about why the support was gone. However, I can't seem to find the link now.

    41. Re:Fair for the goose... by jrumney · · Score: 3, Informative

      The removal happened in 4.2 (which is also confusing called Jelly Bean).

    42. Re:Fair for the goose... by FreelanceWizard · · Score: 1

      Actually, Windows Phone 8 uses MTP for transfers to and from the computer. That's actually a source of much unhappiness among WP owners, though, since they now have to transfer everything out of Zune (which no longer works) to a different media management system -- and the Windows Phone desktop software for 8 is of questionable quality. However, that does mean that it should be much more usable on other OSes now.

      --
      The Freelance Wizard
    43. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And you are a Google shill.

      Install Linux

    44. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft Office for other platforms....

    45. Re:Fair for the goose... by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      MTP is a pain. I just want to be able to access the files on the device, as if it were a network share or something.

      MTP tries to add intelligence - it doesn't just copy files, but it tries to interpret what it is copying.

      So, if I'm running mtpfs on linux and copy a video file and try to put it in a folder the device (or maybe the driver) doesn't like, it just puts it someplace else. Oh, and if it doesn't recognize the file it might not copy it at all.

      MTP also doesn't play well with caching, so it is REALLY slow (the downside of concurrency - you can't just assume that the directory contents are the same as the last time you looked at it if you're not the only one with it mounted). That makes tab-completion a real joy.

      I don't really care if the protocol is USB mass storage or not. It just needs to be better than MTP. I wouldn't even care if it was MTP if all the software involved wasn't conspiring to outsmart me.

    46. Re:Fair for the goose... by Rich0 · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't mind MTP if they fixed a few flaws with it (or with its implementations):

      1. It needs to cache, somehow. Using tab-completion with an mtp-mounted device is PAINFUL. I can use tab completion with network shares, so why not with MTP - both have the same concurrency issues.

      2. It needs to be dumber, or at least make that configurable. If I copy a file into a directory, I want the file to go into THAT directory. I don't care if I'm putting music in a pictures directory. I don't care if the driver doesn't understand the video codec. JUST COPY THE FILE!

      I'm tempted to move to a FUSE implementation of adb at the rate things are going. I end up using adb most of the time now because MTP is just that painful. It usually works, but after copying stuff all over the place I don't want to find out an hour later after I've driven off that some file didn't quite make it, or have to hunt for a file while driving.

    47. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Their chances of winning against google for this are easily zero. Telling you right now, there is no antitrust or monopoly with youtube. Why? Anyone can upload videos to all sorts of sites.

      Right, that's what I said about Microsoft! There was no antitrust or monopoly with Windows and IE. Why? Anyone could install another web browser or operating system at any time!

      (Do you see now why your argument fails, and you completely misunderstand antitrust and monopoly law?)

    48. Re:Fair for the goose... by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1

      To be fair, Google never "opened" their API to Apple. Apple just stopped supporting Apple-made apps using Google's API. And forced GOOGLE to post the app themselves.

      That's like Apple Dropping support for MS Office formats in Pages& Numbers... And getting Microsoft to put an Office version on iPhones.

    49. Re:Fair for the goose... by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1

      When did Microsoft ever "comply". They just kept paying fines and fighting fines till the people that needed the access gave up from boredom. There are STILL not proper converters for MS Office formats in programs like LibreOffice almost a decade after said fines were levied.

    50. Re:Fair for the goose... by 21mhz · · Score: 1

      Huh... it's still standard enough that all of my linux devices can sync to it... along with my Android devices.

      By this measure, MS Office file formats are "standard enough" since I can work with them on all my Linux devices.

      USB mass storage an anachronism? Definitely showing the lace of your shill bloomers. It's a useful tool, one that should be standard across the board.

      Right... Please persuade everybody to use a standard filesystem when formatting the devices, which are pointlessly exposed at the block level. Apart from some neckbeards represented in this thread, somehow they all insist on an antiquated, proprietary Microsoft design from the 1990s.

      The button is a linked to a keyboard action (more or less), and you should be able to change keyboard actions...

      I'm not defending the dedicated Bing button (though in general hardware button customization is a gimmick), just pointing out it's not a protocol lockdown that GP made it out to be.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    51. Re:Fair for the goose... by bingoUV · · Score: 1

      This is slashdot. There's an article, called TFA, and while nobody reads it, there is a general tendency to keep the discussion limited to the title of the story, some going so far as even reading the summary and discussing about that (gasp). This one's about Microsoft, not Apple. You can use apple.slashdot.org if you can't control mentioning Apple in every sentence you type.

      --
      Bingo Dictionary - Pragmatist, n. A myopic idealist.
    52. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm having a hard time following...

      Skydrive pops files up online, where you then download the files through a web browser. That essentially makes it equal on all platforms. If you _really_ need to have a client, there are a number of WebDAV-supporting projects that sync stuff between Skydrive and your computer via a hop service. It's also most definitely not the "standard way" to access files on your phone.

      The hardware search button ties into a core part of the OS that _includes_ search results from Bing. I probably use it more often for these other functions (music, QR code scanning, OCR, Yelp-type stuff, etc.) than for searching Bing. You act as though it launches a Bing-dedicated app when it could just as easily launch a Google app without sacrificing any functionality. Swapping out just the SERP is certainly doable, but would require a little more mincing.

      Specifying a locked bootloader is a valid point of outcry about "playing unfair", but not implementing standard protocols - I argue - is within the scope of a different issue. That is, it requires active, additional work on their part, which they _aren't_ obligated to do.

    53. Re:Fair for the goose... by Pieroxy · · Score: 1

      Did I say anything good about Google here? Nope.

      Dumbass.

    54. Re:Fair for the goose... by jcdr · · Score: 1

      Did't know that. I searched more on that and found harsh comments about MTP, like on this forum:

      http://androidforums.com/motorola-droid-razr-hd-maxx-hd/658716-jelly-bean-usb-mass-storage.html

      Look like MTP is very inferior to USB Mass Storage for a lot of users that need to do a bit more than drag and drop a file. In addition, it seem to be slow.

    55. Re:Fair for the goose... by Jmc23 · · Score: 1

      duck?

      --
      Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
    56. Re:Fair for the goose... by jcdr · · Score: 1

      The main problem with block device level access is that you can't access it from 2 places simultaneously, so it means the filesystem must be unmounted from the phone to be mounted on the PC.

      If this is the only problem of USB Mass Storage, why not fixing it by exporting a virtual block device and internally handle files instead of blocks ? QEMU already can automatically create a virtual FAT disk image from a directory tree, albeit in read only mode yet. Write mode will be harder, but not impossible.

    57. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I hear slackware has MTP support.

    58. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      using undocumented APIs to preserve a monopoly by a monopolist is different than a competitor not making it easy for you to use their service.

    59. Re:Fair for the goose... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You might want to check out WP8 given your concerns about WP7. I'm able to browse the files on the phone as a device from my computer (no using zune software anymore), and do so at the same time as I'm viewing photos on my device itself (connected via USB to my computer). I'm not sure of the specifics underlying the features, but basic and parallel access are there. I do know the skydrive connection is automatic, and the 'share' option from the menu allows for arbitrary app connections so maybe your dropbox/box connections can be better supported as well?

    60. Re:Fair for the goose... by Missing.Matter · · Score: 3, Informative

      http://i.imgur.com/2Zp0G.jpg

      Need any more proof? Best part is I took the screenshot on the Ubuntu machine, moved it onto the phone via drag and drop, then uploaded it to imgur using an app.

      Also, it is very amusing to me that you imply my post is a shill, when all I'm doing is pointing out *factual errors* you somehow managed to get modded up as informative. I can manage my Lumia 920 just fine on my Ubuntu machines. By all means though, keep plugging your ears.

    61. Re:Fair for the goose... by jbernardo · · Score: 2

      You might want to check out WP8 given your concerns about WP7.

      You forget WP7 devices won't be updated to WP8. Besides, the person who gave me my WP7 phone won't be giving WP8 phones, and I really won't buy one just to check if the problems in WP7 are solved in WP8.

    62. Re:Fair for the goose... by jbernardo · · Score: 1

      Need any more proof? Best part is I took the screenshot on the Ubuntu machine, moved it onto the phone via drag and drop, then uploaded it to imgur using an app.

      That still doesn't tell me if you're using MTP or USB mass storage, which was my question. But you still manage to get modded informative when you fail to address what I asked.

      But it doesn't seem to be your only reading comprehension problem.

      1- The things you call errors are maybe errors for WP8 - but I've stated I was talking about WP7, and even asked for clarification if things had changed with WP8. Besides, despite WP8 now being apparently usable with Linux, what else has changed? Can you modify that idiotic search button so that it will show google instead of bing? Can you select folders to auto-sync in dropbox, box, or minus? Because you can't do any of these in WP7.8

      2- I didn't call you a shill. I just noticed on your postings that you are a Microsoft fan and are usually quote/defend Microsoft, so I made that jab. I didn't want to imply you were a Burston-Marsteller or Waggener Edstrom employee, so if that is what it sounded like, I apologise

      .

    63. Re:Fair for the goose... by Missing.Matter · · Score: 1

      That still doesn't tell me if you're using MTP or USB mass storage, which was my question.

      Honestly, before this discussion I didn't know the difference; all I knew was I plug in my phone and I get a directory I can copy files into. Upon further inspection it appears as if the protocol is MTP. So I apologize as I was conflating the concepts of MTP and USB mass storage.

      Besides, despite WP8 now being apparently usable with Linux, what else has changed? Can you modify that idiotic search button so that it will show google instead of bing? Can you select folders to auto-sync in dropbox, box, or minus? Because you can't do any of these in WP7.

      You cannot modify the hardware search button but you can modify the default search engine in the browser and set it to Google. I don't know about any of your other questions since I don't use those services. I wasn't implying that any of those were factual errors, as I quoted specifically what I was replying to. I just don't know what the current state of those services are.

      I didn't call you a shill. I just noticed on your postings that you are a Microsoft fan and are usually quote/defend Microsoft, so I made that jab.

      I get this sentiment a lot, which is interesting to me since the products I spend the most time disparaging on this forum are Windows 7 and Windows XP. I hardly have anything negative to say about OSX, Google, Android, iOS, iPhone, iPad (although my gen 1 iPad is really showing its age), or any other competing service. But thank you for your apology.

    64. Re:Fair for the goose... by higuita · · Score: 1

      who said XP is a modern OS? it have read support, but can't write, so its out of my list.

      That is why i said that XP might be a problem... but let it die or make a write drive for it.

      --
      Higuita
  7. Nothing to celebrate if it's true by 00_NOP · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If Microsoft's allegations are true and there is no reasonably technical justification for it then there is nothing to celebrate here.

    Of course, my first reaction was "payback's a bitch" like many others, but in the end a monopoly based on Linux is still a monopoly.

    1. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      but in the end a monopoly based on Linux is still a monopoly.

      There's no monopoly, and if MS really wants to bitch about it maybe they should launch their own video service just like they did with Bing. Or work out a deal and have google develop the app for them, just like they did with Apple. Note that the google-made iphone app only was launched a few months ago. If MS had a better phone with a better market share they'd probably be a more appealing target for a native app, but it's not like Google is going to dump time and money into supporting every last bastard child of a device.

      And you can still watch youtube using a web browser, assuming that MS actually has a standards-compliant browser on their phone. I've never found anything in the youtube app to be superior to just using the mobile site, in fact personally i never bother with the app and would remove it from my phone if it would let me.

    2. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Indeed, same happened with Apple licensing maps. Notice how youtube on iOS is a Google app, not by Apple any more, because Apple probably doesn't have access to the metadata either. Google has reached the point where it has enough power and now that others want to play with its toys he says "meh, I'm going home, you can't have them". Consumers will decide if that is good or not. Us techies can only watch and cry for the abstract concept of justice.

    3. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by gigaherz · · Score: 4, Informative

      I'm an owner of a Nokia Lumia 710 (Windows Phone 7.x) and you can browse and play back youtube videos just fine in the browser, without the need of any app. And in fact there are apps that let you browse youtube, but they may not have full permission from google to do it. What they are complaining about is access to the metadata content for the videos, not the playback itself.

    4. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If Microsoft's allegations are true and there is no reasonably technical justification for it then there is nothing to celebrate here.

      Of course, my first reaction was "payback's a bitch" like many others, but in the end a monopoly based on Linux is still a monopoly.

      +1
      I've always assumed that they were doing the same thing to Apple - hence the removal of Apple's YouTube app and the replacement of the Google-backed one with one with data from Tomtom etc.

      I find it kind of sad that as Microsoft continues a long, slow slide to irrelevance Google has stepped up to take its place as tech leader of dubious busniess practice. I'm kind of surprised they don't get more negative press for it. In the same way that MS does anything it can to protect its two cash cows (Windows, Office) so Google does anything to protect its Adverts. Defending your revenue stream is fine, but it bothers me when you start acting like a bully. Buying competitors to shut them down, preventing other competitors from using your services, and generally trying to restrict competition isn't something to celebrate really.

    5. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      There's a JSON API for all of YouTube. The issue is not that APIs aren't available, but that Google appear to be selectively blocking some users from accessing it (or all of it). Which sucks for all of us. APIs should be non-discriminatory (other than usage caps of course).

    6. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by MMC+Monster · · Score: 1

      It may be that Google crunched the numbers and figured it really wasn't worth it to create a YouTube app.

      Perhaps they figure that:
      1 - There's always the mobile version of the website.
      2 - WP8 people are already "lost" to them. (Once you go over to the dark side, there's no coming back...)
      3 - If they're obligated to create a Windows Phone 8 version, they may feel that they're obligated to create versions for any old phone OS that comes along (ie: Blackberry).
      4 - Payback really is a bitch
      5 - It's a bit of leverage. Don't give something away that you can use to negotiate later on.
      6 - App development costs money. If they feel no one's going to buy WP8, why bother?
      7 - No one complained that there wasn't a WP7 version of the app. Why would WP8 be any different?

      --
      Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
    7. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually Google have a pretty leading position in video hosting and one could argue that they are using that position to keep out competition form the phone market.
      If anti-competitive laws work as intended Microsoft should be able to force Google to release the API. (And the same goes the other direction for markets where Microsoft is leading.)

    8. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is needed is actually a decentralized API for video sharing. Having one place like Youtube is crazy (which is apparent from this article). I should be able to publish or download videos a la bittorrent in some way. How are those stream-over-bittorrent projects coming on?

    9. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      First of all, just because Linux runs underneath their app does not mean there is a monopoly based on Linux. The only real issue is Google not providing the data to 3rd party developers to write apps against their web products. One might say that is similar experience by 3rd party, lets say office suites, not having the proper technical specs to .doc or .docx to correctly import or create Microsoft Word documents. What Microsoft is really complaining about is that Google is not writing a YouTube app (they are the developer for YouTube on Android and iOS) for Windows Phone and they do not have enough technical specs to write a replacement. I feel their pain. To continue the Microsoft Office example; If only they would write Microsoft Office for Linux or allow unfettered access to THEIR document, spreadsheet and presentation specs.

      Not saying it is right, but Microsoft has been pulling this crap for decades and I will not shed a tear for Windows Phone users inability to run YouTube in a native application.

    10. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by jopsen · · Score: 1

      If Microsoft's allegations are true and there is no reasonably technical justification for it then there is nothing to celebrate here.

      Of course, my first reaction was "payback's a bitch" like many others, but in the end a monopoly based on Linux is still a monopoly.

      Agree, but Google didn't open their APIs to Apple... They created a youtube app for iOS.
      I somehow doubt that youtube is profitable, and certainly not if an open API (without ads) is available, which is probably what this is all about.

    11. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Release the API? Probably not. Demand they don't deny negotiating API access deals? Probably yes.

      Every API request costs something to Google - in bandwidth and processing power. Demanding they do it for free for everyone and at a loss for them is not how antitrust laws intended to work.

      Now that's the part missing from the article - did MS try negotiating it? Did Google refuse to talk, did they demand first born's blood? Simply "But they must, or it's anticompetitive!" doesn't cut it, or by the same logic MS _must_ write MS Office for Linux and Apple must write iTunes for Android, or it's just them using leading position in office software/digital music sales to impend competing OS/mobile OS.

    12. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Eirenarch · · Score: 1, Insightful

      First of all the mobile version of youtube works on the standards-compliant browser on the Windows Phone.

      Second

      There's no monopoly

      Are you serious? YouTube is not a monopoly? Really?

    13. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Eirenarch · · Score: 2

      You got it wrong. MS does not want Google to develop a YouTube app for WP. They want Google to stop blocking them from releasing a YouTube app. In some (not specified) way Google are restricting access to the APIs for WP. They may be banning the user agent, or not issuing API tokens or simply threatening Microsoft with legal action if they release an YouTube app. In any way MS does not ask Google to do anything except stop blocking them explicitly.

    14. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by LordLucless · · Score: 1

      Google have a perfect right not to open their APIs publicly. After all, does Slashdot have a public API?

      From what I understand, Google wrote the YouTube apps for both Android and Apple, and they use their own knowledge of their platform to do so. There's a public JSON API for YouTube that's available to all. If MS wants a decent YouTube app on their platform, maybe they should pay Google to develop one, or bolster their audience to the point we're it's actually desirable for Google to do so.

      Or, you know, put their money where their mouth is, and publish public APIs for all their proprietary crap.

      --
      Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
    15. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by brunes69 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Please explain to me how Google has a monopoly on anything, let alone how YouTube is a monopoly.

      Something being very popular does not de-facto make it a monopoly. People need to stop throwing around terms like this.

      YouTube has a ton of very large and viable competitors who could take it out in a second if Googe let their guard down, like Vimeo, DailyMotion, blip.tv, Viddler - not to metion Facebook and Bing themselves.

    16. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google is not blocking Microsoft from developing an app. They are blocking Microsoft from using Googles (Youtubes) servers for their video app.

      Microsoft can buy their own servers, or they can wait for Google to launch an official Youtube app.

    17. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      If Microsoft's allegations are true and there is no reasonably technical justification for it then there is nothing to celebrate here.

      Assuming it's true. Not saying it isn't, but arbitrarily restricting an API to a competitor's platform seems un-Googley -- and shading the truth about such a restriction to try to get a competitor in trouble seems very Microsoft-ish.

    18. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Eirenarch · · Score: 0

      No they cannot buy their own servers with all the user uploaded content on YouTube. YouTube is a monopoly in a field which Google uses to block competition in another field. While I do not agree with anti-trust laws on principle would you be happy if Netscape were told that they can develop their own operating system to deploy their browser on. What would you say if tomorrow MS remotely uninstalls Chrome and redirects google.com to Bing from all Windows PCs?

    19. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      great post. However, I doubt that it was true.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    20. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it works fine in utorrent

    21. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by WindBourne · · Score: 1

      Oops. I'm sorry. I doubt that the story was true.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    22. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      YouTube is not a monopoly? Really?

      Yes, really.

      (a) There are many other sites where you can upload and view videos - Vimeo springs to mind, for one
      (b) There is no particular reason to continue using YouTube rather than other sites. The only lock-in they have is that they are popular and fairly reliable.

      There is a big difference between a successful operation which is used by most people, and a monopoly. Don't conflate the two. Things aren't considered monopolies just because you say "Really?" in a sarcastic tone while failing to give any substantive reason why.

    23. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Eirenarch · · Score: 1

      So how did MS had a monopoly on the OS when they were sued for abusing it? After all there were Linux and Mac OS and they were surely more popular than Vimeo or the other services I had never heard of.

    24. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 1

      The same could be said of MS Word format documentation! This is just an example of the school bully losing a fight with someone who was in a position to fight back, and then crying like a baby.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    25. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Eirenarch · · Score: 1

      Please explain why Windows is a monopoly but youtube isn't!
      a) there are at least two operating systems that you could use for desktop computers (and they existed for 20+ years)
      b) there IS particular reason to continue using youtube. This is where users are and you may have a subscriber base that you cannot migrate to another service. Same as with OS monopoly.

    26. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by alostpacket · · Score: 1

      Google appear to be selectively blocking some users from accessing it (or all of it).

      I have been digging around but is there any proof of this other than MS claiming it? I can find it yet.

      --
      PocketPermissions Android Permission Guide
    27. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by brunes69 · · Score: 1

      If you have never heard of Vimeo you have your herd in the sand.

      Anyway what Microsoft was sued for was not simply for being popular it was using their popularity in leveraged contracts with OEMs and then bundling other software with their OS to stifle competiion. Google is not doing anything like that at all.

      Another comparison - why should Google be forced to open up a YouTube API to Microsoft when Microsoft won't open up the search API on Windows Phone to Google?

    28. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      Something being very popular does not de-facto make it a monopoly. People need to stop throwing around terms like this.

      Actually, that is pretty much the definition for US anti-trust purposes.

      YouTube has a ton of very large and viable competitors who could take it out in a second if Googe let their guard down, like Vimeo, DailyMotion, blip.tv, Viddler - not to metion Facebook and Bing themselves.

      Not in a second, even figuratively. Youtube has such massive momentum - that's like saying MySpace fell to Facebook in a second. Over five years or so, yeah. But you could have said the same thing about microsoft's monopoly during the 90s -- Apple was right there, just as facebook would love to usurp youtube now.

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    29. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by alostpacket · · Score: 3, Interesting

      can't*

      And actually, all I have found is that MS is complaining that the API is not as feature rich as the native Apps on Android and iOS, not blocking of access to the API.

      Seems reasonable to me, almost every company with an API favors their own implementation. I don't see why MS should get special treatment.

      --
      PocketPermissions Android Permission Guide
    30. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Huh, what? Apple saw YouTube and Maps apps as tick-box features, nothing more. Both apps fell significantly behind what the actual services could do and in the YouTube case, the eventual deviation from the websites feature set and even basic terminology was significant. Apple never bothered keeping it up to date and so users ended up with a worse YouTube/Maps experience.

      Now Microsoft comes along with a brilliant deal. Hey Google, please make a first class native YouTube app for our mobile OS - you know, the one we have been forcing onto your Android hardware partners through threats of patent extortion. What's that? There aren't enough users to justify it? OK no problem. Just give us direct access to all your internal databases and systems and we'll write our own UI. What's that? You don't want to have a third party maintain an entirely separate UI layer to your app anymore? It didn't work out well with Apple? Waaaaaa waaaaa big bad Google is being abusive!

      CAPTCHA: obtains

    31. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      His herd is camels, you insensitive clod!

    32. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      APIs should be non-discriminatory (other than usage caps of course).

      I guess you mean that it's unfair to refuse to sell (uncapped) API rights to your competitors. This is known as refusal to deal and is an uncompetitive practice.

      From TFA:

      Unfortunately, Google has refused to allow Microsoft’s new Windows Phones to access this YouTube metadata in the same way that Android phones and iPhones do. As a result, Microsoft’s YouTube “app” on Windows Phones is basically just a browser displaying YouTube’s mobile Web site, without the rich functionality offered on competing phones. Microsoft is ready to release a high quality YouTube app for Windows Phone. We just need permission to access YouTube in the way that other phones already do, permission Google has refused to provide

      So it seems that Google is refusing to give its competitors an equal level of access to the YouTube APIs.

      Of course, this is a lawyer representing Microsoft talking, and we haven't heard what Google has to say about all this. But they could be treading on dangerous waters here, given that YouTube is such a crucial and powerful online service (whether it has monopoly or near-monopoly on IPTV is debateable.)

    33. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by DragonWriter · · Score: 2

      If Microsoft's allegations are true and there is no reasonably technical justification for it then there is nothing to celebrate here.

      On the contrary, if Microsoft made a claim that was substantially and meaningfully true about a major competitor, that would be something to celebrate.

    34. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Onymous+Hero · · Score: 1

      Windows isn't a monopoly, simple as that.

    35. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Col.+Klink+(retired) · · Score: 1

      If Microsoft's allegations were true, why weren't similar accusations (no Office for Linux) included when Microsoft was convicted for violating antitrust laws?

      --

      -- Don't Tase me, bro!

    36. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1

      If your app has too many users, you have to PAY Google for API access. About the only thing "unlocked" are web browsers. That's why Roku doesn't ship a YouTube app for instance.

      Apple's issue was that Apple WAS (and still is) PAYING royalties to Google and still being put in the "slow list" while Google let Android implement non-free APIs. So this comes down to is Microsoft PAYS for its phones to have access or not.

    37. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Americano · · Score: 1

      Something being very popular does not de-facto make it a monopoly.

      Actually, under the law, it pretty much does, at the scale Youtube has: if these numbers are to be believed, nearly 44% of worldwide online video viewing.

      Compare that with the second place, Youku, in China, which has 2.3% of the viewership. Facebook makes the top 5, at 1.3% of global views. Considering that #2 and #5 are in China & Japan, it's very likely that Youtube represents a MUCH higher percentage of US-based video viewing than those global numbers would indicate, which would probably confer monopoly status on Youtube here in the US, even if it's not as popular somewhere abroad.

      When you are 20-40 times the size of your second, third, fourth, and fifth place competitors... it's pretty hard to claim that you're perched precariously on top of a hill, ready to be knocked off by any errant breeze that comes your way. Youtube is not an underdog. Google is not an underdog. All of their competitors you are claiming are "very large," and poised to destroy Youtube at a moment's notice, are microscopic also-rans in Youtube's market, and pose no substantial threat to Youtube unless Youtube mysteriously goes offline for a year.

    38. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by ilsaloving · · Score: 1

      Why not? Youtube is just a web service. All microsoft has to do is set up their own. They created their own search service (bing), so I fail to see what is stopping them from making their own version of youtube.

      Others have been able to do the same and be successful at it, such as Vimeo.

      And your analogy doesn't even come close to matching, because Google does no such thing. There is nothing preventing me from installing alternate players on my Android phone.

      For a Microsoft shill, you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel.

    39. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by 21mhz · · Score: 1

      Microsoft had reached the point in 1990s where it had enough power and now that others wanted to play with its toys he said "meh, I'm going home, you can't have them". Consumers will decide if that is good or not. Us techies can only watch and cry for the abstract concept of justice.

      See, I replaced Google with Microsoft. We all know how it worked out for them.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    40. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and xtube.com, xporn.com and redtube.com.

    41. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by History's+Coming+To · · Score: 1

      I don't think anyone wants to see a monopoly of any kind when it comes to operating systems and interoperability, but my experience of working with APIs is that Facebook, Twitter and many others have easy to use integration that has been a part of their success via third party apps. The one MS service I use, however, XBox Live, is crying out for an API. I'd love to be able to set up a small script on my phone which alerts me when certain friends are online, but this isn't possible without screenscraping which is against the T&C and could see my account banned.

      I really can't develop any sympathy for MS over this. If they opened their systems up a little I might (and hey, they might even find it profitable, look at the amount of development work that's gone on with the Kinect), but they're intentionally making third party integration difficult or impossible. No sympathy.

      --
      Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
    42. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If being popular doesn't make it a monopoly, please explain to me how Windows had a monopoly in the IE antitrust days.

    43. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Google IS letting their guard down - youtube almost never successfully serves a video to me without glitches and lags, and the advertising piles up daily. It's already on my list of sites to avoid if possible. The ONLY thing they have going for them is the amount of content. As far as quality goes, they are the pits.

    44. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If MS would follow Google's API rules and implement their app the way it is supposed to be implemented, there would be no issue.
      So far, MS wants to make the searches via Bing, to include Bing advertisements, then inject an external API call to poll/pull the video, totally against the API usage agreement.

      So, if and when MS decides to play by the rules, they can do it - until then - my house, my rules apply.

    45. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How does Microsoft have a monopoly on anything? They have a ton of competitors too.

      Furthermore, to migrate from Youtube to a different service provider would take countless hours of downloading and reuploading for the average user.

    46. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, that's what Microsoft said about Windows in the late 90s.

    47. Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, MS would launch their own video service, but they need to be able to steal from Google to do that... Just like with Bing. ;)

      http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=bing%20uses%20google&source=web&cd=2&ved=0CEEQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fgoogleblog.blogspot.com%2F2011%2F02%2Fmicrosofts-bing-uses-google-search.html&ei=nUnnUPGrFIei9QSUw4Ew&usg=AFQjCNHfJ-WQ9fpRtiZIwVWxUbTvX-1_fQ&bvm=bv.1355534169,d.eWU&cad=rja

  8. Eh ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft who ?

    1. Re:Eh ? by johnsnails · · Score: 1

      Get off my lawn you whippersnapper!!!

  9. Microsoft squid tactic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    According to TFA:

    In the nearer term, however, Microsoft's complaints seem designed to urge regulators to increase their scrutiny into Google's business practices, at a time when US and EU watchdog agencies seem close to striking compromise agreements with the company.

    1. Re:Microsoft squid tactic? by javilon · · Score: 2

      This may have unintended consequences for MS. They are giving a high profile to the fact that their youtube app isn't up to snuff, compared to IOS or Android. Not very smart unless they are really sure they can get some action going in the antitrust front.

      If I were looking for a phone and I would come across this information, this would be another negative. If you add this to all of the other shortcomings of Windows phone, I would avoid it.

      --


      When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
    2. Re:Microsoft squid tactic? by Pieroxy · · Score: 2

      Nobody's buying them, so in effect, they have nothing to lose. That's the upside of having no user-base.

    3. Re:Microsoft squid tactic? by Eirenarch · · Score: 1

      Every WP user already knows that and it has been discussed multiple times in the WP forums and websites. There are third party apps for youtube that do not have as much functionality (because of the APIs) and often break when Google change something on YouTube. The only news here is that MS have its own (unreleased) app that is waiting for Google's permission to launch and that Google are officially denying them access to the APIs.

    4. Re:Microsoft squid tactic? by Pinhedd · · Score: 1

      That's funny. The Lumia 920 is selling quite well in the EU and Asia

    5. Re:Microsoft squid tactic? by Pieroxy · · Score: 1

      MS spent more marketing dollars than all the phones they sold was worth. That may change, but at that rate it's easy to see why they are selling some.

    6. Re:Microsoft squid tactic? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, just like the 900 was. The 920 is a flop. Silly Microsoft shills.

  10. Irony? by clark0r · · Score: 3, Informative

    If Google are in fact doing this, then I can fully understand why Microsoft would be justified to complain. However given Microsoft's past tactics in trying to undermine the competition, perhaps they should eat humble pie. Anti-competitive browser tactics through bundling, non-compliant standards (IE6), deliberately making it hard for SAMBA to integrate with AD, these are just two things that have personally turned me against Microsoft in the past. More recently, launching Twitter campaigns to try and spread Android FUD and on the other complaining that Google aren't playing fair? Take a look in the mirror Microsoft.

    1. Re:Irony? by gigaherz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem, I think, is that Microsoft is just too large. Some parts of Microsoft are opening up, releasing loads of details about protocols and such, helping opensource projects and even supporting Linux development, while others work in walled gardens, patent wars, and everything else related to competing in the phone & tablet markets.

    2. Re:Irony? by JanneM · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "If Google are in fact doing this, then I can fully understand why Microsoft would be justified to complain."

      Why, exactly? You can use Youtube on Woindows phones just fine. They simply don't have an open API for anybody else to write players that interface to it.

      Does Twitter have a legal obligation to provide an API for third-party clients? Does Facebook have such an obligation? Does my bank? Does Microsoft have an obligation for its online Word service? Or provide API-level access to Echange servers? Does everybody with a web-facing interface have a legel obligation to provide API-level access for others to use?

      And it's not as if Youtube is a monopoly either. My banks online service is as much a monopoly in that case, or Twitter.

      --
      Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
    3. Re:Irony? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's pretty accurate. There's a wave of change emanating principally from Skype that's making it's way through MS at the moment. Lot's more Open.

    4. Re:Irony? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Which parts of MS would that be?
      They only released AD docs and "helped" the samba4 team after being forced to do so by a EU judge.

    5. Re:Irony? by clark0r · · Score: 1

      Well, they're entitled to 'complain' just as all third party Twitter clients 'complain' about limitations in the Twitter API. That 'complaint' wont go anywhere, however.

    6. Re:Irony? by 21mhz · · Score: 0

      What on Earth are you talking about? Skype is absolutely proprietary, and it shows in their third-party embedding kit for Linux.
      Microsoft did open, or at least fully documented, things before the Skype purchase, and hardly any of those has anything to do with Skype.
      If anything, Skype is set to replace some more open things, such as XMPP integration of Messenger service.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    7. Re:Irony? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's been active cooperation between the .NET team at Microsoft and the Mono team.

    8. Re:Irony? by terjeber · · Score: 1

      The entire .NET team for example. More and more of the web related stuff is going open, and they are actively working with the FOSS community. ASP .NET MVC is one of the best web frameworks out there (so good in fact that what Play! Framework took a lot of ideas from it, Play is one of the very best frameworks for Java - with some bad things like static controllers [which .NET MVC doesn't have, thankfully]), highly inspired by some of the good Ruby stuff, is going all open source and at the same time incorporating the best of open source frameworks out there. It's not like the Microsoft of old would have made jQuery and jQueryUI first class citizens like it has in .NET MVC.

    9. Re:Irony? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, since banks are heavy regulated, they may be required to implement an open API by the government. I believe the export function of your transaction history is one of those APIs, so that you can import those in accounting software.

    10. Re:Irony? by neonsignal · · Score: 1

      Exactly; the only Skype API that is "open" is the scripting interface to the proprietary client software; not to the Skype network itself.

    11. Re:Irony? by Eirenarch · · Score: 1

      Why should they eat a humble pie? Were they spared when they did this? They were taken to court, lost and forced to comply. Why should they allow their competitors a free pass if they are not allowed a free pass?

    12. Re:Irony? by Eirenarch · · Score: 1

      That's right! Does Microsoft have legal obligation to provide access to APIs they use for their browser on their desktop OS with a monopoly market position to competing browser vendors? Were they legally force to release the specification of their server protocols and document formats?

      Oh, wait...

    13. Re:Irony? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why should they eat a humble pie?

      Because they're assholes.

      Why should they allow their competitors a free pass if they are not allowed a free pass?

      We shouldn't. Google are assholes too.

    14. Re:Irony? by javilon · · Score: 1

      Why should they eat a humble pie? Were they spared when they did this? They were taken to court, lost and forced to comply. Why should they allow their competitors a free pass if they are not allowed a free pass?

      They were taken to court, lost, and slapped in the hand.

      There, fixed it for you.

      --


      When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
    15. Re:Irony? by Eirenarch · · Score: 1

      Still why should they miss the opportunity to have Google slapped in the hand?

    16. Re:Irony? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only wave emanating from Microsoft is the stench of a dying carcass.

    17. Re:Irony? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But Microsoft does provide an API for Exchange?

    18. Re:Irony? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah, the documentation of their document formats is SO complete and useful. MS releases just enough to be compliant. Don't kid yourself. They wouldn't do that if they weren't made to by the EU.

    19. Re:Irony? by kqs · · Score: 1

      Since Microsoft had 95%+ of the OS market, they had monopoly power in the OS market and had restrictions on using that power for competing.

      Since there are dozens of video streaming services which are not YouTube, Google does not have monopoly power in the video streaming market and has many fewer restrictions.

      Though I bet that if Microsoft offered an open API for Skype (not to the MS client, but to the servers), that might convince Google to offer an API for YouTube. But Skype does not have a high enough market share to have monopoly power, so MS does not have to open it. See how this works?

    20. Re:Irony? by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1

      So in 2018 the court will slap Google on the hand... Better start crying now. That's how long it took to get Microsoft's hand slapped...

  11. Chocolate Factory?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since when did Google make Chocolates?

    1. Re:Chocolate Factory?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      It's a term used by The Register as a token of their ongoing hatred of Google. In the context of Willy Wonka, it's a sort of backhanded compliment. It implies their resentment of any suspiciously clever software being brewed in Mountain View. Your average El Reg staffer, if he has any tech chops at all, is about the level of a low to midrange MCSE. Take their OpEds with a handful of salt.

    2. Re:Chocolate Factory?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I can see that from an american perspective that the register seems to be akin to the worst tabloid in the states, but it's english and everything from the headlines to the op-ed is meant ironically. It makes it funnier that way.

    3. Re:Chocolate Factory?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a term used by The Register as a token of their ongoing hatred of Google.

      If you take nicknames as a token of ongoing hated, you'd have to conclude that The Register hates, at the very least, Google, Samsung, Intel, the iPhone, mobile phones, tablets, system administrators, scientists, psychologists (granted), and breasts.

    4. Re:Chocolate Factory?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All Googlers know that C is for Cupcake

    5. Re:Chocolate Factory?? by javilon · · Score: 2

      They are also the creators of the term "Freetard" used to reference anyone questioning the current "Intellectual Property" regime.

      This gives you an idea of how they drifted. They used to be "bitting the hand that feeds IT", but no more. They used to get information from IT contacts inside companies. Now they are becoming standard journalist that are too dependent on the goodwill of PR departments.

      --


      When his defense asked, "Which computer has Jon Johansen trespassed upon?" the answer was: "His own."
    6. Re:Chocolate Factory?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They don't?
      Well damn, they SHOULD, these chocolates taste great.

      Wait, if Google don't make chocolate, who the hell made these?
      Goggle? Who the hell are they? Damn it technically illiterate parents! Always check the address bar!

    7. Re:Chocolate Factory?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So Orlowski and Page's constant insistence that global warming is not anthropomorphic is meant ironically, is it? And the constant infusion of errors into any technical article - that's ironic too?

      It's a low-grade publication which hides behind a sheen of apparent irony, that's all. It was pretty good in the day, but it's got into self-parody now, and it's mostly down to their quality writers going off on a tangent about global warming that's designed to be controversial, to get page views, but which is completely intellectually bankrupt. Orlowski started out writing some very thought provoking pieces about copyright law, but he's degenerated into troll territory with his anti-AGW stuff (and he trolls the comments section too, with such classics as "#fail", whenever people point out the obvious flaws in his wafer-thin arguments). The only thing these guys are experts on is SEO.

      Maybe our American friends "get" these things better than you realize. You can only parody a tabloid for so long before you become a tabloid.

    8. Re:Chocolate Factory?? by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 1

      Now they are becoming standard journalist that are too dependent on the goodwill of PR departments.

      Under previous management they had a strict policy of never signing NDAs. Has that changed?

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
  12. The joys of proprietary software by andrew3 · · Score: 0

    Microsoft won't allow free YouTube player replacements in their app store so they are basically losing at their own game. I would say that it serves Microsoft right, but unfortunately it's the end users that suffer.

    1. Re:The joys of proprietary software by oodaloop · · Score: 5, Funny

      I would say that it serves Microsoft right, but unfortunately it's the end users that suffer.

      Yeah, all both of them.

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    2. Re:The joys of proprietary software by clark0r · · Score: 1

      Then less people will choose to buy a Windows powered phone. Just as Apple have tried to keep third party apps from their devices, Microsoft will soon learn that it slows sales and alienates users.

    3. Re:The joys of proprietary software by 21mhz · · Score: 1

      Microsoft won't allow free YouTube player replacements in their app store

      Source?

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    4. Re:The joys of proprietary software by 21mhz · · Score: 3, Informative

      Don't bother, there is at least one application that proves the GP is full of shit.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    5. Re:The joys of proprietary software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      wtf are you rambling ? MetroTube, the best youtube playerr for windows phone is totally free, available in microsoft appstore and not developed by microsoft ..

    6. Re:The joys of proprietary software by cbhacking · · Score: 2

      Are you on crack, or just talking out your ass? There are at least 15 reasonably general-purpose YouTube clients on the Windows Phone app store, and many more that are specialized to things like specific channels, or downloading just the audio track, etc. Where the hell did you get the idea that MS doesn't allow third-party YouTube apps?

      --
      There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
    7. Re:The joys of proprietary software by mrbester · · Score: 1

      Fewer.

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    8. Re:The joys of proprietary software by terjeber · · Score: 1

      Microsoft won't allow free YouTube player replacements in their app store

      BZZZT! WRONG!

    9. Re:The joys of proprietary software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Lesser.

    10. Re:The joys of proprietary software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not free.

      "for limited time" makes it not free.

    11. Re:The joys of proprietary software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    12. Re:The joys of proprietary software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yea poor Apple, they're doing so horribly. Oh wait, no they aren't, you just dislike their product. But within your tiny social circle thats the same thing right?

    13. Re:The joys of proprietary software by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't bother, there is at least one application that proves the GP is full of shit.

      MetroTube is awesome, but it too was a victim of Google's shenanigans with Windows Phone and only recently released an update to fix it.

    14. Re:The joys of proprietary software by andrew3 · · Score: 1

      Different definition of "free" actually. I guessed the title would have given away.

      I meant "free software" (sometimes called "open source") not freeware.

    15. Re:The joys of proprietary software by 21mhz · · Score: 1

      Well, then we are back to my original reply: could you provide some proof as to why any free software application, should someone create one, would be rejected? IIRC they only ban GPL3 and similarly overreaching licenses, and understandably so.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
  13. The bully being bullied by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    It seems the cards have changed for Microsoft. Now the former bully is being bullied and he does not seem to like it.

    I also don't like the fact them someone is being bullied, even a former bully itself. It is my hope the both companies stop their mutual exclusion principles and give the consumer the freedom they crave.

  14. Microsoft should be happy they get ANY YT data by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Most every TV site on the Internet heavily restricts what devices can and can't play which videos, in which formats, at which times. At least they try to.

    Why should YouTube be any different? Why shouldn't any video a Windows Phone tries to play simply result in an error, "This content is not available for your device"?

    Microsoft is crying about not getting all the meta-data they'd like to get, while they should be thanking Google for letting them play their content at all.

  15. Lawyer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Dave Heiner

    What the FUCK is a FUCKING lawyer doing working as a FUCKING VP for a software company?

    1. Re:Lawyer? by Tridus · · Score: 2

      VP of Patent Extortion, perhaps?

      --
      -- "So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated." - Bill Gates
    2. Re:Lawyer? by Nerdfest · · Score: 4, Informative

      Have you not been paying attention to how the 'game' is now played? It's now more about suing people than actually making products that people *want* to use.

    3. Re:Lawyer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well...Ummm... as the title states, he's working as a general counsel? ALL large companies have a legal department with a VP in charge. Are you suggesting this position should be staffed by a non-lawyer?

    4. Re:Lawyer? by Mr.+Underbridge · · Score: 1

      What the FUCK is a FUCKING lawyer doing working as a FUCKING VP for a software company?

      VP is a title that has been subject to the corporate version of grade inflation. At my company we have VPs of everything. I'm sure they have multiple VPs in most every group, and not having a single lawyer at the VP level would be a bit conspicuous.

      Now if they had a lawyer for one of the main C-level executive positions, that would be different. But this is just big-company title inflation.

    5. Re:Lawyer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I am disappointed this is modded insightful, because this has been the standard for a very long time. The General Counsel of a corporation is often a VP, and the board of directors secretary is often a lawyer. Even for small manufacturing firms. Our litigious society basically requires this.

    6. Re:Lawyer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you not been paying attention to how the 'game' is now played? It's now more about suing people than actually making products that people *want* to use.

      +5 Informative for hyperbole? Exactly who has Microsoft sued?

      +5 Insightful me now, kthxbye.

    7. Re:Lawyer? by dcollins · · Score: 1

      A Microsoft VP is not really that special (it's not like he's the #2 guy at the company). In fact, every separate division has its own President -- President of Skype, President of MS Office, President of Online Services, President of Interactive Entertainment, President of Server & Tools, President of Business Solutions, etc. (link)

      There are something like 15 Vice-Presidents at Microsoft. There are so many that different sub-categories of VP exist: Senior Vice President, Corporate Vice President, etc., and they get reorganized from time to time (link).

      So if it helps you can tell yourself, "MS hands out the VP title like candy to any department head, and this guy is the head of legal, so the title is VP of Legal Affairs, which is consistent with how they do things at a lot of large companies".

      --
      We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
    8. Re:Lawyer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      VP is another name for middle manager in the corporate world.

    9. Re:Lawyer? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What the hell are you talking about. Every large company has a legal division and therefore needs one bod at the top to run it. That bod report directly to the bod in charge of the whole company.

      It's so different to the CEO/CFO relationship but no-one asks why an ACCOUNTANT has risen so high.

  16. Whining Microsoft by vakuona · · Score: 5, Funny

    Apple just let Google create a Youtube app after they failed to agree on API access. the iPhone is way more popular than Windows Phone devices, so it made financial sense for Google to do so. So maybe MIcrosoft should offer to pay Google to create an app for Windows Phone.

  17. It's not rocket science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Surely with all their rescources Microsoft can figure it out?

    how many developers does it take to make an application youtube compatible... oh wait, here's an idea, dont restrict yourself to your own blind development tools...

    1. Re:It's not rocket science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      how many microsoft developers does it take to screw in a lightbulb?

      3 teams: The first one designes the new fixture. The second one tries to invent the lightbulb again. The third team tries to negotiate between the first two.

    2. Re:It's not rocket science by 21mhz · · Score: 1

      It's not an engineering problem, stupid.
      There is already Metrotube with its reverse-engineered implementation.
      Microsoft needs an officially supported application, guaranteed not to break whenever Google decides to change things on the server side.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    3. Re:It's not rocket science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then they should buy such a thing. It's not like MSFT can't afford to pay Google for an official Youtube app.

    4. Re:It's not rocket science by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      no, the traditional joke goes:

      Q: How many Microsoft developers does it take to replace a lightbulb?

      A: None. Microsoft just defines "dark" as the new standard for lighting.


      Don't worry, one day we'll get out of these "dark ages"...

  18. Huh. And the problem is...? by Jugalator · · Score: 1

    Of course they are. It's called competition. As far as they stick with laws, it's all fair game trying to use tactics to "undermine" them.

    --
    Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
  19. A long time coming by MrKaos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Microsoft seems to be experiencing what it is like when someone plays their game on them. That whiney sound is the smallest violin....

    --
    My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    1. Re:A long time coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So if Google is being like Microsoft used to be, then Slashdot will start hating on Google.

      Right?

      Right?

      Oh wait. Somehow I think the posters on this site will by highly hypocritical.

    2. Re:A long time coming by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not so sure .. but in any case "an eye for an eye makes the world blind - M.K. Gandhi"

  20. Google should give it to them by erroneus · · Score: 2

    I feel a bit like most people here: That Microsoft deserves it. But it somehow also feels like the wrong way if this is indeed the case as Microsoft claiims.

    If Microsoft believes this is why Windows Phone isn't getting user adoption, they are mistaken. Google needs to give them less to complain about. But I have to ask why would Google let Apple do it but not Microsoft? Surely there is something different about Microsoft's approach to it. Didn't I read yesterday something about a patent infringement case between Motorola and Microsoft where Microsoft believess it has the rights to a video codec while Motorola says "no, we're not a member of the license pool" and Microsoft says "Google owns you and Google is in the pool?" I wonder if this is related somehow.

    I get that this meta data is the detail claimed to be at issue, but you know... it's not as easy to complain about actual things presently being decided by the courts. Also, in the article, there was talk about Google dropping support for a proprietary protocol in favor of open standards. Why Microsoft has to complain about that I don't know. Maybe perhaps because they believe they are still the ones setting the standards.

    1. Re:Google should give it to them by bgarcia · · Score: 1

      ...why would Google let Apple do it but not Microsoft?

      The iPhone has been around for many, many years. There was a large, established market, and so it makes business sense.

      How long has Windows Phone been available? How much market share does Windows Phone have? Do you see that market growing to the size of the Android or iPhone market in the future? Does it make sense to spend the time & money to develop an application for such a small market?

      And, has Microsoft offered to pay Google to develop an application, or to gain access to the API?

      --
      I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
    2. Re:Google should give it to them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Google didn't let Apple do anything. Google developed the app for the iPhone. Why should Google be forced to spend money to write an application for every mobile platform out there? If Microsoft gave Google financial incentives to do so (directly or indirectly), then maybe Google would develop one. Google shouldn't be required to open up APIs to a third party just because the third party is upset. Google isn't picking favorites with who it allows access to its APIs because only Google does. If more people used Windows phone (which I think they should, as an OS, it's not bad, but without apps, it can be a downer, but its hardly the phone's fault, it's the company's fault), then maybe Google would have a financial incentive to create an app for it. I get upset when an app is only on iOS but not Android, but it doesn't mean I think the company should be sued.

    3. Re:Google should give it to them by NorQue · · Score: 1

      Surely there is something different about Microsoft's approach to it.

      Something seems to me like we're not getting the whole story here. Maybe it's something with Googles terms that Microsoft won't agree with, thus Google denying them access? I bet it has something to do with ad revenue...

    4. Re:Google should give it to them by erroneus · · Score: 1

      That is, after all, why Google exists... to make money... and why Microsoft exists as well.

      I think you're quite right -- something else is at play and we're not getting the whole story. Then again, while following many cases these days, I have found that Microsoft makes some pretty unreasonable demands and exhibits unreasonable expectations of others.

    5. Re:Google should give it to them by pmontra · · Score: 1

      But I have to ask why would Google let Apple do it but not Microsoft?

      They didn't let Apple use their API. The iOS YouTube app is made by Google https://itunes.apple.com/en/app/youtube/id544007664?mt=8 MS should ask Google to develop an app for their phones instead of complaining for the wrong reasons. Anyway I bet this is part of an ongoing negotiation so we shouldn't worry much about it.

    6. Re:Google should give it to them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The iPhone has been around for many, many years. There was a large, established market, and so it makes business sense.

      Ages:
      iPhone: ~ 5.5 yrs
      Youtube: ~ 6 yrs as a Google company (~ 8yrs in total)
      Google: ~14 yrs
      Microsoft: ~38 yrs

      The original iPhone came with a Youtube app. Youtube is a little older than the iPhone. Just FYI

    7. Re:Google should give it to them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How long has Windows Phone been available?

      Good question. It keeps changing because they key osbourning their OS.

    8. Re:Google should give it to them by bgarcia · · Score: 1

      But how old is the Windows Phone OS? You can't expect anyone to have made a YouTube App 38 years ago. Your data is irrelevant.

      --
      I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
    9. Re:Google should give it to them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You're an idiot.

  21. Shocking... by onemorechip · · Score: 2

    There are Windows Phone users?

    --
    But, I wanted socialized health insurance!
    1. Re:Shocking... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No.

  22. FAT??? by mangu · · Score: 3, Insightful

    block device level access which basically forces the media to be formatted as FAT to be interoperable

    Huh, what? All my USB devices are formatted as ext3 or ext4. I don't need no FAT on my devices, FAT is obsolete, not USB mass storage.

    1. Re:FAT??? by 21mhz · · Score: 2

      Try to plug your devices into a Mac, for example, to understand what I'm talking about.

      Extfs may not be optimal for all flash drives, either. With MTP, the device implementation is free to choose the underlying filesystem, as it should have been from the get go.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    2. Re:FAT??? by MtHuurne · · Score: 2

      Even if every host you'd ever plug your device into would support ext3/4, there is still the inconvenience that the partition is exposed at the block device level, not at the file level. This means it has to be unmounted on the device before it can be mounted by the host. This is difficult to implement, since all open files on the partition must be closed before the unmount operation can succeed. Also it is inconvenient for the user: it would mean you'd have to stop a device from playing music when you want to add additional songs, for example.

    3. Re:FAT??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Use Fuse for Os X http://osxfuse.github.com with the ext plugin and stop complaining about your fucking privative closed machine not being able to interact with free software. Or choose with your head and stop using macs, you are chaining yourself to your stupid decisions.

    4. Re:FAT??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Doesn't matter, can mount.
      With MTP you have to make sure your device is recognized by libmtp, which means recompiling or adding info. USB storage should be a fallback option for all usb clients, if you don't have it you're gonna miss it one day or the other.

    5. Re:FAT??? by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 0

      Mod parent +infinity, and shoot the b*stard that removed RS232 from laptops so they wont connect to stuff in the engineering lab.

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    6. Re:FAT??? by Dr.+Evil · · Score: 1

      Hypothetically, a person might have "friends", who make their own choices about hardware and software. "Friends" might want to share content, usb keys being a handy way to do it.

    7. Re:FAT??? by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      So you're suggesting that I install a package of free software on my "fucking privative closed machine not being able to interact with free software" in order to interact with free software?

      You are a very special person.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    8. Re:FAT??? by volxdragon · · Score: 0

      "share content" - heh - more like share the latest virus these days. Plugging USB keys/devices into random computers is a REALLY BAD IDEA. Sort of like unprotected sex... :)

    9. Re:FAT??? by 21mhz · · Score: 1

      Doesn't matter, can mount.

      I thought for the last several decades computing has been evolving towards the user not having to do arcane tedious shit in order to get things done. But yeah, there are people who edit their files with ed...

      With MTP you have to make sure your device is recognized by libmtp, which means recompiling or adding info.

      Meaning, your lousy implementation of MTP is somehow the problem of the protocol?

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    10. Re:FAT??? by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      I find that my NTFS formatted usb drives work fine on both my Mac and Linux machines and even on my Windows Virtual Systems.

    11. Re:FAT??? by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      For a limited time you can still install free software on Apple machines. Looking down the road I think this may cease to be.

    12. Re:FAT??? by dave87656 · · Score: 1

      I tried ext3 for usb devices that but when I plugged them into another USB device, it had a different user id and could only be accessed by root.

    13. Re:FAT??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      RS232 isn't included on new laptops because 0,001% of the world population would use it. IOW, you are irrelevant. In the case you'd like combat your irrelevance instead of crying about it here, buy something like a USB to RS232 converter, have those lie around in your lab, and call it a night.

  23. But I thought... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hitler had already ordered General Ballmer to kill Google...?

  24. I'm going with... by rusty0101 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...Google will write that app for the Windows Phone platform when they consider the platform to have enough adopters to make the effort worthwhile. Perhaps they should start with a Symbian based client. Follow that up with a WebOS based one as well.

    --
    You never know...
    1. Re:I'm going with... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There is a perfectly fine Youtube app for Symbian, made by Google, thank you very much!

  25. Linux could never be a monopoly by mangu · · Score: 1

    a monopoly based on Linux is still a monopoly.

    It's not a monopoly because the source code is public and available for anyone to use.

    If Microsoft wants the full power of Android, they are free to create their own Android phone, provided they comply to the licensing agreement.

    1. Re:Linux could never be a monopoly by Eirenarch · · Score: 1

      And then Google can ban the MS Android from accessing the YouTube APIs. What's your point?

    2. Re:Linux could never be a monopoly by Savage-Rabbit · · Score: 1

      a monopoly based on Linux is still a monopoly.

      It's not a monopoly because the source code is public and available for anyone to use.

      If Microsoft wants the full power of Android, they are free to create their own Android phone, provided they comply to the licensing agreement.

      So you are saying that Linux cannot not be a monopoly/monoculture because everybody can fork Android? Let's for a moment assume that Microsoft implodes, Windows disappears from the market. Let's furthermore assume that the desktop OS marketshare looks like this afterwards: OS X 5%, the sundry Linux distros we already have continue to hover between 1 and 2%, Google Android Desktop Edition (TM) gobbles up the remaining 93-4% of the desktop OS market. That would be a "monopoly based on Linux" and the underdogs in that monopoly would be OS X and the remaining Linux distros. No matter how these underdogs tried to out-innovative Google they could never get a foothold on the desktop OS market, since (in this hypothetical world) Google would have inherited Microsoft's corporate-dollar based ability to dominate the desktop OS market and keep device manufacturers on a leash. Google would allow competitors to become just large enough to enable Google to point at them every time somebody says "competition law" but never large enough to threaten Android. Open source solutions can dominate a market and cause innovative stagnation just like anything else

      --
      Only to idiots, are orders laws.
      -- Henning von Tresckow
    3. Re:Linux could never be a monopoly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please, explain this mysterious method in which Google can selectively ban these hypothetical MS Android devices from accessing the Youtube API.

    4. Re:Linux could never be a monopoly by 21mhz · · Score: 1

      If Microsoft wants the full power of Android, they are free to create their own Android phone,

      So the ability to access the full YouTube feature set is now inextricably linked to Android?
      Someone please, call the antitrust authorities, I think we have a strong case here.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
  26. So.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what 21mhz is saying is that users should be happy to have a Microsoft proprietary file system that works only with some MS OS's as opposed to a file system that works with eVeRyThInG except the few contentious microsoft products in question..

    Good luck to them with that..I think we can all see where that will go, and is indeed going, at flank speed. Bye Microsft, and Nokia for that matter..

  27. What I found funniest about this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    According to TFA, it's done not to "suppress WinPhone because Google has Android", it's "They've made iPhone app because Apple doesn't have a search engine, and MS has Bing therefore they fight Bing by making WinPhone incompetetive"

  28. Re:Are you all...... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Sure...... give it -1.... I know.... truth hurts so it is better to hide and ignore it and move on! :)

  29. It's just a title. What's the issue? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    General Councils are many time VPs because they are head of the Legal Department. You know, the department that handles contracts, regulations, lawsuits, etc ....

    There's also a VP of Finance, Marketing, IT, etc ....

    Other companies may call he VP of IT the CIO.

    How did Shakepeare say it - something about a Rose by another name.

    This guy could be the guy that negotiates with other companies for the use of IP - another legal issue.

    I don't get why it's an issue.

  30. This is the best picture I could find by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    On Google images. Describes the situation perfectly I think.

    http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/files/2010/02/baby-150x150.jpg

  31. Google's Misconduct by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why does Dave Heiner's blog keep referring to "Google's misconduct". That hasn't been established. Dave Heiner is obviously even more stupid than looks, which is really saying something. I'm a professional phrenologist, so I should know. Based on my professional methodology his IQ should be around the 100 mark. But his comments drop that to about 80. Very strange.

    1. Re:Google's Misconduct by mabhatter654 · · Score: 1

      There's no misconduct here. Google owns Toutube and API level access (to skip ads, tracking, etc) is a chargeable feature to them.

      Obviously Microsoft doesn't want to pay the fee, or include the other conditions Google requires... Apple had the same problem... But Apple has enough customers Google couldn't afford to lose them ALL.

      Fundamentally, it's still GOOGLE'S sandbox and they don't have to share toys if they don't want to. They aren't locking users out of the web page... But the web page isn't the "nicest" way to access YoiTube on a phone.

      That Google is going to take Microsoft "behind the woodshed" is a given. But that's entirely legal to "discourage" doing business with a customer that was abusive, power hungry and manipulative of courts and standards bodies. Microsoft is a convicted criminal.. You don't have to "be fair" with convicted criminals in the US legal system.

  32. Reverse Engineer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Just make your app look like an android or apple app to them. Yes, you may need to decompile some stuff, but they'll have to sue to do a thing about it. By then you are in front of a judge explaining Google's anticompetitive practices and how it was nessisary to ensure interoperability. It's a go nowhere trial that will last a decade until they find against Google. Oddly justice will catch up to Google about the same time the new evil asshole company rises to replace them. Likely rising to power on integrity and a nifty moral code like "do nothing that is bad". Then, in turn, they will betray their ideals for heaping gobs of money. Wash, rinse and repeat.

  33. Microsoft: suck it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Microsoft: remember when you all were little children, but you were the biggest of the little children, and you used to run around giving purple-nurples to all of the other little children? Well, guess what? All of the children are grown up now, and some of them have "filled out" more than you have, and so now you know what happens?

    All of those little children that you used to bully... it's their turn to take a big, full, firm grasp of your little bitch-tit nipple and twist for all it's worth.

    Hope you enjoy that.

    Can you whine any louder, bitch?

    1. Re:Microsoft: suck it! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft is not a person, it does not "remember" anything. Grow up.

  34. Re:Not only Youtube. by lwriemen · · Score: 1

    Microsoft isn't going to complain about those. WP users are supposed to use Microsoft email/calendar functionality. Microsoft has never been about choice, as was clearly illustrated in the initial antitrust findings.

  35. Skype doesn't work on Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    And Skype doesn't work on Android, and contrary to djsmiley's comment yesterday, a trivial search shows it doesn't work, these have been reported many times.

    This is nothing to do with Google, it's Microsoft that can't deliver that. Microsoft have not delivered even a basic youtube app, they could simply parse the webpage data, but they don't. I use things like MediaShare that does provide a youtube interface without all the incompetent whining.

    Copied from my posts yesterday:

    1. Video is upside down, if you rotate the device, then both the camera and video playback are upside down, but the other person does see you right way up in that case. Do a search [skype upside down video] and you'll see this has been reported to them lots of times.
    2. Video is landscape only & very fuzzy, but the camera video is not fuzzy, probably the compression?
    3. Audio plays back very very quietly even with full volume.
    4. Lag, lots of it. (I've been told they route all connections through their own servers in the US, which explains the new found lag).
    5. Occasionally Skype gets in a state where the Android tablet won't go into hibernation until you force-kill Skype. This really sucks down the battery juice.
    6. Call receive ring is very quiet, even with full volume.
    7. It doesn't handle timezones properly. It is 9am, a new event happened at 2am, it is not listed in the 'Today' section, it is listed in the 'Some time ago' section. What is listed in the 'TODAY' section is from 'YESTERDAY' at 18:48! (Does it get the timezone from somewhere other than the phone? Because that won't work now, the phone travels, desk computers don't, you can't assume a fixed timezone per user now).

    1. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by hcpxvi · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Support for (traditional, non-Android) Linux is also dodgy in Skype, with the Linux versions of the software being a long way behind the Windows version. I am not naive enough to think that Google are non-evil, but if MS can get away with using Skype as a lock-in lever for Windows, I don't have much sympathy with their whine that Google are doing the same thing with YouTube.

    2. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by neokushan · · Score: 1

      Skype in itself is incredibly dodgy at the moment. There's an annoying bug with current clients whereby messages can arrive in the wrong order. This causes you to not get notified about new messages on Android and even on Windows the messages appear half way up the conversation.

      The solution? Install an older version of the client. Been having this "bug" for weeks now.

      --
      +1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
    3. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by bWareiWare.co.uk · · Score: 3, Interesting

      And Windows users constantly claim that the newer versions of Skype are getting more and more annoying. They may just be assuming Linux customers are more discerning and like the classic simplicity?

    4. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I just had a job interview over skype on my droid 4 on tuesday, it worked fine.

    5. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by LordLimecat · · Score: 1

      Skype has treated Linux as a second class citizen for a very long time before it was acquired by MS. I mean, it makes MS an easy target that now it looks like vendor lock-in, but its also unfair-- very shortly after the acquisition, MS released the first new Linux version of Skype in about 5 years.

    6. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      My experience shows me Skype works very well on Android. I was abroad for a few weeks with my brother and we used Skype on his Galaxy S2 to video call back home, it worked remarkably well.

      More likely, these bugs are the result of hardware/software differences on Android phones, rather than a deliberate attempt by MS to provide a poor experience to Android users.

    7. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Now YouTube should change their website to expose how non-compliant IE is as a web browser... "That's funny, it doesn't look funny in Firefox or Chrome...." 8-)

    8. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by HJED · · Score: 1

      As someone who uses skype on Windows, Linux and Android the linux version is by far the best as it only does chat and video none of the other stuff I don't need, and it has the smallest memory and cpu footprint relative to what the system can handle.

      --
      null
    9. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

      1. Video is upside down, if you rotate the device, then both the camera and video playback are upside down

      That's so the NSA doesn't have to look over your shoulder.

    10. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The much I dislike Microsoft I have to say that your criticism is unfair: video on Android is a bitch! For the past two years I have been working on a VoIP/Video phone application for Android. My experience is that every devices works differently in regards of the camera and the audio capabilities, independent of what the API says. We had to implement compatibility layers with hardcoded camera orientation and audio stream configuration for many devices. So, at least your points 1, 2, 3, 5 and 6 are most probably due to your device not doing what the API asks it to do and not because Microsoft sucks.

      Point 4 you explain yourself (bandwidth!), Point 7, yeah, that's clearly a Microsoft bug.

    11. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      In addition, Microsoft is supposedly supporting Mac OS X, Android and Linux client management with System Center 2012 which will be the standard client management solution going forward over raw AD and GP.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    12. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Odd, I just used skype on my Galaxy Nexus. It worked well. Perhaps doing a web search will suddenly change my result?

    13. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It doesn't work on WP8 either.

    14. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Funny, that. It works just fine for me. I just participated in a group video chat last night.

    15. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Especially DTMFin v6.0+. HTF is is possible to mess up getting DTMF right?

    16. Re:Skype doesn't work on Android by YodasEvilTwin · · Score: 1

      I use the official Skype app on my Android phone without issue. "Skype doesn't work on Android" is false as a blanket statement.

  36. MS undermines Linux by refusing to port Office... by msevior · · Score: 1

    See title.

  37. APIs should be open. :( by mr_jrt · · Score: 1

    Reminds me of a similar problem with Latitude. Google never deemed Maemo worthwhile to get an official Google maps/Latitude client, so our only option is to use the horrible iPhone-targetted web-based nonsense. Yes, using the maps API decent enough 3rd party map clients have spring up, and they can even update our Latitude position, but there's no way to access your friends locations on said map as Google won't let you (we can't trust you, they say!). ...and as they won't make the software themselves, tough shit.

    Annoys the hell out of me as I don't want an iPhone, Blackberry or Android phone...but I have all the damn features on my old Symbian brick :(

    --
    Boo.
  38. Youtube is not a monopoly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Not unless you're going to insist that all copyrighted material has to be licensed for copying to anyone who wants to.

    Youtube uses OTHER PEOPLE'S monopoly (copyrighted material) and you can do the exact same thing. The ONLY reason there is a barrier to entry is that you would have to request a license (and potentially pay for it) from all the same users. That isn't Youtube's fault but copyright. If you want that barrier to entry removed, you need to request copyright be ammended appropriately.

    1. Re:Youtube is not a monopoly by Eirenarch · · Score: 1

      WTF are you talking about. Google is restricting access to their service to competitors. Copyright has nothing to do here.

    2. Re:Youtube is not a monopoly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He is talking about the alleged monopoly YouTube has on user-generated video content, and the relevance of copyright here is that the restrictive copyright law we have make it difficult for competitors to acquire equivalent content.

    3. Re:Youtube is not a monopoly by Eirenarch · · Score: 1

      OK but MS does not want to copy the content. They want access to the service. And YouTube is a monopoly because this is where the users are. The existence or quality of the competing service does not matter. If you want to find a video you go to youtube. If you want to upload a video that is seen by anybody you go to youtube. This is what makes it monopoly in the sense that Windows is a monopoly.

  39. MS can license user uploaded content by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    MS can license user uploaded content if they want to make a new Youtube. What you're demanding is that Google, who pay for that stuff, give it to competitors for free.

    The web page gives them advertising revenue which pays for that cost.

    The app doesn't give them advertising revenue which means they don't get paid.

    If you want copyright abolished so that MS can upload user content from Youtube, then request just that. Don't demand that Youtube commit copyright infringement on MS's behalf.

    1. Re:MS can license user uploaded content by Eirenarch · · Score: 0

      Stop with your copyright bullshit. MS wants access to the YouTube service same like the access Android and iOS gets. If it costs money they should charge MS. If they don't agree on the price they go to court to determine the price. YouTube is a monopoly and if anti-trust laws mean anything they should be legally forced to provide the same conditions to everyone free or paid.

    2. Re:MS can license user uploaded content by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sorry, YouTube is not a monopoly - they're just the biggest. There is absolutely nothing preventing MS from creating a competitor.

      Substitute YouTube with eBay and you get the exact same result.

    3. Re:MS can license user uploaded content by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are complaining that they want the *internal* APIs Google used to develop the Android and iOS apps. YouTube is only *monopoly-sized* (and only in user-generated/uploaded videos). Google isn't blocking anyone from anything. MS is complaining the API for third parties is too limited. Well tough shit.

      Even being a monopoly doesn't mean that a company must sell all its products and services available to anyone who asks, in whatever format is requested. YouTube is not a utility, an industry standard or some vital component to running a computer.

      What MS wants to do is strip the YouTube branding and ads and throw the content into a WP8 video player. This is no different than MS whining that Office for iOS will have 30% going to Apple. Sorry but MS doesnt have the right to force Google to monetize the content via direct payment. Claiming this is anti-competitive is ridiculous.

  40. MS had a dept devoted to reverse engineering by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously, MS can easily RE what Google has. They had multiple ppl that are PROHIBITED from touching a windows system. Yet, these ppl get to play with everything else. When they want to RE a piece of software, they turn to these ppl and then have then write up descriptions of it. And they have lawyers that make sure that the RE has a nice separation.

    They can EASILY write this. They just sux at it.

  41. The beginning... by XB-70 · · Score: 5, Informative
    So, let me get this straight: Windows 8 uses Unified Extensible Firmware Interface to block the installation of any other operating system. Microsoft Office ONLY runs (properly) on Apple and Windows, it has taken the Samba team some 15 years to figure out Active Directory, MS Office files are not 100% ODF compliant (and probably never will be), SQLServer only runs on Windows machines etc. etc.

    the bottom line is this: because of all the above, the migration away from this closed-shop monolith is happening - and the RATE at which it's happening is ramping up extremely quickly.

    In short, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the monopoly.

    --
    *** Don't be dull.***
    1. Re:The beginning... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Windows 8 uses Unified Extensible Firmware Interface to block the installation of any other operating system

      Hurr durr. Except it doesn't. Any user can install whatever keys they want, or turn it off. And RedHat has signed it to run NP. But no it blocks any other operating system!!!!1

    2. Re:The beginning... by Tharkkun · · Score: 1

      So, let me get this straight: Windows 8 uses Unified Extensible Firmware Interface to block the installation of any other operating system. Microsoft Office ONLY runs (properly) on Apple and Windows, it has taken the Samba team some 15 years to figure out Active Directory, MS Office files are not 100% ODF compliant (and probably never will be), SQLServer only runs on Windows machines etc. etc.

      the bottom line is this: because of all the above, the migration away from this closed-shop monolith is happening - and the RATE at which it's happening is ramping up extremely quickly.

      In short, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the monopoly.

      Why would Office run on any other OS? You're crying about using a product in a way it's not intended to be used.

    3. Re:The beginning... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In short, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of the monopoly.

      You forgot...and the beginning of a new monopoly.

    4. Re:The beginning... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Microsoft has released Office for iOS, Android, and Symbian.

      Why would Office files be ODF compliant? Office's file format is OpenXML. ODF does not supply the functionality that is needed to successfully store all of the functionality that modern versions of Office offer. Sure, Microsoft could put their own custom extensions in but then folks like you would get bent out of shape about how Microsoft is trying to destroy ODF by embracing and extending.

    5. Re:The beginning... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      total bs win8 doesn't block jack, it uses features in that firmware (which you can control) to protect itself. SQLServer only runs on Windows... well fking duh.. what you expect them to port it to linux or something, if they did would you buy it? didn't think so.

    6. Re:The beginning... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Been hearing "beginning of the end" comments since Windows ME. Wake me up when you have something other than baseless predictions.

  42. Re:MS undermines Linux by refusing to port Office. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    hurr durr

  43. Cry me a river will ya? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "YouTube apps on the Android and Apple platforms were two of the most downloaded mobile applications in 2012, according to recent news reports," Heiner wrote. "Yet Google still refuses to allow Windows Phone users to have the same access to YouTube that Android and Apple customers enjoy."'

    *COUGH*Exchange*COUGH*Skype*COUGH*DocX*COUGH*DirectX*COUGH*...ad infinitum.

    Abide by your own sudden outburst of corporate ethics, or kindly STFU.

  44. Fair? by Danathar · · Score: 1

    Why does Google HAVE to let Windows phone in? It may not be good marketing, but youtube is definitely not a monopoly. If they want to exclude Windows phone from having the same bells and whistles as Android and Iphone users why shouldn't they have the right to block them?

  45. oh yeah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Suck it Microsoft!

  46. The metadata is RIGHT THERE in the headers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No, it's not 'fair for the goose'. ALL the metadata for a video is right there in the header of the webpage. All the description, the keywords, details on the streams, it's all right there, published for everyone, including Bing, on the page of every youtube video.

    I think some incompetent Microsoft employee has made excuses for not being able to deliver a good YouTube app, and a VP with no technical brains has simply believed him.

  47. The unfair patent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They complain because they have patented their business strategy. So only Microsoft is allowed to play unfair.

  48. Like THAT is what is keeping Windows Phone down... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, a slightly better YouTube App. It has nothing to do with horrible products and horrible business practices, (haven't they realized yet that people only use their products because they have to, and when they get the chance they go for something else?),

    Also, Microsoft, quite honestly, with all the bullshit you have pulled with anti-trust, you don't have the right EVER to accuse anyone of abusing it against you. How many companies have you either completely forced out of business, or force them to somehow make a business out of giving away things for free?, (which they actually DID, but that's not the point). At this point it's not anti-competitive behaviour, it's rightful tyrannicide.

  49. Microsoft is undermining their own phone by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WP8 is buggy as fuck.

    Try installing & running Microsoft's darling, Skype.

    Then try opening your contacts or sending an sms message.

    What's that, you can't? That's right,YOU CAN'T until you do a factory reset.

    Imagine if you bought a car and your headlights & brake lights arbitrarily stopped working until you performed a factory-reset on the engine computer. This would be scandalous and yet, no one gives a shit.

    Probably because no one is buying the phones.

    Probably because Microsoft doesn't give a shit.

  50. Google are NOT doing the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Except Google are not doing the same. I thought there was some meta data missing (the keywords text), but when I checked the youtube webpage headers, no, Youtube puts it in the keywords header field! It's right there, grab a webpage and take a look.

    I see Bing already scrapes the description data, for some reason they don't index the keywords data, but they should, youtube keywords data is the data that users enter with their videos, not SEO spam.

    I see the Views Count is right there on the webpage, so they can even get the viewing rank if they want. It's even in a span labelled
    class="watch-view-count"

    So Microsoft gets *all* the metadata for the video, including all the stuff the user enters, description, keywords, views etc. and they currently use part of it already in Bing.

    IMHO, it's just incompetence. They just don't seem to be able to do *anything* these days. I remember the Microsoft whose products could be guaranteed to be technically excellent, and I look at the modern day Microsoft with despair.

    Their stuff is garbage, they have 100 times the programmers, yet they don't seem to be able to do anything.

    1. Re:Google are NOT doing the same by VGPowerlord · · Score: 1

      "I remember the Microsoft whose products could be guaranteed to be technically excellent"
      I don't. I remember the Microsoft who sucked less than their primary competitors in the microcomputer world at the time.

      I assumed he was talking about before I was born when Microsoft's only products were BASIC interpreters.

      --
      GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
    2. Re:Google are NOT doing the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I remember the Microsoft whose products could be guaranteed to be technically excellent

      When was this? I remember them being dogs at least through the 90s and early 2000s. XP SP2 was _okay_, Vista was middling, and Win 7 was decent. Excel has been reasonable for a while now, but most of Office only got decent in the last few years.

    3. Re:Google are NOT doing the same by mabhatter654 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Actually, Google has an API registered developers are supposed to use. If you don't use the API, but screen scraping, the periodically mess with the pages to break you.

      Google did the same thing to Apple... And Apple PAYS Google big bucks for API access. But Google kept withholding features from Apple's developer API toolbox so Android would look better. Apple's fix was to stop making apps themselves using Google's APIs at all. That way Google can make the App. Google can access the OS like a normal app developer (no more favors) and Apple gets out of paying a six figure sum every month! Google owns those services... Let Google develop the apps!

      So the question is: can Microsoft drop its attempts at accessing Google's sites and raise enough suffering that Google writes an App for Windows 8 Mobile? Ha, ha, ha....

    4. Re:Google are NOT doing the same by X3J11 · · Score: 1

      IMHO, it's just incompetence. They just don't seem to be able to do *anything* these days. I remember the Microsoft whose products could be guaranteed to be technically excellent , and I look at the modern day Microsoft with despair.

      I read that with snarky emphasis on the word technically, because I do not remember a time when Microsoft's products could be referred to as excellent.

      Well, technically it's excellent, but...

    5. Re:Google are NOT doing the same by amiga3D · · Score: 1

      I don't remember that Microsoft at all. I stuck with an outdated Amiga computer until 1999 because it operated better than anything else I saw until 99 when Linux actually started to be superior and I switched to SUSE linux. I actually bought a box set at Best Buy for somewhere around 70 dollars. I struggled with some problems occasionally but nowhere near what Windows users were suffering through. I used Windows at work and our IT section struggled to try and keep things working. Home users bought computers in the early 2000's and actually bought new computers because of software problems that were insurmountable without constant trips to computer stores that stripped their wallets. One friend of mine reloaded windows on his new Pentium 4 system over 100 times in a 9 month period and finally just gave up and bought a new computer with a special warranty to cover the system software as well as hardware. Hell, I've heard that lie about windows reliablility so many times and its pure shit.

    6. Re:Google are NOT doing the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And Apple makes every web-based app use a different toolkit than Safari uses to render HTML, making Safari fast and other web-based apps slow.

    7. Re:Google are NOT doing the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Why do so many forum comments begin with an unnecessary "actually?" One of the great mysteries of the universe.

    8. Re:Google are NOT doing the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Actually, it's not that mysterious.

    9. Re:Google are NOT doing the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      'I remember the Microsoft whose products could be guaranteed to be technically excellent, and I look at the modern day Microsoft with despair."

      Oh really? I look at them with exactly the same despair as in the past.

      It's been a very very long time since I realized that the day Microsoft would produce something that doesn't suck, it's going to be a vacuum cleaner.

      What exactly are you talking about? The old Word versions that would change the layout depending on which printer was hooked to the system? Early version of Internet Explorer?

      I've only ever seen mediocrity and I'd really like to know which products were technically excellent...

    10. Re:Google are NOT doing the same by fido_dogstoyevsky · · Score: 1

      ...I remember the Microsoft whose products could be guaranteed to be technically excellent...

      With all possible respect, but as someone who started on DOS 3, my response has to be (safe for work).

      --
      It's NOT a conspiracy... it's a plot.
    11. Re:Google are NOT doing the same by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > I remember the Microsoft whose products could be guaranteed to be technically excellent,
      What were you smoking?

      I remember (as of 2008) that Word 2007 crashed relentlessly on a 200 page thesis. Prior to that, it was dramatically less reliable.
      Windows 7 is the first relatively stable version of their operating system, and yet I find after a year and a half of steady use that I may have to rebuild the system because it's getting slow. XP would crash on a regular basis.

      Let's also remember that many of the major products of Microsoft's: DOS, Word, etc. started as other company's products. Microsoft acquired its best.

      Exactly what product of Microsoft's do you recall as being so rock solid?

  51. Re:MS undermines Linux by refusing to port Office. by Toreo+asesino · · Score: 1

    Yes because not investing in the huge R&D effort to port Office to "Linux" (which one?) is the same as filtering an API usage based on device ID.

    --
    throw new NoSignatureException();
  52. There is nothing to undermine by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Windows phone is not worth undermining.
    It doesn't actually exist on the market, dies slowly, and Google couldn't fear it less.

    This is just a self auto-promotion from microsoft trying to make it look like Google cares...

  53. Is it any wonder? by erp_consultant · · Score: 2

    Microsoft has shown throughout their history that they are more than willing to screw any and all competitors, legally or otherwise. And now they are complaining because Google won't play nice? Well boo-frickin-hoo. I'm not trying to suggest that Google is any better. Or Apple. Or Oracle. Or Facebook. They are all just big evil silicon valley companies. None of them seem to be happy unless they are suing someone. It just seems to me that MS wrote the playbook for this type of behavior and now it's coming back to haunt them.

    Can't we all just...get along?

  54. Lawyers Versus Engineers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Fuck them, let and engineer say its not so and then maybe I'll listen, as long as its lawyers who shit talk they can go F themselves, I'm much to long in the tooth to forget the shit they done and do.

  55. Re:Are you all...... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Naw, you're just a fucktard.

  56. YES! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How are those tired old methods working for ya now MS?

  57. SHOCKED I tell you! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    REVEALED: A famous tech company today admitted to having "people with an understanding of high-level corporate operations" in board-level roles. And you won't believe who that tech company is. We'll bring you more on that story at 11, after the pilot of NBC's new Victorian-era sitcom, "No Shit, Sherlock!".

  58. If one were to use (cough! cough!) microsoft.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why not just download minitube? Ads.... gone! Adobe flash.... gone!

    Lean & mean 2013

  59. Just a matter of time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This seems like a great time for Microsoft to launch a new YouTube like site, considering the great success of previous attempts to take market shares from Google...

    1. Re:Just a matter of time... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You must be kidding.
      Or you are probably retarded and have no idea what you are talking about.

  60. The Answer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Metrotube works perfectly fine and I prefer it to the regular Youtube apps on my other mobile devices frankly. It works on Windows Phone 7 or 8. Any of you bitches still fighting about platform choice are homos. Use what you like

  61. I can install an ext2 driver today by cheekyboy · · Score: 1

    You can install a ext2 driver today and map a part to a drive letter.

    So fool, learn to use google.

    --
    Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
    1. Re:I can install an ext2 driver today by tepples · · Score: 1

      Say a user is not the owner of a particular PC and is thus not a member of the Adminstrators group. Can he install an ext2 driver to his own user account and use it?

  62. Glass houses? by polyp2000 · · Score: 1

    People in Glass Houses shouldnt throw stones - is all i have to say!

    --
    Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
  63. hmm... by drankr · · Score: 1

    I like this "Google". But what is this "Windows Phone"?

  64. Re:MS undermines Linux by refusing to port Office. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yes, because "filtering an API usage based on device ID" is the same as "not providing the same feature set for access to our web services".

    He's not complaining about WP getting banned from Youtube, he's complaining they don't get the same metadata API access as Google's own applications (and conveniently forgets to mention how much and if they did offer anything for access to those APIs)

  65. Lets blame others by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The usual Microsoft game, Let's blame others for our screwups.

  66. A brief letter by sootman · · Score: 1

    Dear Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Dave Heiner,

    Please explain to me why the Samba project exists.

    Thanks,
    Everyone.

    --
    Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
  67. Kettles lined up outside like an apple iphone line by orateam · · Score: 1

    Netscape once use to complain about Microsoft now allowing access to it's API's for it's new O.S's. There would be a long line of companies (if they were still around) ready to call Microsoft out for this little complain.

  68. They can't by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Google's motto is "do no evil." That pretty much precludes them from including Microsoft in any way, shape or form.

  69. Are you for real!!! by hesaigo999ca · · Score: 1

    The bully is getting bullied, I love it!!

    Now they know what it is like to have a big company (bigger than them at this point) come in and manipulate things (buy outs, price fixing, etc...)
    and stick it to the smaller guy....

    Although this is not good news for another reason, "Do no evil" has left the building!

    1. Re:Are you for real!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Doing evil against evil ones is in fact doing good.

  70. IntelliSense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's no C# IntelliSense for the YouTube APIs in Visual Studio. Of course the developers are spinlocked. It's really all Microsoft's fault.

  71. who said Youtube was supposed to be open? by FunkyELF · · Score: 1

    Netflix only works on whatever they decide to port their application to... how is Youtube any different?
    At least YouTube uses webm and html5... if Microsoft wanted to they could skin the hell out of the web version.

  72. I know it's trendy to bash Microsoft here... by SpryGuy · · Score: 1

    ...but let's be honest: They're behaving better than Google and Apple these days. Google left the "Don't Be Evil" philosophy behind quite a while ago. Apple is coasting. MS is innovating, regardless of what you actually think of their products.

    Personally, I'd rather there be a good 3-way race/competition, with everyone pushing everyone else. If it's an iOS/Android duopoly, it'll be kind of boring, since once is basically a copy of the other. At least WP8 dares to be different.

    --

    - Spryguy
    There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
    1. Re:I know it's trendy to bash Microsoft here... by DragonWriter · · Score: 1

      ...but let's be honest: They're behaving better than Google and Apple these days

      How? They are spending more time whining about other companies supposedly doing things that Microsoft has done in much worse forms since the market in which they are dominant has slowly become less relevant, but I don't see them behaving any better than anyone else.

    2. Re:I know it's trendy to bash Microsoft here... by ADRA · · Score: 1

      Apple's always been evil to their competition or partners if they had the opportunity, but they're generally nice to their users so people just shut up about it. MS and Google will both be nasty when a competitor threatens their core businesses in any way. That said, Google has a habbit of buying their threatening competitors or out innovating them. MS just closes the doors on them.

      Given the fact that there are several competitive applications that support the core youtube functionality and that all the functionality can be scraped in real time means that the issue is -kinda- moot. Now if Google bocked it by a TOS, there'd be a little more guilty of being a bad neighbour, but hell, google's business is to make money and people watching youtube (ads anyways) makes them money, and generally they've been very willing to spread the love to platforms that play ball. Could it be that MS didn't want to form a formal business relationship on the issue to make sure their app didn't just ad block youtube ads?

      --
      Bye!
    3. Re:I know it's trendy to bash Microsoft here... by geekoid · · Score: 1

      No, they are not behaving better the Google. What rock do you live under?
      What innovation has come out of MS?
      While MS is better then they were, that's not much of a bar.

      "Google left the "Don't Be Evil" philosophy "
      example beside hear say from a site know from anti Google stance from an author who regularly spreads FUD?

      " it'll be kind of boring, since once is basically a copy of the other. "
      ah. So either you are stupid or ignorant. Gotcha.

      " At least WP8 dares to be different."

      Now if they would at least dare to be better.

      HAve a nice day.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    4. Re:I know it's trendy to bash Microsoft here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you actually believe this or you just get money from microsoft for posting these lies everywhere?

    5. Re:I know it's trendy to bash Microsoft here... by SpryGuy · · Score: 1

      But that doesn't make sense. There are 3rd party YouTube video apps in the WP8 and Windows8 stores... Google isn't going to get ad revenue from those.

      It's stated refusal to create any apps for either platform seems more petulant than anything to me.

      --

      - Spryguy
      There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
    6. Re:I know it's trendy to bash Microsoft here... by SpryGuy · · Score: 1

      Neither stupid nor ignorant. If you don't think Android is a "me-too" copy of iOS, your'e the ignorant/stupid one. It's the same philosophy.

      WP8 is not only a different take, it IS good. In many ways it is/was better (both iOS and Android have copied features/abilities that first appeared in WP7 and now WP8). You speak like somone with absolutely no experience with either platform (you've just heard some bashing, and have chosen to go along with that, because your hatred of MS trumps all other considerations).

      Surface/Win8/WP8 all show innovation. For you to ask "What innovation ahs come out of MS" shows extreme ignorance or willfully stupidity on your part, imho.

      --

      - Spryguy
      There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
    7. Re:I know it's trendy to bash Microsoft here... by SpryGuy · · Score: 1

      Of course I don't get paid anything to post here, and I didn't post any lies. Stop being an ignorant knee-jerk MS-bashing troll for two seconds.

      --

      - Spryguy
      There are three kinds of people in this world: those that can count and those that can't
    8. Re:I know it's trendy to bash Microsoft here... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's a good rant there.

      You know what could make it a good _argument_ instead of good rant? Naming some of those innovations (especially those copied by iOS and Android). If he's ignorant, why don't you enlighten him instead of just calling him ignorant? It shouldn't be too hard for you.

  73. Story linked from news.google by Bent+Spoke · · Score: 1

    FYI, despite the anti-google bias of theregister (implied by the Chocolate Factory epithet) , I found this story while reading news.google.ca

  74. Treating psychopats and corporations ... by boorack · · Score: 3, Insightful

    They say "fight fire with fire". As soon as Microsoft would stop harrasing other Android vendors with their lawyers bringing bogus claims and "don't try this" attitude, I would assume your point valid. Yet I see Microsoft crying foul and AT THE SAME TIME doing way more cruel things to Android vendors than what Google is doing to them.

    If you read or hear on how to treat psychopats getting in your way, you discover that first thing is to do (besides avoiding them) set aside ANY moral issues you have. Otherwise you get instant disadvantage because psychopats - like sharks - tend to have no empathy nor moral constraints at all. I'm bringing this up because corporate entities are the ultimate psychopats (and we still hear everywhere that "corporations are people" crap). Especially those built on deception from the start, like Microsoft.

    People in the US of A have to learn what people in old communist countries leaned in their time. Double standards are forced upon us and if "we the people" don't adapt, we're in disadvantage. According to corporate executives and wall street money junkies we, ordinary people are all second class citizens. Why should we treat them differently ?

    1. Re:Treating psychopats and corporations ... by Rob+Y. · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Not to mention that Microsoft is restricting the Chrome experience on Win8 Metro by denying access to API's. Exactly the same thing. And disallowing any other apps beyond MSOffice from running in desktop mode on ARM.

      --
      Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
    2. Re:Treating psychopats and corporations ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You Sir (Lady) are one thinking person!

    3. Re:Treating psychopats and corporations ... by mcguirez · · Score: 1

      Q: How does a maniac get through the jungle?

      A: Of course, he takes the psychopath!

      --
      When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras
    4. Re:Treating psychopats and corporations ... by exomondo · · Score: 1

      Not to mention that Microsoft is restricting the Chrome experience on Win8 Metro by denying access to API's. Exactly the same thing. And disallowing any other apps beyond MSOffice from running in desktop mode on ARM.

      How is that any different from Apple and Google giving themselves special rights on their own platforms? Apple has their own private APIs that only they can use on iOS and Google has its own private undocumented APIs too (manifested, for example, with the recent weather API issue). I would say pretty much all companies that aren't 100% open source have private APIs only accessible/usable by them.

  75. MTP is a higher level protocol by tepples · · Score: 2

    Isn't the reason you are forced to FAT that the other FS aren't readily available on windows?

    On Windows, it's either FAT over USB Mass Storage, UDF over USB Mass Storage, or MTP. USB devices that include storage as one of several functions should implement MTP for the same reason that several network attached storage (NAS) devices implement FTP, NFS, or SMB instead of something like iSCSI. MTP operates at a level of files, not disk blocks, which frees clients from having to understand the server's or device's file system.

  76. Mass storage vs. MTP by tepples · · Score: 1

    I think what grandparent is trying to say is that a USB flash drive or USB hard drive should expose an MTP interface instead of a mass storage interface. That way, any machine that understands MTP would be able to read and write files on it.

    1. Re:Mass storage vs. MTP by jcdr · · Score: 1

      How much USB memory or USB hard disk implement MTP ?

    2. Re:Mass storage vs. MTP by 21mhz · · Score: 1

      I ought to have been more specific, too: pure storage devices can still be usefully exposed via block-level mass storage, at the innate cost of lesser portability and flexibility. For smart devices, exposing internally used partitions at block level via USB is an unnecessary pain in the ass.

      --
      My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
    3. Re:Mass storage vs. MTP by jcdr · · Score: 1

      Block access is absolutely not the problem: NFS for example uses block concurrent access for the data without any glitch.

      The only pain of using USB Mass Storage is the contention when both the host and the device access the memory. It's not an excuse to restrict the users to the very limited capability of MTP. Using NFS (over IP over USB) would have been even more powerful by exposing a real full filesystem with concurrent access, multiple operations, full directory recursion, arbitrary access in both read and write mode, appending data to a file, shrinking a file, and proper caching. MTP is really horrible compared to the extremely reliable NFS.

  77. If not for Google... by rainhill · · Score: 1

    ...this would have been the YoWP (year of windows phone)

  78. HTPCs still unpopular despite console lockdown by tepples · · Score: 1

    Windows 8 uses Unified Extensible Firmware Interface to block the installation of any other operating system. [...] because of all the above, the migration away from this closed-shop monolith is happening

    Game consoles are locked down far tighter than PCs that ship with Windows 8, yet this didn't inspire a mass migration from game consoles to general-purpose home theater PCs.

  79. Re:MS undermines Linux by refusing to port Office. by hAckz0r · · Score: 1

    Yes because not investing in the huge R&D effort to port Office to "Linux" (which one?) is the same as filtering an API usage based on device ID.

    Supporting Linux is really quite simple. You take the Mac port that already exists and recompile it using the Linux header files. Done. Give me the source code and I'll hand you a binary. I port things all the time and its not really that hard fro someone that knows what they are doing. Its not that Microsoft can't port it, its that they won't, because it gives everyone an OS exit strategy after the strangle hold on document support/creation/compatibility is over.

    Microsoft document formats are a moving target, simply to keep the competition behind the curve, not because any new features were needed. If they didn't keep changing the file format people would not have to upgrade after every new version is released. That is why they hated ODF standards enough to waste MILLIONS in creating an alternate standard that could not even be implemented in a compatible manor. Even when they paid Novel MILLIONS to add OOXML support to OpenOffice, Novell was FORBIDDEN BY CONTRACT to implement the binary blob compatibility where Microsoft stuffs all the real MS proprietary implementation. What's the point of having a "standard" that isn't even a standard?

    BTW - A far as I can see, Microsoft has nothing to complain about with Youtube. Google has a published API. If Microsoft wants to use a different language they can reimplement that API using C#, DCOM, powershell or *.BAT if they want to. They just want something to complain about to the authorities to keep Google in hot water as much as possible.

  80. Gee, FUD from Neil McAllister by geekoid · · Score: 1

    Who would have thought?

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  81. Won't play fair? by tchall · · Score: 1

    Guess it sucks to be a Microsoft Phone user...

    WAH!!!

  82. Companies only block those they're threatened by by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Android - a copy of iPhone. Windows phone - some level of innovation. If these apps become first class apps on WP, Google will have something that seems to lack lustre. You can imagine that Youtube app being fully integrated into the People app on there - that would be bad ass.

    I have all three devices each from Apple, Google, and MS. The only thing that's missing from the WP is the said apps I use on the others. Funny thing is that, even so I still love the WP8 more than the rest. And I'm not an MS fan boy, have all Apple (macbook, iphone, ipod) products etc...But I'm also not emotionally tied to any company.

    Business practices aside, this block is preventing consumers from a better experience for their loved platform.

  83. Re:MS undermines Linux by refusing to port Office. by geekoid · · Score: 1

    " "Linux" (which one?)"
    Properly done, it doesn't matter.
    Don't confuse idiots who write code dependent on libraries from other people or specific distro as a Linux issue.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  84. MTP by 21mhz · · Score: 1

    1. It needs to cache, somehow. Using tab-completion with an mtp-mounted device is PAINFUL. I can use tab completion with network shares, so why not with MTP - both have the same concurrency issues.

    Sounds like an implementation issue. I don't think caching belongs in the wire protocol anyhow.

    2. It needs to be dumber, or at least make that configurable. If I copy a file into a directory, I want the file to go into THAT directory. I don't care if I'm putting music in a pictures directory. I don't care if the driver doesn't understand the video codec. JUST COPY THE FILE!

    True, they've made some concessions to "smart" devices that use peculiar media-specific storage schemes. I'm not sure it's necessarily bad, but it does not map well to generic file operations. In fact, I don't think an MTP device is even required to have a general-purpose filesystem.

    --
    My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.
  85. And accessing that service requires copying data. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And that requires you agree and pay for a license to do so.

    Dipshit.

  86. The videos dickwad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Youtube hosts video.

    That vidio is NOT in some Youtube specific format.

    Therefore it is NOT like Windows where the programs are compiled for that specific OS.

    Are you deliberately being a stupid twat, or do you just play one on the internet?

  87. Why... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Why should Google help M$ (a competitor) at all? Can I easily install Android on a Surface tablet? Thats a BIG NO! So why should Google give M$ info to help them develop an app that will help MS take business away from Google?

  88. Not particularly by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 1

    One of the first apps for Windows Phone was MetroTube (originally LazyTube). It's provided great YouTube support from the beginning and continues to be updated regularly. It embraces the Windows Phone style completely and is always fast and fluid -- really a model app.

    So do I care about a first-party app, or even one from Microsoft? Not really.

    The only problem here is that they need to use APIs which are unsupported by YouTube -- I don't remember why, it's been a long time. I think to get at HD videos -- and thus the app can potentially break without notice. This is pretty rare, but it happens -- the most recent was about a week ago, and they fixed it within a few days. So I can see an API argument from Microsoft might have some truth to it.

    I would love Youtube to be integrated into the phone like other social networks are. I'm guessing this is what Microsoft is actually after.

  89. Email from Microsoft to Google by darth_borehd · · Score: 1

    To: Kettle (alias Google) From: Pot (alias Microsoft) Subject: Re: Abusing market power I believe you have gamma correction on #000000 set to 0. Just FYI.

  90. Ahhwww, too bad Microsofty by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whaaa, we aren't able to get away with being number one by publishing crapware and killing other businesses that can compete with us so its unfair. Really, they sound like my 4 year old. I knew if M$ had to deal with a real competitor, they would fail. RIP M$

  91. Reap what you sow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Humbling times for the folks at MS.

    While it's nice to see humble pie get served, I don't think that excuses Google's behavior. People around here will think it's fine... until they realize just how bad Google is going to get. Then suddenly Google will be evil... when they've already been evil for a long time.

  92. or OBJECTION: Assumes Facts not in Evidence by RobertLTux · · Score: 1

    and as to disproving same i have this set of books by Woody Leonhard that detail among other things exactly where MS "excellence" can be proven to be Bovine Processed Grain. (wheels in a flatbed trolley stacked with large books)

    --
    Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
  93. I LEARNED IT BY WATCHING YOU DAD! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Okay?! I learned it by watching you!!

  94. A different way to look at it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's the same thing as No Shoes, No Shirt. No Service.
    No Android, No Apple. No Youtube

  95. How about a trade? by macemoneta · · Score: 1

    Microsoft, you drop secure boot, and Google will give you a YouTube app?

    Because, for fucks sake, a giant software company like Microsoft can't code one up in a weekend. How sad is that?

    --

    Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.

  96. Re:MS undermines Linux by refusing to port Office. by squiggleslash · · Score: 1

    Not sure if you're making a joke or not, but in case you're not: GNU/Linux and Mac OS X have somewhat different APIs at the UI level. You can't just recompile a Mac OS X desktop application and it'll suddenly work on Ubuntu.

    There's a kinda-sorta "clone" of the Cocoa API for GNU/Linux called GNUStep, but it's incomplete and has significant API differences due to the author's decision to base it upon the OPENSTEP operating system. And, to the best of my knowledge, there's no Carbon API for GNU/Linux.

    Sorry.

    --
    You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
  97. No Swype by DutchMasterKiller · · Score: 1

    Not allowing a *proper* Swype app on your device is a reason for me not wanting a Windows Phone.

  98. There's a real surprise... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I know that /. has been infested since quite some time by relatively new users constantly astroturfing MS stuff but...

    It still comes to me as a real surprise that there are apparently actually a few people using MS smartphones.

    Like people never learn anything or something...

  99. And nothing was lost... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No Youtube on Windows Phone, no Skype on Android.

    Both systems need to be replaced with open standards anyway.

  100. MFs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Them Google boys is some mother fuckers.

  101. no, a Linux monopoly is very different by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft is 100% allowed to install Linux on phones, royalty-free.

  102. Keywords, Description, Title by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Keep in mind the only meta data for youtube is the keywords, title and descrption, which have to be presented in the hardcoded HTML tags. (dating back to the 1990's) and thus cannot be changed. The API's change more often than those tags, which have never changed and are hardcoded right across the whole web!

    Although I concede your point on the view count span, if Bing is pulling this data currently then keeping the page parser up to date is something they already do. It's trivial.

    "Google did the same thing to Apple"
    No they didn't, that meta data hasn't changed since before the iPod was launched.

    What they seem to want is a contract and special data feed, beyond the normal web feed. I bet they want it for free too.
    But the data is there, the hardcoded nature of those tags does define the API, it's the same data Google pulls for all web sites itself.

  103. Coherence by joaosantos · · Score: 1

    So this means we will have an open skype protocol really soon right?

  104. Re:MS undermines Linux by refusing to port Office. by hAckz0r · · Score: 1
  105. Those in glass houses should not throw stones. by horusofoz · · Score: 1

    The college where I study has blocked access to Google Drive and Docs for over a year as part of their MSDNAA/DreamSpark access deal. Google's obstructionist behaviour here is negative. But I feel it is a justifiable measure in response to the above. Little different from the reactionary patent cases launched in response to litigious attacks from Apple over Android.

  106. huh? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    microsoft made a phone?

  107. ASUS Vivobook is $500 by dagelf · · Score: 0

    I'm thoroughly enjoying using the touch-screen on my new el-cheapo Vivobook.

    Fact of the matter is that touching the screen is very intuitive and is becoming a very natural way of interacting with computers, popularized by our phones. Having used the ASUS Transformer as well as various Android devices, I have the utmost praise for the ultra-smoothness of Windows 8 (My other OS is Gentoo, I'm not the biggest MS fan, but hats off to them for this... memory- and CPU-guzzling gorilla as it is aside) - the onscreen keyboard is a pleasure to use - not that you need it on this particular device; having a decent laptop keyboard handy is similarly priceless.

    Being ahead of the curve sucks though - as yet is seems only Microsoft's Windows 8 Apps (IE) works elegantly. Firefox is quite sucky and Chrome even worse with touch.

    The real question bugging me is: What place does Intel have dictating hardware features?!?!

  108. WTF? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Which one of its 4 customers complained?

    This is pretty ironic given that it is MS whining about being undermined.

    Enjoy your karma and suck it!