Google Backs Down On Maps Redirect

Dupple writes "A few days ago Google blocked access to its maps on Windows Phone 8, claiming that it 'worked best' on WebKit-based browsers — effectively excluding WP8 users. This, despite Google Maps working fine on desktop versions of IE that use the same rendering engine and users being able to spoof the user agent string on their WP8 devices to gain access. Now it appears that Google has backed down and is now allowing WP8 users access."

Comments

Don't be evil

[kawabago]

How soon they forget.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

You were same fucking assholes who complained when Microsoft excluded people 10 years ago by using propriety APIs. Google wants to use open APIs and now they are being "evil". They want to remove the crap API code and the easiest way to start that was denying access when using Internet Explorer. Its not a monopoly when you have choices. Don't like Google Maps, use Bing Maps, don't like Google, use Bing. There is a choice shop being a bunch of crying fucking babies.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't be evil to whom?

Google has always been evil.

Re:Don't be evil

[carvell]

Can we please have one discussion regarding Google without somebody chiming in with the "Don't Be Evil" thing?

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't that be evil?

Re:Don't be evil

[__aasehi2499]

If they hadn't made the grand declaration of it being their motto in that holier than thou kind of way which was directed at companies like Microsoft, then yes, but since they did, then no.

Re:Don't be evil

[Atzanteol]

It would seem not...

Re:Don't be evil

[Forty Two Tenfold]

To me. Fix the Chrome focus stealing for fuck's sake!

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has yet to behave in the same manner Microsoft has for decades.

It is funny how the "Hey Google, stop being evil!" only applies to Google controlling how Microsoft uses its systems. If a Microsoft employee walked onto my property, it is a right to kick them off, not "being evil."

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not an open source comunity, but a company. That means, the product is tightly linked to their image. If they believed it wouldn't render well, then they're right to block access.

People seem to confuse this practice with something similar practiced by some websites in ancient times before Firefox became popular, when anything but Internet Explorer was blocked. Which was due to the web developers snobbery and lazyness, than any actual marketing concerns.

Frankly, right now, the WinPhones need all the publicity they can get, but if they need to stoop this low, then the numbers must be really really bad.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

They're not an open source comunity, but a company. That means, the product is tightly linked to their image. If they believed it wouldn't render well, then they're right to block access

Such is the justification of the sanctimonious.

Thanks for proving the point.

Re:Don't be evil

[allo]

use kwin and try to change the level of focus stealing prevention (maybe only with a per window rule)

Re:Don't be evil

[Runaway1956]

Ohhh, I don't know about all that. The DOJ spent - what? - nineteen months and several millions of dollars investigating Google. They couldn't find anything with which to beat Google down. I would guess that Google isn't doing a very good job of being evil. Note that they said "don't be evil", they did not say "let's be fucking saints".

Can Google screw up? Yes.

Has Google screwed up? Yes.

Has Google pissed me off? Yes.

Even so, Google is more good than bad. Microsoft can't say the same. The DOJ was about to tear them a new asshole, until George Bush took office. Bush Junior has never met a monopoly that he didn't like, so the DOJ was called off.

Re:Don't be evil

[Dan667]

microsoft has been evil a lot.

Re:Don't be evil

[Rockoon]

If they believed it wouldn't render well, then they're right to block access.

Except why would they believe that it didn't render well unless, you know, it actually didn't render well?

People seem to confuse this practice with something similar practiced by some websites in ancient times before Firefox became popular, when anything but Internet Explorer was blocked.

It looks to me like people are correctly equating the practice with a Microsoft service requiring that the user agent be Internet Explorer even when it works fine on different browsers.

It also looks to me like you are working hard trying to convolute the issue in order to make it seem like Google didn't just do what it did.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Define evil.
What ethical theory are you using to determine that what Google is doing is evil? Then please explain its application. Because, as I understand it there is really no such thing as evil. Unless maybe if your religious, and I don't recall any religious doctrine that explicitly relates to the internet.

If I were to use the idea that limiting is evil, then by negation i would have to assume that allowing any browser (other than the one you personally developed) into your services is good. So the fact that they are allowing Firefox, Desktop IE, Safari, Opera, etc... In to any of their services is a good thing. So, the limiting of one of those platforms (Eg: windows phone 8 IE) is simply less good, not evil. It's not Google's fault that IE has decided that Microsoft doesn't like WebKit, and why should they be required to code their services differently because Microsoft doesn't like how they are doing something. Especially since Microsoft was guilty of the same issue they are now accusing Google of.
Google has provided the interface, it should be Microsoft's job to make it work with their software. It is not Google's job to make their interface work with everyone else software, unless the interface is somehow a bad interface. Since every other browser seems to have no issue with it, I would have to assume that is not the case.
Heck why is anyone even complaining? After all goggle maps is a free service. And you going to complain because Google wants to make sure it works right the device your using? Just a few years ago almost every mapping service cost a lot of money, now in less than a few seconds you can look up an address get a map with directions, and not have to pay a cent? How cool is that, where is the evil? Am i to understand that you think it's evil because they are limiting one interface on one platform? Cant you just download Firefox, or Chrome and bypass that one issue? It's not like they are saying WP8 can't use it, they are just saying they would like to simplify things for themselves by restricting you to using the popular WebKit enabled browsers. And you want to call them evil for it? i feel sorry for their developers, I'd like to see you code something so cool, then i will complain that your evil for not making it work with my "preferred" interface.

Re:Don't be evil

[lxs]

They were pretty cool before the IPO, after that their morals have been in a slow downward spiral. Although I wouldn't consider this move evil, just petty and immature.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Google has yet to behave in the same manner Microsoft has for decades.

*exactly* the same? no. no one can behave exactly the same, but google pulls similar stunts and WORSE....

plus there's all that data they collect across all their services and products (think about all of that some day.. it's a lot more than most realize, and the 'i have nothing to hide' argument is bullshit, everybody does), that they will never, ever purge. the data they have on, and can match up to, people is way more massive and intrusive than all but the spookiest of acronyms.

Re:Don't be evil

[geek]

Bushes fault? Really? You liberals are like broken fucking records. At least Microsoft went to trial under Bush. Google got let off the hook after their contributions to Obamas campaign.

I grow more tired of you bottom feeders by the day.

Re:Don't be evil

[LurkerXXX]

Microsoft never claimed their motto was "Don't be evil". Google did. They are the ones who openly invited that evaluation, they are the ones that should be trying to live up to their own claim.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

But they weren't assholes to complain about propietary APIs in use by Microsoft. It's the right complaint to make.

My read on the article is that early versions of the Windows browser sucked and the "best thing to do for the user" was not to dump them into an app. that didn't work well. If that is their actual reason it's completely valid. The more ideal technical solution would be to give the user a choice and a "remember" checkbox and store a cookie for their preference. But the fact that they didn't go this far doesn't make them evil.

If you bump into someone on the bus it's normal, unless they are of a different race, in which case your carelessness was sign of your deep inner prejudice. If you find that sentence believable, then you can stick with your original premise.

Re:Don't be evil

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Your advice is idiotic. I should not be forced to change other window manager to fix what is obviously a bug/dysfunctionality in the application.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree. Google wasn't the company that framed Hans Reiser for murder, it was Micro$oft (for developing a libre filesystem that's better than NTFS in every regard).

M$ are criminals that don't mind a little blackmail and murder to get what they want. Google is just an advertising company.

Re:Don't be evil

[shutdown -p now]

They want to remove the crap API code and the easiest way to start that was denying access when using Internet Explorer.

Except they didn't deny access when using IE. They denied access to anything with "Windows Phone" in its User-Agent string.

And what is the "crap API code" in question? Especially given that, once you spoof the UA string, maps work just fine in IE10 on WP8?

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't consider attempting to kill Microsoft as being evil.

Re:Don't be evil

[BasilBrush]

Don't be ridiculous.

Microsoft went to trial under Clinton. Within months of GW Bush MS was in the clear. Microsoft had contributed to Bush's campaign.

The investigation of Google was STARTED under Obama, despite Google being an Obama contributor in 2008.

It's not possible to truthfully say that Obama did wrong and GW Bush did right.

Re:Don't be evil

[Runaway1956]

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-46840313/google-political-donations-where-company-execs-put-their-cash/

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?id=d000000115&cycle=A

http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.php?cycle=2012&type=P&id=D000022008

Bottom feeders? Whatever - we're used to hearing that from the predators in the republican party, and the !% that the party seems to represent. Bottom feeders. Thanks a lot.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

FYI, it's well known that Bush massively cut back on antitrust enforcement. His DOJ stopped bringing all kinds of cases that other administrations would have.

Re:Don't be evil

[beelsebob]

Wait... they claimed that excluding people from using a service by using proprietry APIs was evil.
Now they claim that excluding people from using a service by using a redirect just because you bought someone else's phone is evil.

I don't see what's hypocritical here... If you exclude people from using a service for shitty reasons, it's evil, simple.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I know, right? Filthy fucking liberals. Just like the niggers and kikes, right?

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

So just go back to mwm, and stop fucking whining.

Re:Don't be evil

[xulaopas]

http://www.cloud65.com/ If you think Dawn`s story is astonishing,, last month my friends bro actually earned $4639 sitting there seventeen hours a week in their apartment and their classmate's mother-in-law`s neighbour did this for 4 months and made more than $4639 parttime on there labtop. applie the information at this address...

Re:Don't be evil

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Fuck off, retard.

Re:Don't be evil

[andydread]

But Microsoft has denied access to any other browser on Windows Phone. where is the outrage?

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

microsoft has been evil a lot.

MS has been "evil a lot". Google is just now getting the chance to be evil. And, they are proving that one corporation (be it MS, Apple or Google) is pretty much like another.

Re:Don't be evil

[gsnedders]

They haven't. There's just not the interest in browser vendors to go there.

Re:Don't be evil

[cockroach2]

They also denied access to my Nokia N9 - definitely not a Windows phone.

Re:Don't be evil

[spongman]

Can we please have one discussion regarding Google without somebody chiming in with the "Don't Be Evil" thing?

no.

Re:Don't be evil

[shutdown -p now]

Yeah - Symbian and Bada also seem to be included. It's not just a block for WP. However, one thing that has been shown conclusively is that including "windows phone" in your UA string would result in a guaranteed redirect.

Re:Don't be evil

[Genda]

It was Google's founders who framed the motto, and under their guide Google avoided acts that could be construed as evil. The founders were bought out, and now the "Business Folk" who run post IPO Google use the "Don't be evil" directive as a nice suggestion when its convenient, because profit always comes first, and second, in fact profit fills the top 10 priority space. If you have to kill a few babies to make that black ink flow, then so be it, this is America, right?

Re:Don't be evil

[Genda]

Forget the liberal, conservative crap... political position be damned, I'm not going to defend Obama, I'm not at all happy with his track record of protecting the Constitution. That said, Dubyah and his cabinet just need to be lined up against a wall (and the fact they haven't been is an indictment of the sad state of our legal and political system.) The crimes committed were simply legion but for starters there's lying to the American People to forward an agenda of oil hunting, empire building, attempts at creating a permanent political platform for an American military presence in the middle east and all around pouring most of a trillion dollars into Halliburton and its subsidiaries, All the while leaving America vulnerable to known terrorist threats, consorting with enemies of the United States and ultimately sending thousands of American soldiers off to needless deaths in a country we had no business being in, while at the same time precipitating the death of nearly 200,000 innocent Iraqi civilians.

for an encore he gave Wall Street carte blance to rape the American Middle Class and implode the economy. The cherry on top of this shit sundae was letting the City of New Orleans go to hell while he ate popcorn watching. Dubyah is the product on his Dad's side of men who laundered blood money for Nazi Germany to support fascism. On his Mother's side he's a direct decedent of President Franklin Pierce, considered by many to be one of the worst Presidents in history. So it shouldn't be any wonder that he's a fascist and a hit-man for the wealthy (he said as much in his campaign speech.) Any President who makes it policy to gut the Bill of Rights, and flush the Geneva Convention is a criminal plain and simple and party affiliation or political position doesn't change an iota of this.

Re:Don't be evil

[Eskarel]

Microsoft have denied access to anyone, period, writing native code for Windows Phone. It's perfectly possible for any of the major vendors to release a browser(even a pretty decent one) in managed code, but it would involve all of them creating and maintaining a parallel code base which none of them want to do. If you want to port webkit to a managed language supported by windows phone and build a browser around it, nothing I've seen in Microsoft's Terms of Use will stop you(unlike Apple which allowed native code but forbid browsers).

Re:Don't be evil

[tlhIngan]

It was Google's founders who framed the motto, and under their guide Google avoided acts that could be construed as evil. The founders were bought out, and now the "Business Folk" who run post IPO Google use the "Don't be evil" directive as a nice suggestion when its convenient, because profit always comes first, and second, in fact profit fills the top 10 priority space. If you have to kill a few babies to make that black ink flow, then so be it, this is America, right?

It still applies. Just I think Google has refined it to be "Don't be evil to our customers". I think Google even said that, pre-IPO even.

Hint:You're most likely not Google's customer.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried the N9 native browser (WebKit based!), Firefox, and Opera Mobile on a PR 1.3 N9.

The irony is that the only one that didn't redirect to a stripped down set of Google Mobile services, Opera, rendered it in a pretty unusable state.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

"Don't be evil to our customers" isn't happening. Googles business model relies on eroding their customers' privacy and blowing often unwanted advertising at them everywhere.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I like you a lot. However, trying to school conservative republicans with facts only makes them more stupid.

Re:Don't be evil

[CAIMLAS]

I don't know that this is necessarily Evil. Has Google done this kind of thing to anyone else, big or small, or is it just Microsoft?

Microsoft pretty much defines this kind of behavior - embrace, extend, and exclude/extinguish. From where I'm sitting, someone finally has something Microsoft needs, or pretends they need, so Google is basically just giving them a taste of the same medicine they've been feeding the entire industry for 25 years now.

So, Microsoft - what's wrong with Bing Maps? Get over it and move on. There is no reason you need to be bitching about this. (IMO, Bing Maps is better in many ways, anyway.)

Re:Don't be evil

[CAIMLAS]

On the contrary, they prohibit all native code written by non-Microsoft developers.

Without a complete rewrite (you know, a completely new and incompatible browser code base which would have to be completely and independently maintained), you won't get another browser on the OS. So while what you say is technically true, it's like saying that Hitler wasn't a bad person because he was a Christian.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

That was true for Windows Phone 7.x.Today, any developer is free to write native code for Windows Phone 8.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

I fully expected they would back down. Your comment would apply had they not over the next 30-days or so. Seriously, if you don't understand the irony and well deserved bitch slap given to Microsoft, you've not following tech news over the last two decades.

This is most definitely a laugh your ass off and point and Microsoft's incompetence event. Thank you Google for reminding us you have a sense of humor. You most definitely made me smile.

Re:Don't be evil

[rot26]

I think tlhIngan's comment bears repeating: Hint:You're most likely not Google's customer.

Re:Don't be evil

[drinkypoo]

I don't know that this is necessarily Evil. Has Google done this kind of thing to anyone else, big or small, or is it just Microsoft?

They're not doing it to Microsoft, they're doing it to users of Windows Phone. If they were just blocking people from Microsoft I think many of us would find it amusing.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

True on Windows Phone 7, but native code is supported going forward from Windows Phone 8:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windowsphone/develop/jj681687%28v=vs.105%29.aspx

Re:Don't be evil

[mcgrew]

How is harming an evil monster like MS in any way evil? You blame the townspeople with pitchforks and torches who are chasing Frankenstein's monster?

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Then you shouldn't have a problem if I troll every Microsoft related topic with comments about "cancer". Or any of the MANY other things MS has said over the years. Google's fault here is only having one good memorable sound byte. Get off it, troll.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

True for Windows Phone 7.5, but not 8. Granted, you still have to use DirectX or WinRT/XAML for the UI, but you can use C/C++ for the whole application now, and native code is allowed. What is missing is details on how much from the standard libraries is supported. I'd imagine there are API restrictions in terms of safety.

Re:Don't be evil

[dave.haku]

Microsoft did not say they wouldn't be evil (not that this fact lets them off the hook, they just weren't that hypocritical).

Google on the other hand....

Re:Don't be evil

[Branciforte]

The only data that Google has on you is about that you are likely to buy. I know that it is hip now to denounce Google as an evil spy, but they really don't have any information other than what you give them, what you searched for, and what affiliate sites you visited.

Re:Don't be evil

[im_thatoneguy]

It still applies. Just I think Google has refined it to be "Don't be evil to our customers". I think Google even said that, pre-IPO even.

Hint:You're most likely not Google's customer.

For those confused as to whether or not you're a customer ask yourself one question "Do I pay Google?" If the answer is no, you're not a customer, you're a product that Google pimps out to the highest bidder.

Re:Don't be evil

[Branciforte]

The founders were not bought out. They are both extremely active still in the company, to the extent that they control everything.

As for being evil, there is a lot of evil out there, but it comes from competitors astroturfing the Internet.

Re:Don't be evil

[GrumpySteen]

No. It's like asking if we can have a /. discussion without first post trolls. It might happen once in a while, but don't expect it to go away.

Re:Don't be evil

[Caetel]

Google's stock is structured so that the founders are majority owners, one of who is the CEO. Google is being run exactly how they want it to be run.

Re:Don't be evil

[Anonymous Coward]

It was Google's founders who framed the motto, and under their guide Google avoided acts that could be construed as evil. The founders were bought out, and now the "Business Folk" who run post IPO Google use the "Don't be evil" directive as a nice suggestion when its convenient, because profit always comes first, and second, in fact profit fills the top 10 priority space. If you have to kill a few babies to make that black ink flow, then so be it, this is America, right?

Hey, making money is their JOB.

Re:Don't be evil

[Eskarel]

From what I've seen (my experience with the phone is limited to 7.5, but I've been to a bunch of Microsoft presentations about Win8 in general). It's likely to be managed C++ with a WinRT library. All the "making C++ a first class citizen" was a bit misleading as yes you could write code in C++, just as you always could, but if you wanted any of the "first class citizen" stuff you needed to use Microsoft's managed variant.

Re:Don't be evil

[mcgrew]

How 'bout that, Microsoft shills have mod points! Yep, bash the company you work for an I'm a troll. OK, gotcha.

Fuck you god damned shills, and fuck your employer Microsoft as well.

Re:Don't be evil

[gsnedders]

They re-introduced native code in the WP8 SDK. I'm not sure whether you can allocate executable memory, though, which would make JITing JS compilers impossible.

Money money money....

[Anonymous Coward]

Gotta get that location based advertising revenue.....

Re:Money money money....

[lennier1]

That's pretty much what it boils down to.

On one hand there's the chance to let Microsoft swallow some of its own medicine (especially after MS has pissed off web developers for years) and on the other hand there's the data that Google could use to its advantage.

Re:Money money money....

[Anonymous Coward]

So google gets back at Microsoft by pissing off web developers for a few more years?

We're the ones who get blamed when the little store locator map (or what have you) doesn't work in any given browser. It's hard to explain to an angry client that Google is having a pissing contest with the guy who built their phone/computer/whatnot, and that's why their site doesn't work.

Re:Money money money....

[Shemmie]

Can anyone tell me if IE10 on Windows Phone 8 supports location via the browser?

If it can, surely Google win, MS win (by not having their phone blocked by arguably the market leader in consumer digital mapping) and the users of the phones win?

Re:Money money money....

[Billly Gates]

Its not W3C standard. Under that arguement IE6 wins them all with the most hidden features.

Re:Money money money....

[Kalriath]

Actually, yes. The HTML5 Geolocation interface is indeed supported by IE10.

its*

[Anonymous Coward]

its*

Re:its*

[Anonymous Coward]

its*

tits :)

ftfy

It's official.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google is the ultimate Micro$oft $hill.

Do no evil

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't genuinely evil, it's just a dick move.

Re:Do no evil

[Anonymous Coward]

So if Microsoft had blocked access to Google from IE five or six years ago, that wouldn't have been evil either?

Re:Do No Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you, you POS Microsoft shill. Stick to your shitty ecosystem and quit leeching off Google.

Re:Do no evil

[Runaway1956]

Microsoft was already evil. Blocking Google from IE would have just been one more evil act floating in a sea of evil.

Perfect Example

[rolfwind]

This is a perfect example of why no company should have monopolistic power.

Google is showing they are getting too big for their britches.

Re:Perfect Example

[moronoxyd]

This is a perfect example of why no company should have monopolistic power.

Yeah. Except... there is that little think called Bing Maps, which does more or less what Google Maps does and is even owned by the company who's mobile browser couldn't access Google Maps.
So, no monopoly here.

Re:Perfect Example

[moronoxyd]

'thing' not 'think'

Re:Perfect Example

[quacking duck]

Not sure rolfwind is saying Google is a monopoly. Just like Apple, Google is showing anti-competitive behaviour, that demonstrates they would do far worse if they actually did have a monopoly or significant majority.

Not that I'm in any way supporting Microsoft's browser. Those bastards held back web development for a good decade, so a little Schadenfreude is in order.

Re:Perfect Example

[mrbluejello]

That's not the issue. The issue is that Google Maps works perfectly fine on desktop IE, and mobile IE uses the same rendering engine / works the same. You would be correct if Google had blocked desktop IE too, BUT THEY DIDN'T. This was Google exercising their power to try to damage the Windows Phone experience.

I think that they are just jealous that Microsoft came up with an original mobile experience and all they could do is copy what Apple had going on. If Google didn't see Microsoft as a threat, they wouldn't be doing these antics, so I see this as validation of the Windows Phone platform.

Re:Perfect Example

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a perfect example of why no company should have monopolistic power.

Yeah. Except... there is that little think called Bing Maps, which does more or less what Google Maps does and is even owned by the company who's mobile browser couldn't access Google Maps. So, no monopoly here.

And there have always been alternatives to Windows, so no monopoly there?

Re:Perfect Example

[recoiledsnake]

I don't get why anti-competitive abuse shouldn't be decried if the company is a non monopoly. Otherwise you end up with a few actors controlling the whole market and raising the bar for entry and colluding to raise prices. For a big example, see the US wireless carrier market.

Re:Perfect Example

[MightyMartian]

Not even RIM looks on MS's mobile offerings with jealousy.

Re:Perfect Example

[mystikkman]

Please stop living in the past.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyclay/2012/12/21/windows-phone-now-third-most-popular-platform-in-u-s/

Re:Perfect Example

[Krojack]

I think that they are just jealous that Microsoft came up with an original mobile experience.

Sayyy what? How is it original? Please give examples.

And don't say "live tiles" are original either. Widgets on Android have been doing the same things for years.

Re:Perfect Example

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not. Slashdot commenters with slightly above average IQs just think they're experts on everything. In reality, antitrust violations never require literally being a complete monopoly (not having any competitors whatsoever). Certain offenses require having some market power, but some don't even require that.

Re:Perfect Example

[moronoxyd]

Windows hat upwards from 90% of the desktop market.
Google has, what, 50-70%, depending on country/region?

Re:Perfect Example

[Runaway1956]

You're forgetting that "vendor lockin" thing with the OEM's. "If you want to sell Windows, then you can ONLY sell Windows OS's." Remember that? BECAUSE of that little bit of arm twisting, then no OEM could afford to be locked out of Windows, so they ALL agreed to those terms.

That was a very effective monopoly. Worldwide, Microsoft has owned more than 90% of all desktops for how long now? Definitely a monopoly.

Re:Perfect Example

[rolfwind]

I never said they were a maps monopoly. They are close to a search monopoly though.

http://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=4

Re:Perfect Example

[Anonymous Coward]

That only shows which phones were sold in the last 12 weeks, not market share. Considering Microsoft just launched WP8 phones, and RIM's last new phone was over a year ago while the new Blackberry 10 phones will be out soon, those numbers aren't very useful for drawing any such conclusions.

Re:Perfect Example

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really. That doesn't count and even if it did, you have no proof it ever happened. What google is doing is FAR FAR worse than anything Microsoft ever allegedly did. This is all a direct result of the irrational hatred linsux losers and their free software nazi friends have against Microsoft.

Re:Perfect Example

[oldlurker]

Windows hat upwards from 90% of the desktop market. Google has, what, 50-70%, depending on country/region?

Depending on whose numbers you use, Google has 70-80% share in US (Comscore being the lowest, with just below 70%, NetApps and other measurement services pegging it higher), 80%-90% WW, and in Europe 90+% (as high as 95+% in many markets). And that is if you are measuring searches, their share is significantly higher on revenue, because they are the only actor in the market with enough critical mass in the ad auction system

Latest US ComScore: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2232359/Google-Takes-67-Search-Engine-Market-Share One by country list: http://returnonnow.com/2012/06/search-engine-market-share-country/

Not arguing that Windows doesn't have a high marketshare (at least on traditional PCs, there was a story recently that the true market share on computing devices - including tablets and smartphones etc - was around 20%). But Google has a stronger dominance than many think. As for arguing monopoly or not, that is a different discussion, just jumping in on the numbers here.

Re:Perfect Example

[Anonymous Coward]

You're forgetting that "vendor lockin" thing with the OEM's. "If you want to sell Windows, then you can ONLY sell Windows OS's." Remember that? BECAUSE of that little bit of arm twisting, then no OEM could afford to be locked out of Windows, so they ALL agreed to those terms.

That was a very effective monopoly. Worldwide, Microsoft has owned more than 90% of all desktops for how long now? Definitely a monopoly.

I believe the only argument above was that Google couldn't be a monopoly because there exists an alternative, Bing Maps, and AC was just pointing out that this is the same for Windows. If the argument is strong-arming, using your dominant position to block competitiors, well, that is exactly what we are discussing Google doing here as well.

Re:Perfect Example

[lister king of smeg]

They are not a search monopoly because there are dozens of other search providers (bing, ask, yahoo, duckduckgo, yandex. aol) and you can switch to any of them at a moments notice, its just that the rest a rubbish.

Re:Perfect Example

[Jerry Atrick]

...and apps on X have been doing it for decades. Still remember xeyes in the mid-90s on my Linux box. Written in 1988...

Re:Perfect Example

[mrbluejello]

...you do realize RIM has copied the live tile look for their new OS?

http://wmpoweruser.com/rim-please-stop-flattering-windows-phone/

Re:Perfect Example

[ThatsMyNick]

In the last 12 weeks, of the number of smartphones sold, 53% were Apple, 41.9% were Android, and 2.7% were Microsoft. This only accounts for the last 12 weeks. I have heard of some consolation prizes being unworthy of their title, but this one takes the cake. And the title totally misleading.

Re:Perfect Example

[DJRumpy]

If your argument was valid, then Microsoft's lock-in of the desktop market at 90%+ was irrelevant as anyone could switch to Linux or Mac at the drop of a hat. That obviously wasn't happening as there are more factors in play than just having other options available.

The simple fact is, that the Windows phone browser worked just fine, and used the same engine as the desktop, which was not blocked. When you spoofed the user agent header, it also worked fine on the Windows Phone.

I suspect Google saw that they went to far, and backed off. Was it evil? Probably not. Dickish? Probably. Anti-competetive? Possibly since Android is the dominant OS in the market, and Windows is by far one of of the weakest competitors.

Re:Perfect Example

[mrbluejello]

First of all, widgets are not live tiles. Widgets are interactive components, Live Tiles are passive.

Secondly, Windows Phone explicity avoided any sort of skeumophism in its design, a complete differentiator from Apple and those who have copied them.

Thirdly, not only did Windows Phone avoid skeumorphism, it embraced being a digital, mobile experience, meaning it didn't use any stale metaphors to base their user experience on -- meaning on 3D UIs or book pages that look like book pages, etc. Much of the Metro experience came out of the underappreciated ZUNE experience, which pre-dated Android.

Finally, the critics agree -- the Windows Phone experience is original and refreshing. Woz spilled some crazy love all over the Windows Phone design, practically saying that the ghost of Jobs must have been reincarnated at Microsoft.

Re:Perfect Example

[mrbluejello]

Yes, I used xeyes.

That is not a live tile. When you clicked xeyes, it didn't launch a program. xeyes didn't tell you anything (the weather, sports scores, etc.), other than the direction the mouse pointer was relative to the xeyes.

Re:Perfect Example

[mrbluejello]

"If you want to sell Windows, then you can ONLY sell Windows OS's."

That is where Microsoft got itself on the wrong side of the law. Giving away a product others pay for (Web browser / Netscape), isn't the nicest thing to do, but people do that every day. People used to PAY for e-mail before Hotmail and Gmail came along. Now free e-mail is standard except for corporate and people who want real support.

Re:Perfect Example

[kqs]

Yeah, but what is anti-competitive behavior? If Bob's Diner offers a free order of cheese stix with a purchase of the Meatloaf Special, that's anti-competitive behavior (since they're selling the cheese stix below cost), but I don't think we want to ban that.

The reason a simple law takes 40 pages of legalese is because you want the law to stop people who damage the overall economy, not Bob's Diner. And that's why some anti-competitive behavior is only illegal when a company has monopoly power or is acting in concert with other companies.

Re:Perfect Example

[Anonymous Coward]

go back to 4chan faggot

Re:Perfect Example

[lister king of smeg]

no there is a large difference between installing a different OS and typing a different web address into your browser.

Re:Perfect Example

[DJRumpy]

You do realize it's not a matter of just using another search engine. If the market dominant search engine is also one of the best, switching to something that is sub-optimal isn't going to be a good choice for many. You are suggesting it's just a matter of picking another. There's a reason Google is the #1 search engine, and highly desirable for both end users and for businesses to be listed there.

You are ignoring that facet.

Re:Perfect Example

[tibman]

If google is the best search then why would you want to switch to a different one?

Re:Perfect Example

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe that's the point the parent was making.

Re:Perfect Example

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

On the surface, there are *minor* visual similarities. Having used both I'm fairly comfortable saying that RIM didn't draw inspiration from MS here. It actually is an evolution of what they had in their playbook OS - released almost 2 years ago now.

Re:Perfect Example

[Runaway1956]

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110

You must get educated before you are capable of judging how evil either company might be.

And, don't miss the AARD code, either:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/11/05/how_ms_played_the_incompatibility/

Re:Perfect Example

[fatphil]

> Windows Phone explicity avoided any sort of skeumophism in its design

Bollocks. I see at least 4 skeumorphic icons in the screenshot here:
http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Windows-Phone-Summit-2012-slashgear_s-Photos.jpg

Re:Perfect Example

[mrbluejello]

wtf are you talking about? The design of an icon referring to what it does is much different than designing something to be used the way the actual physical THING works.

Re:Perfect Example

[mrbluejello]

That's nice.

Windows Phone 7 was unveiled to the world at Mobile World Congress in February of 2010, which would be almost a year before Blackberry released their product. Blackberry had plenty of time to pick it over before releasing their product.

Re:Perfect Example

[bigmadwolf]

Yes, I used xeyes.

That is not a live tile. When you clicked xeyes, it didn't launch a program. xeyes didn't tell you anything (the weather, sports scores, etc.), other than the direction the mouse pointer was relative to the xeyes.

Windowmaker dockapps did this well over a decade ago.

Re:Perfect Example

[CAIMLAS]

If the market dominant search engine is also one of the best, switching to something that is sub-optimal isn't going to be a good choice for many.

I suppose they should've thought of that before buying a Windows device then, hmm?

You know, Microsoft, the company which has been doing this with every single product they've made, ever.

(Apple has become very good about mimicking Microsoft in this regard in recent years, I might add.)

Re:Perfect Example

[narcc]

Way to miss the point. Live Tiles and Active Frames are completely different -- they're only superficially similar. (They only look like they could be the same thing if you've only seen a couple screenshots.)

It's pretty obvious that active frames are an evolution (more of an adaptation for smaller screens) of what we've already seen on the PlayBook, which was definitely not inspired by Windows Phone. (WebOS, no question. But from what we've seen of BB10 so far, they're long past that stage.)

But go ahead and stick your head in the sand. It's better than where I suspect you've been keeping it...

Re:Perfect Example

[fatphil]

I'm talking about the skeumorphic icons in the MS interface which apparently you're too thick to recognise.

It always gives me pleasure to see people who gush with positive things to say about Microsoft products demonstrate how interminably dumb they are.

Re:Perfect Example

[NotBorg]

This is the funny part. MS wants everyone to use its services so bad that it's ranting and screaming about Google's "monopoly." However when Google actually stops users from using a Google service (thus forcing users to use MS's offerings) they call foul. Come on Mr. Balmer. Make up your mind!

Re:Perfect Example

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that it's damn hard to buy a PC and not pay the Windows Tax. I can change my search provider having not payed anything. If I buy a PC, in all likeliness, I've already payed the Windows Tax. Windows is in the pace it is simply because Microsoft strong armed OEMs into ONLY shipping with Windows. It wasn't consumers choosing. It was consumers not having a choice. They got Windows installed whether they wanted it or not. And since installing ANY OS of any kind is well beyond the skill set of most people switching is mostly out of the question. People are mostly going use the OS that's preinstalled simply because its all they can do.

Notice that MS isn't very successful in markets they can't strong arm. They have to force their products on to users or they're out like Pee Wee Herman's dick in a theater.

Re:Perfect Example

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure how your post is relevant to the discussion at all. It sounds like a stock rant against the windows OS tax. The discussion is about Google blocking the IE browser on a Windows phone which apparently works just fine, regardless of Google's claim that it doesn't.

Re:Perfect Example

[Krojack]

First of all, widgets are not live tiles. Widgets are interactive components, Live Tiles are passive.

So widgets such as facebook feed, twitter feed, email notification counts, flickr feeds to name a few are not live updated via push notifications? I consider them both live and interactive components.

Weather widgets aren't updated via push notifications unless it involves an alert of some sort but they are as live as they can be. I'm sure the weather tiles on the W8 phone work the same way.

Don't wory

[Anonymous Coward]

Google will soon be announcing Chrome's support for ActiveG plugins. This will make excluding Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer even easier. Oh, and Opera user, this will also affect you, but that pretty much goes without saying.

Re:Don't wory

[game kid]

There ought to be a meeting between big browser makers to come up with a standard version of HTML that fixes this platform-specific web app mess. Maybe one of Google's employees can author it.

Re:Don't wory

[moronoxyd]

Well, as a Opera user I can use pretty much any website that works with Firefox or Chrome. As long as the designer of that page didn't artificially exclude Opera or I mask my browser as Firefox or IE.

The problem is not Opera but bullshit web designers.

Re:Don't wory

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the problem really is Opera.

Re:Don't wory

[Anonymous Coward]

Already done, see Native Client

Re:Don't wory

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is the standards behind the browsers, which allow bullshit web designers to do what they do. The idea of a user agent string should never have been incorporated into HTTP: the people developing the standard should have foreseen this sort of abuse, and simply excluded it.

Re:Don't wory

[Anonymous Coward]

Anecdotal, but most sites that don't work on Opera mini are from google. Then, even in Opera mobile you get broken content e.g. google groups or picassaweb.

captcha: coexist - I kid you not.

I don't know why /. does not understand Google.

[Andy Prough]

This whole idea that Google wants to shut device users out from their services is beyond stupid. Google wants one thing - to make money serving up ads. They want users of ALL devices looking at their maps, using their search, using their gmail, etc, etc, etc.

Re:I don't know why /. does not understand Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's because someone else can use google's APIs and bypass google adverts to server their own. Why do you think Apple preferred to release a broken maps application rather than continue to use google's? Because they wanted that ad revenue for themselves, and don't care about their customers. Google did not block browser access, win-phone could still using the service with their browsers, what they couldn't have was alternative win-fied applications.

Re:I don't know why /. does not understand Google.

[Dr Modesto]

True. I think the concern though is that if Microsoft or Apple were to gain dominance of the platforms used to access services then Google is vulnerable. Which is why Android was such a good move and explains their ambivalence toward platforms controlled by rivals.

Re:I don't know why /. does not understand Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they want to shut down device users... They would rather degrade the service from their competitors devices and get them to jump shit to lets say and Android phone/tablet

Re:I don't know why /. does not understand Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you think Apple preferred to release a broken maps application rather than continue to use google's? Because they wanted that ad revenue for themselves.

Damn all of those ads on the Apple Maps app. Wait what ads?

In fact I don't have any ad laden apps on my iPhone, free apps with ads aren't quite as common place as they are on my Nexus 7, generally iOS users seem to spend the buck.

Re:I don't know why /. does not understand Google.

[Ferzerp]

Why do people just make things up as you've done here?

Using the built in browser, browsing to maps.google.com redirected to just the generic search page. Google was refusing to serve up the webpage to windows phone users. This has nothing to do with APIs accessing google maps. They blocked the phones' browsers entirely.

Re:I don't know why /. does not understand Google.

[oldlurker]

Why do people just make things up as you've done here?

Using the built in browser, browsing to maps.google.com redirected to just the generic search page. Google was refusing to serve up the webpage to windows phone users. This has nothing to do with APIs accessing google maps. They blocked the phones' browsers entirely.

To his defense, he just seems to be confusing together two separate recent episodes of Google blocking access to their service for Microsoft platforms.

One was WP8 phones being redirected away from mobile Google maps, just based on browser UA string (if WP8 users faked their UA, the service worked perfectly, so the mobile IE10 browser is fully capable of rendering the code). The other was that Microsoft is not getting the same rich API access to Youtube for WP8 Youtube app as Android and iOS Youtube apps are using, so lacking much of the functionality.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/01/05/calling-shenanigans-on-googles-windows-phone-8-maps-narrative/ http://www.techweekeurope.co.uk/news/microsoft-fuming-over-google-block-of-youtube-windows-app-102979

Re:I don't know why /. does not understand Google.

[Roadstar]

Google did not block browser access, win-phone could still using the service with their browsers, what they couldn't have was alternative win-fied applications.

Umm, time to (re-)read TFA? Blocking browser access is exactly what they did here. Just checked on my company-issued Lumia 800 that accessing maps.google.com on IE still redirects to the mobile version of their main page.

Re:I don't know why /. does not understand Google.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google was refusing to serve up the webpage to windows phone users. They blocked the phones' browsers entirely.

Your statement is inconsistent.
The fact is that it was not blocked based on the device, but rather on the browser's UID.
It is in reality Microsoft who are intent on blocking users of their hardware from using it as they see fit:

wiki.mozilla.org/Mobile/Platforms
"The last release for Windows Mobile was 1.1 alpha 1 (download). We have stopped developing for Microsoft's mobile platform because Windows Phone 7 no longer allows developers to build C++ applications like Firefox, and Microsoft's new policies ban open-source software like Firefox from the Windows Phone Marketplace."

Funny how Microsoft can lock people into using their own browser and you don't bat an eyelid.

More destruction of brand

[fermion]

A few weeks ago, Google Maps started acting flaky. This was amazing because Google is supposed to be the best at web development. In any case, it was clearly a situation where they just made things needlessly complex. Like MS used to do and still does. It will be googles downfall if the continue to game the market instead of just developing innovative products. And really it will be a shame. They are competent, but if they fall to fear, and the desire for profit instead of providing end users the best product, it will not end well. I hate to say it, but Bing and the MS WIndows Phone are competitive, and they are competative because Google has just been sitting back thinking how they can screw people.

Re:More destruction of brand

[thetoadwarrior]

The whole redesign of google.com is a bit shit. They moved a lot of easy access stuff on the left into a dumb smaller menu at the top that hides half the stuff away. Seriously, why is news hidden in a dropdown? Why waste 1/3 of the screen and put nothing there because I might want to look at a tiny unreadable thumbnail of a cached web page?

It feels like Google is at that point that they're just changing things for the sake of changing them.

Re:More destruction of brand

[Anonymous Coward]

fuck BING in its dead microsoft ass and they can shove their phone up there too.
 

Re:More destruction of brand

[AmiMoJo]

Google Maps has been working perfectly in Chrome and on Android for the past few weeks... Could it be that there actually is a reason why Google didn't think it worked very well on IE/WP8?

Re:More destruction of brand

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is what MS used to say. You want a reliable internet experience. Use Internet Explorer. We can't be responsible for inferior browsers.

The problem with this is that many who actually need to make money on the internet, such as Amazon, were not willing to sacrifice even 5% of the potential user base. Therefore MS lost the battle for the internet. Google believes it can corner the internet as well. c.f. the fight over google maps on mobile. c.f. the commercialization of shopping site(one reason I left yahoo, the open Goolge shopping policy mad it better) which is just going back to amazon. Sure maps may work on Chrome, but the only reason I need google maps is for the occasional bus schedule, which is not as accurate as my local site anyway.

Re:More destruction of brand

[steelfood]

Sorry, Bing is not competitive. It's still an inferior search engine to Google.

I like to use DuckDuckGo. But typing that name out (and enunciating it) sucks.

Re:More destruction of brand

[Anonymous Coward]

I tried to use DDG and it never gives me what I want, even when I spell things correctly and even when I'm not looking for things specific to the UK. It still has a long way to go. (I don't get tracked by google, so it's not that they have a headstart)

Backs Down?

[johnvile]

I think you mean U-turn

Google's possible complaint...

[jkrise]

Internet Explorer asks its users "Where Do You Want To Go Today?" and wrongly conclude that the maps data is fetched from Microsoft servers. If IE changed their title bar to read "We use Google Maps data to guide you accurately", I'm sure Google wouldn't object.

iPhone users recently got lost using non-Google maps, and learnt their lessons the hard way, so Google just want due credit for their maps data, that's all.

Re:Google's possible complaint...

[Luckyo]

Actually when it comes to navigation, WP uses nokia maps as base. Those are ahead of google map by a very big margin in terms of accuracy, as they use NavTeq mapping data.

NavTeq collects mapping data from paid local agents and organisations, and has been doing so before Google came to existence.

Re:Google's possible complaint...

[hammeraxe]

Not sure where you're getting this from. As an actual Windows Phone user I have tried Nokia Maps, Bing Maps and Google maps. And at least in my local area (central UK) Nokia maps are the worst, followed by Bing. Google maps come out on top.

Re:Google's possible complaint...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know why people perpetuate this myth, there's actually nothing particularly good about NavTeq mapping data, I've found it to be quite bad, and much slower to update that Google maps.

As for local agents, well, with Google's ground truth project they've been getting more accurate depictions of more countries than absolutely anyone for a little while now. They've been mapping places NavTeq had never even been.

Further to this, Google is way ahead of Nokia in terms of gathering data from their street view project in terms of interpreting road signs and applying them to their maps (one way systems etc.) which means the divide is likely only going to get bigger.

I guess perhaps it probably depends someone on your country, but certainly here in the UK, NavTeq is one of the weakest players. Garmin satnav always used their maps and Garmin kit was always inferior to TomTom. TomTom did even try using NavTeq for a short period but dropped them for precisely the reason that they were shit in comparison to their main provider - TeleAtlas.

Honestly, the myth of NavTeq's supposed superiority seems to be brewed from little more than a hate for Google and/or those desperate to suggest Nokia still has a future rather than being based on any real actual kind of reality, because in reality, NavTeq has given Nokia a start for their mapping application, but certainly never gave them anything that puts them ahead of Google maps, and certainly does nothing to change the fact that Nokia just isn't position to even catch up with Google given Google's massively superior capabilities in data processing and vastly larger user contribution in improving their maps product.

It's also a little dishonest to suggest NavTeq collecting data before Google came into existence has any relevance to the discussion too, it's not like Google didn't buy mapping data from mapping companies that stem back even farther still to get itself started - companies that unsuprisingly again were mostly the likes of TeleAtlas rather than NavTeq, precisely because NavTeq was the worst in the pool of options when Google were getting started with mapping, and remain so to this day.

Re:Google's possible complaint...

[thetoadwarrior]

All three providers it's a completely hit or miss thing depending on where you live. There are businesses in the UK that google maps don't mark properly at all or they just have really poor satellite images while the others don't. But the same goes for all of them because they all get their data from different sources that prioritise differently.

That's why it would be better if more people / companies would get behind open street maps and create a definitive map data set that everyone can use.

Re:Google's possible complaint...

[Anonymous Coward]

That's why it would be better if more people / companies would get behind open street maps and create a definitive map data set that everyone can use.

Better for the enduser, sure.

Better for those big companies (especially financially) ? Probably not.

Re:Google's possible complaint...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think you are right on Nokia maps being better than Google.

On anywhere on the east coast of USA Nokia maps (on a symbian phone) is inferior to a google one. I have had them run side by side and Google maps always is more accurate. Nokia maps is slightly better looking (less cluttered), but it is absolutely useless if you want an alternate route.

All Nokia maps does is say "take exit N" onto I-95, get out at "exit P". I-95 is extremely crowded, so occasionally I want to take an alternate route. With Google maps it is possible, though not very simple - ask it to avoid highways from the settings menu or ask it to take a walking/bike route (if the location is nearby).Alternately Google maps also understands local names for the roads (most roads here have two names- one old,common one and a dead politicians name), so I can say "take me to some-road and then take me home". Google figures out a route which takes the "some-road" rather than I-95. I have never been able to do this on the Nokia phone.

That said, for a long while Nokia's downloadable maps were very useful whenever I went off the network or drove between hills etc. (driving up to New Hampshire etc.) but with the new cached maps from Google, that does not matter either.

"Smart" phone my ass

[Anonymous Coward]

Notice how all of the big wheels in the smart phone field are utterly terrified to compete on technical merit, and have to resort to Apple's "thermonuclear" lawsuit strategy, or Google's "no internet for you" strategies?

Post-PC era. Yeah, right.

lol windows phone

[Anonymous Coward]

who the fuck would use a windows phone?

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Not So Fast...

[Squeebee]

My Lumia 920 with WP8 still redirects maps.google.com to the Google homepage.

Re:Not So Fast...

[tpotus]

Clear your cache and wait for the DNS to catch up.

Re:Not So Fast...

[jkrise]

My Lumia 920 with WP8 still redirects maps.google.com to the Google homepage.

Dude... did you install the latest Service Pack which came out yesterday?

And did you reboot your phone after taking off the battery, removing your clothes and loudly proclaiming "I Love Microsoft Products"? Follow the above steps and if your phone still behaves oddly, chances are, the 128-bit registration key has already been registered by the only other user of Windows phones, so call support to get a different key.

Re:Not So Fast...

[Anonymous Coward]

My Lumia 900 with WP7.5 still redirects maps.google.com to the Google homepage.

Re:Not So Fast...

[Carewolf]

Nokia N9 with its WebKit based browser does the same. Seems to be a two part block, all windows phones and all Nokia phones regardless of rendering engine.

Re:Not So Fast...

[Anonymous Coward]

My Lumia 920 with WP8 still redirects maps.google.com to the Google homepage.

Dude... did you install the latest Service Pack which came out yesterday?

And did you reboot your phone after taking off the battery, removing your clothes and loudly proclaiming "I Love Microsoft Products"? Follow the above steps and if your phone still behaves oddly, chances are, the 128-bit registration key has already been registered by the only other user of Windows phones, so call support to get a different key.

Dude.. what a master of wit you are.

Re:Not So Fast...

[Anonymous Coward]

More proof that Slashdot posters and moderators have last used Windows in 1998 and are totally clueless.

http://www.androidpolice.com/2012/11/19/android-4-2-gate-here-are-some-of-the-major-issues-plaguing-googles-newest-release/

Re:Not So Fast...

[marcosdumay]

For some reason, my Debain desktop was doing the same thing last time I tried to get into Google Maps.

Re:Not So Fast...

[SpzToid]

Yes, I can confirm this as true now.

Whereas I can distintly recall an instance about 2-3 months ago when I accessed maps.google.com, (or was it maps.google.nl but nevermind because both fail now), and maps.google.com worked fine on my Nokia N9 built-in webkit browser, but the interface was un-usable actually. Switching to the built-in Nokia Maps application, (which I previously absently-mindly forgot about), worked wonders at the time when I needed it.

Re:Not So Fast...

[UnphaZeD]

This comment is so perfect. Thank you for pointing it out. I love Linux! (there, that should get me some points.) but seriously, wp8 and IE 10 rock. Way better.

Re:Not So Fast...

[shutdown -p now]

There have also been reports of some Blackberry devices being redirected, and Samsung's Bada phones, too. It's not clear what the logic behind it all was (it's certainly not just "we only support WebKit", as Google claimed, though - and there are non-WebKit browsers that weren't blocked, like Firefox on Android).

Re:Not So Fast...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a nexus 4 and a lumia 820. I have not encountered any of the issues in your link. With the lumia I have seen random reboots, as well as weird issues (network goes away, camera won't start) that are fixed by a reboot.

When I see these WP8/Win8 boosters on web forums I have to wonder what they are smoking. Try using both Android and WP for a long time and you'll see what I mean. (Disclaimer: I am a former MS employee.)

That makes no sense.

[Andy Prough]

It's been covered repeatedly that Google makes more from iPhone than from Android: http://gizmodo.com/5897457/google-makes-four-times-more-money-from-ios-than-android. I don't know what the comparison will be with Windows phone, but it is a source of revenue. And some people will be required to carry a Windows phone device by their companies. Google would surely want a piece of that action.

Well - Google probably pays attention

[Andy Prough]

to where its money is coming from: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/mar/29/google-earns-more-iphone-android. Way more money per iPhone user than Android user.

Re:Well - Google probably pays attention

[AmiMoJo]

That article has many obvious flaws. For a start they only measure up to 2011, stating that there are 200M Android devices at that point. Well, currently 1.5M Android devices are being activated every single day, so an extra half a billion devices per year. Even Wikipedia puts the number at 500M devices by mid 2012.

I see your point on that.

[Andy Prough]

Yes, if you could block the Google ads and replace them with your own you'd be doing well.

What's going on with Slashdot?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

The mobile version of google maps uses touch events not supported by IE10 mobile, it has nothing to do with the rendering engine!
So they will get google maps but not with the best experience.

Re:What's going on with Slashdot?!?!

[mystikkman]

Bullcrap. It certainly works quite well. Certainly no reason whatsoever to redirect.

Video Proof:

http://wmpoweruser.com/video-proves-that-the-google-maps-mobile-web-app-is-perfectly-usable-on-windows-phone/

Re:What's going on with Slashdot?!?!

[21mhz]

Even if it were true, shutting out users with a blind redirect is still a dick move. Couldn't they just put up a notice, similar to what they do to peddle Chrome to the GMail users browsing with Firefox?

Re: What's going on with Slashdot?!?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullish*t, as this video shows, the user experience is really bad!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfTS1f8vqAo

No

[Anonymous Coward]

Can we please have one discussion regarding Google without somebody chiming in with the "Don't Be Evil" thing?

No. "Don't be evil" was the founders mantra and part of their mission statement for Google.

Well, they're not following that anymore. And I think it's necessary for people to post this to remind us of Google's desire not to be another Microsoft.

Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi Admin
This is a very good article...wooow
i am also doing this site grately

http://mobile-dreamz.blogspot.com

Anti-competitive practices

[Anonymous Coward]

The real reason they reversed it is that Google is scared that the EU would've used it againt them as evidence of anti-competitive practices.

I love Android

[Shemmie]

and I'm a huge Google Products fan boy.

That being said, this is stupid, and 'evil' (For their use of 'evil', not "just like the Nazi's" evil).

Intentionally blocking any browser is insane. They have tools already for saying "This version of this browser is known not to work well with this product", without needing to block the product entirely. It's nothing more than Google leveraging its position to block Windows Phone 8 - which is a shitty, cheap thing to do, and something they would have bitched like hell about if MS had done it back when they were the big dog.

It's something I really wouldn't have associated with Google, so clearly I need to re-evaluate my thoughts on them. I didn't see them as a Saint - in fact I viewed all transactions as "I pay for this product with my personally identifiable information so you can sell more ads". But that MO would require them to allow as many people to use their services as possible - not blocking people in some sort of petty attack.

You don't have to be a Windows Phone user to be offended by this.

Re:I love Android

[Anonymous Coward]

It was not about making a statement to Microsoft. It was about (a) not wanting to maintain software on an unpopular platform that is causing lots of problems for developers, and (b) not wanting people to use unsupported Google products because they *will* conclude that Google products are bad.

At least that's my guess as a Google employee who knows the company well, but is not involved in maps in any way.

Re:I love Android

[shutdown -p now]

It was about (a) not wanting to maintain software on an unpopular platform that is causing lots of problems for developers

We're talking about a web app here, for Christ's sake. When you start talking about "software platforms" in that context, you're doing things wrong. Did you already forget the infamous "this website only works in Internet Explorer - click here to download" that peppered the web in late 90s and early 00s?

We've known for years now that the right way to handle platform capabilities on the web is to do feature detection on a case-by-case basis, and only refuse to run if some feature critical to you is not supported. UA filtering is extremely lazy, and silently blocking access (not even showing any error message!) is just lame. Then, of course, they aren't blocking IE - they're blocking anything that reports itself to be running on Windows Phone (so if someone were to port WebKit there, it'd be blocked too so long as its UA string contained "Windows Phone" anywhere). And it's not even clear if IE can't properly run mobile Google Maps - there are videos on YouTube that show people circumventing the block by modifying UA, and having it run just fine, touch events and all.

Re:I love Android

[Shemmie]

Thanks for taking the time to respond - but I have got to question "(a) not wanting to maintain software on an unpopular platform that is causing lots of problems for developers", assuming what's said about the similarities between the Trident v6 for WP8 and for Windows desktop are correct.

I'm fairly sure Windows 7 & 8 users who use IE10 will be deemed popular enough to warrant support(?).

As for "(b) not wanting people to use unsupported Google products because they *will* conclude that Google products are bad." - the warning message for IE6 users on YouTube, explaining their experience may not be optimal due to their choice of browser, would seem a better solution than redirecting around the entire product?

And I agree with shutdown below, it's a web app. Microsoft have significantly raised their game on support of HTML standards - it seems a weird time to be barring their users access to services on the basis of their choice of device.

Re:I love Android

[steelfood]

It was bound to happen. We all know it. Every startup begins with benign intentions (maybe with the exception of Microsoft, but their rise was IBM's fault), with the ideal that they'd remake the world. The moment they become the industry leader, they do everything in their power to remain that way, including stifling competition.

Do No Evil

[Anonymous Coward]

What a load of lying bullshit.

How many more examples must these little dicksucking google apologists have before they realise that the koolaid really does taste funny.

Wow. The articles suck.

[drolli]

Assume you are google. You obviously test your services for compatibility on some devices and you figure out that maps is basically unusable for a specific user group, which is less than 3.5 percent of all your users. They give negative feedback since they believe they device froze or something, and are as noisy as 20% percent of the other users. Now you decide to place some sign wich says:"sorry doesnt work right now." I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

There are enough sources of free and paid for electronic maps on mobile devices. Nokia offers maps, some navigation system providers have apps, and osm also exists. Yipp. I tried it. Its very well possible to live without google maps.

The best part is that the writer of the original article demand detailed infromation from google but whenever he talks about his own (seemingly contradicting) experiences, the article contains a lot of "i am virtually sure" phrases and 'it mast have been in that way' logic.

Re:Wow. The articles suck.

[21mhz]

Assume you are google. You obviously test your services for compatibility on some devices and you figure out that maps is basically unusable for a specific user group, which is less than 3.5 percent of all your users. They give negative feedback since they believe they device froze or something, and are as noisy as 20% percent of the other users. Now you decide to place some sign wich says:"sorry doesnt work right now." I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I think so too. Unfortunately, they didn't do that. They just redirect Windows Phone users to www.google.com with no explanation why.

Re:Wow. The articles suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

negative feedback? for a web page?

Re:Wow. The articles suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

You Google apologizers are worse than the Apple apologists.

Re:Wow. The articles suck.

[Zero__Kelvin]

"I think so too. Unfortunately, they didn't do that. They just redirect Windows Phone users to www.google.com with no explanation why."

Couldn't they ..........?

Re:Wow. The articles suck.

[Anonymous Coward]

You Google apologizers are worse than the Apple apologists.

Fanboys are fanboys, they just root for different teams.

Re:Wow. The articles suck.

[drolli]

I am no fanboy. On the contrary: I just see google as what it is: a company which wants to earn money.

"Dont be evil" does not mean "Throw out your money to fixe problems for an absolute minority of users immediatly in an expensive way".

I hate the mentality that google has to give away free goodies to everybody *in the way everybody wants* and *immediatly now*.
It mainly means: dont fuck up your customers by locking them in and always tell explain what you do (which sometimes leaves something to be deserved, but in average works quite well). Google has no monopoly on free maps, far from it. Google did not lock out windows phone users. The article sounds like other browsers were supported.
I am not sure if you are no aware about it, but there is no version of google maps which runs on lynx, or any other acsii browser.
The best part is that the article goes on to complain that google does not put out apps for the platform, and phantazises that this helps phishing, since it is the possible to put out fake apps (which is more a problem of the store, if you would operate a store you would obviuously have a list of words which put apps under a special consideration).

The main reason i hat this mentality is because google sticks to it, and is very hesitating in allowing me to pay for their new services instead of waiting for the service to out of beta (when they found a way to advertise in a way which pays of for the 95% of lemmings) of be canceled (when they did not).

The very funny thing is that the "android fanboys" who seem to love google so much kept a 59Euro expensive navigation app as the top grossing app in the android store for many months. (If i woud drive with a car, i also would buy it). That is very funny.

Nobody knows what went wrong that google felt like doing that. They have a strong history of not doing this for the wrong reasons (otherwise they could have just refused to deliver the maps to the iphone 5 now). Fuck, location services are IMHO their to-be cash-cow (real names on foursquare, providing informaition to shops, etc. This development scared the shit out of me, and i am using offline maps whenever possible). Why would they scare users away? becaus somebody who has a windows phone will suddenly change his phone because google maps does not run? Really? This is such a weird logic, in incromprehensible. They did not block one of their most used services, but something which are interesting for expanding in?

Maybe the message could have been more clear, but since the article is otherwise full of vague shit, and there is no screenshot or anything. But it may be a measure which is good to take. Imagine a strongly increased data transfer or battery drainage on windows phones by google maps - what an outfry would that have been. There are reasons for deactivatin a service immediatly. And there are reasons not for taking immediate care of it - namely a user base which is too small.

Android isn't about lockin, it is about lockout

[SmallFurryCreature]

Google made android NOT to lock people into Android but to avoid being locked out of iOS and Windows Phone and Symbian and Blackberry. Okay, so the last three ain't a threat anymore (or in one case, ever) but we saw what Apple tried to pull, lock Google Maps out and force people to use Apple Maps. Which was an amazing success story for Apple... well... this time. But next time?

Google developed Chrome to push web browser development because they didn't want to wait for IE or Firefox to get off their lazy ass. Especially IE, they made a capable fast browser designed to deal with any futuristic Google wishes to develop and the rest of the browsers either had to catch up OR be replaced.

Google KNOWS that in order to sell petrol, you need to sell cars. Well okay, that in order to sell inkjet ink, you need to sell printers. Google Maps could never have run well enough to replace Tom Tom on IE6, so Google pushed IE6.

And Google knows that on tightly controlled devices like mobile phones were it used to be the norm that the telecoms decided what was and was not available, they could all to easily be replaced. All of their services. So they rolled their own phone just to make sure they couldn't be completely locked out. Google isn't intrested in selling browsers or mobile phones, it primary interest is making its services so widely available that all who want to use it, can use it and then see the ads, that Google serves and makes it money from.

Google has given everyone a fast car, so we will buy lots of petrol. Given everyone a printer so they can sell lots of ink. Make web services supported by ads capable of replacing dedication payed for applications, so Google can sell ad space rather then software.

In order to operate in the open market space it needs to hang up its ads, it has ended up building most of the market. Quite funny if you think about it, because ANY of the other players could have had Androids market share but none did.

Re:Android isn't about lockin, it is about lockout

[Karlt1]

"but we saw what Apple tried to pull, lock Google Maps out and force people to use Apple Maps. "

Apple didn't "lock Google Maps out". Apple wrote original maps app and used Google's data. The contract ran out, Google submitted it's own app and Apple approved it,

Re:Android isn't about lockin, it is about lockout

[JasonKiddy]

"Google made android NOT to lock people into Android but to avoid being locked out of " Agreed. Google also seem, to me at least, to be starting to make using their products 'slightly' less refined on any other device to Android devices. Everything works, just not quite as nicely...

Re:Android isn't about lockin, it is about lockout

[Anonymous Coward]

Google ... primary interest is making its services so widely available that all who want to use it, can use it and then see the ads, that Google serves and makes it money from.

Google doesn't actually care about services at all, they want to monopoliz data and services let them do that by keeping the data to themselves except for showing you a tiny bit at a time. It's really that simple, and really that evil. They lock up the data you want, and they make you pay for it by watching ads or "buying" more space. For instance look at public domain books. Wikipedia lets anybody download the entire site (1.3 TB). Google Books doesn't allow automated downloads and adds a watermark.

Google says that "public domain books belong to the public and we are merely their custodians." That is Google... they'll send out petabytes of "Let's play" videos completely for free with no ads, but Internet Archive has to rely on individuals uploading a select few books that Google (for now) allowed them manually to download. Even for public domain books Google wants to monopolize the data.

Google is actually so much more insidious and evil than Microsoft. Microsoft wrote and sold software, and then you could run that forever. Google sells other people's data and you can use it only as long as they deign to allow it.

Re:Android isn't about lockin, it is about lockout

[maccodemonkey]

Google KNOWS that in order to sell petrol, you need to sell cars. Well okay, that in order to sell inkjet ink, you need to sell printers. Google Maps could never have run well enough to replace Tom Tom on IE6, so Google pushed IE6.

I don't buy it. If Google wants to sell petrol, why are they turning away cars?

Simple. They want people to use Google brand cars. If they were as altruistic and worried about vendor lock out like you said, why are they themselves locking other platforms out of their services? And if Apple was so keen on locking them out, why is there a Google Maps app on the store right now? Heck, before that came out, the mobile Google Maps website was still working totally unblocked on my iPhone.

This sounds less like Google trying to defend themselves and more like them acting like a mid-ninties Microsoft. Absolute power corrupts, and it's certainly showing with Google.

it does NOT use the same rendering engine.

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with Google, if basic pan/zoom did not work in Microsofts mobile browser, it would make Google Maps quite useless.
InternetExplorer is closed-source, so noone can claim that the mobile version uses the same rendering engine. Even if it was exactly the same, it clearly did not work the same since pan/zoom did not work, and last I checked (admittedly long ago) it did work on the desktop version.
Google removed the redirect when Microsoft fixed there mobile browser and pan/zoom as at least usable.
The only interesting question is why Microsoft shipped a new mobile browser without testing it with a rarely used website like Google Maps.

flawed reasoning

[Dan667]

if anything this is Google tightening their grip on mapping. People don't complain about what they don't care about and there is no way to make money if no one uses your services.

I would like to see the redirect stats.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think Google is playing way too nice here. Just publish the number of unique Windows 8 phones that where redirected.

Re:I would like to see the redirect stats.

[symbolset]

This.

Google's new motto: Only be a little bit evil.

[Anonymous Coward]

Google's new motto: Only be a little bit evil.

OT: filter bubble

[Anonymous Coward]

Offtopic: Just have to post somewhere as Google doesn't seem to like getting feedback (try to find an email/feedback-form, good luck with that...).

I'm from Finland and I never really though about filter bubble before. Now visiting Japan and it's close to impossible to get any sensible results about anything. It's a real PITA, finally I had to take a proxy in order to find the stuff I'm looking for. This shit is just unbelievable. All but censorship. You guys should really try it abroad: search, youtube, maps (!!!), you name it, returns completely different results without the option to use a "default". It's not just the order of results but the results themselves; depending on your IP you get completely different sets like "no results" for very common queries. Settings & al. do nothing. The Great Firewall is kidsplay compared to this. (Yes, I know ddg & lxsearch but those are probably limited to US-bubble.)

Do no evil indeed.

just try, still not able to visit map.google.com

[Anonymous Coward]

just try, still not able to visit map.google.com

why why why

[Anonymous Coward]

why do you even buy a windows phone if you are going to use gmail and gmaps?

Re:why why why

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the asshole in a blue shirt said I should.

Market Research...

[libtek]

Google just found out exactly how many people, who own Windows phones, use Google Maps.

Re: I don't know why /. does not understand Google

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, sorry, where are the ads in Apple's Maps app? I must have missed those.

More like pissing away users

[21mhz]

They just gave the stray users who've been using Google Maps on Windows Phone another reason to switch to Here Maps.

Re:More like pissing away users

[Anonymous Coward]

I gotta say that Nokia has made a pretty good mapping program.

Re:More like pissing away users

[libtek]

Now that it is re-enabled, do you really think everyone is *so* hardcore, that they will never use Google Maps again? LOL! The outcry is equivalent to measurable demand, in this scenario...

Google is scared

[Anonymous Coward]

Android barely has a foothold in the tablet space, and a successful Windows 8 could push them into 3rd place. They fear being locked out of the ad revenue from owning the platform.

Careful

[z-]

A warning to my fellow nerds: Google and friends are going lalaland. Get your shit out of the clouds and get ready for the storm. Out.

W3C Candidate Recommendation

[tepples]

Its not W3C standard.

It's a candidate recommendation, which is a lot more than can be said for any of the IE6-exclusive features.

Google offered Native Client to Mozilla

[tepples]

Google will soon be announcing Chrome's support for ActiveG plugins. This will make excluding Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer even easier.

Google offered Native Client to Mozilla; Mozilla didn't want it.

When an essential feature is absent

[tepples]

We've known for years now that the right way to handle platform capabilities on the web is to do feature detection on a case-by-case basis

Sure, feature detection is best when it works. But there are some cases where it doesn't solve everything.

JavaScript feature detection performed after the page has already loaded doesn't tell the server how much text will fit above the fold on the user agent's screen. Perhaps you want to send more detail (such as a large photo, a headline, and the first sentence of the article) on large screen browsers and less detail (such as a small photo and a headline) on browsers with much smaller screens. Just setting the extra information to display: none in the CSS isn't enough, because the carrier still bills the user by the bit for downloading the markup for the elements that end up not displayed.

There was also a case where different browsers would implement APIs related to scroll and mouse position by returning the position relative to different things (the window, or the top of the document, or something else), and simple present/absent feature detection wasn't enough to distinguish among these differences.

Finally, how should a web application gracefully degrade when feature detection discovers that an essential feature is not present? For example, in an application that uses WebGL, what should the application do if WebGL is not present?

Re:When an essential feature is absent

[shutdown -p now]

JavaScript feature detection performed after the page has already loaded doesn't tell the server how much text will fit above the fold on the user agent's screen. Perhaps you want to send more detail (such as a large photo, a headline, and the first sentence of the article) on large screen browsers and less detail (such as a small photo and a headline) on browsers with much smaller screens. Just setting the extra information to display: none in the CSS isn't enough, because the carrier still bills the user by the bit for downloading the markup for the elements that end up not displayed.

Use JS to measure the client area and make an Ajax request for the image once you know the size?

There was also a case where different browsers would implement APIs related to scroll and mouse position by returning the position relative to different things (the window, or the top of the document, or something else), and simple present/absent feature detection wasn't enough to distinguish among these differences.

Is it still the case today, or are we talking about browsers that were common circa 2005?

Finally, how should a web application gracefully degrade when feature detection discovers that an essential feature is not present? For example, in an application that uses WebGL, what should the application do if WebGL is not present?

Show an error message and refuse to run. The point is that it should show the message when the browser says that it can't do it, not when browser name is X.

Maybe we are overlooking the real problem.

[SuricouRaven]

Google and Microsoft fighting over phone map apps. Apple and Google fighting over the same. The HTML5 video codec patent conflict between Apple-and-Microsoft and everyone else. Maybe the real problem is that we have these tech giants, and they try to do everything in every area vaguely electronic. They aren't trying to just make and sell(/license) the best products any more: They have each created their own self-contained ecosystem, and are doing all they can to make sure that their ecosystem thrives while not in any way encouraging those of their competitors.

Maybe this wouldn't happen if we actually had an operating system company, and a phone company, and a maps company, and a web browser company, and a video technology company, and a company store, and so on. Sure, it would mean more of a headache to get all this tech to play nice together - but we wouldn't end up in these ridiculous situations where your phone refuses to talk to your favorite mapping service because that service is run by a competitors of the company that programmed the phone.

Re:Maybe we are overlooking the real problem.

[Waccoon]

Maybe this wouldn't happen if we actually had an operating system company, and a phone company, and a maps company, and a web browser company, and a video technology company, and a company store, and so on.

You just described what the PC industry used to be. You know, the one with endless amounts of vendor crapware, mal-ware gallore, and $500 laptops that self-destructed in 6 months. There's no dispute that the overwhelming majority of OEMs have done a terrible job building products out of the endless pile of building blocks available.

Apple came along with their closed ecosystem and made countless billions. Closed ecosystems are what the market wants, because open ecosystems just don't work very well for the ordinary person.

Given that I build my own Windows machines and almost never have a problem with them, I think the new way of doing things sucks. Nevertheless, people have been given plenty of opportunities to play nice together, and they failed miserably. Hell, even the open-source community doesn't always play nice together. Corporations will do better?

Re:Maybe we are overlooking the real problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

They aren't trying to just make and sell(/license) the best products any more: They have each created their own self-contained ecosystem, and are doing all they can to make sure that their ecosystem thrives while not in any way encouraging those of their competitors.

Excellent paranoia, but off a bit. When there is a proposal for a new standard (or even speculation of one), each big developer starts making their own take on the idea in-house or allied with others. Then they try to sell their standard, because it's already written. If a different standard is chosen, then the developers, managers, and sales on the project of the new standard have to explain why they were given paychecks while creating a public failure of a product. The company lawyers are lawyers, so when a manager asks them to look over the patent list and help try to force competition to buckle, they do it as long as there isn't a demand for their time from a higher ranking manager.

As for your idea of a fix, no. There are good reasons that we have laws in place to limit the capacity of natural monopolies, and artificial monopolies tend to be worse.

I don't even understand these stories

[Anonymous Coward]

On the one hand, people say "damn you, Google, for abusing your search and advertising monopolies to foist other ancillary properties on users, trample on competitors, and gain marketshare."

And then, the instant one of those other ancillary properties becomes unavailable or somehow impaired on a competing platform, no matter how small the present marketshare (or actual need, given that the Platform itself already has a perfectly decent working alternative), the same people say "damn you, Google, for not using all the resources you gained through your search and advertising monopolies to ensure that every user everywhere can access all your other ancillary properties on their chosen devices."

If Google *were* to provide full support for Windows Phone devices with apps and everything else, sure it'd make Windows Phone a more fully-featured device that might help it sell over Android. But what difference does it make to Google if Android sells? Google is not in the business of selling phones. If you're using Google services on a Windows Phone device, you're still providing the data that helps Google extend the search and advertising monopolies you were apparently complaining about in the first place. So the fact that Google services are not provided as apps on Windows Phone (or the fact that the web portal isn't working or is being redirected for whatever reason valid or not) is an opportunity for other competing products to gain traction that can actually eat away at Google's marketshare. Isn't that actually what people want?

It's this bizarre "can't live with you, can't live without you" thing, and it seems remarkably petty and lacking in perspective. "Damn you, Google, for not giving us more Google so that we can better compete against Google." My head hurts...

Not evil according to Microsoft

[walterbyrd]

Remember Microsoft telling the world they had no obligation to support a competitor's product?

Amount of text, prefixes, and script load fail

[tepples]

and the first sentence of the article

Use JS to measure the client area and make an Ajax request for the image once you know the size?

For one thing, it isn't just images; it's also the amount of text that you want to download and display, and that's part of the markup that the server has to finish sending before the JavaScript has a chance to make additional requests. It's also which web browser's prefixed CSS properties you want to download and use (-moz-this, -o-that, -webkit-this, -ms-that); doesn't adding more CSS after the page loads create a FOUC (flash of unstyled content)? For another, it fails if the script fails to load, whether through noscript-style policy on the client or through a transparent corporate "Internet security appliance" proxy.

Show an error message and refuse to run. The point is that it should show the message when the browser says that it can't do it

Recently, someone complained when a WebGL application wouldn't run on Chrome for Android or Safari for iOS: "I don't think these guys are very bright if they're creating new web content that doesn't support 500+ million devices out there, and putting a message asking users to ask Google and Apple to support some obscure webgl thing furthers my belief that these guys are morons."

Re:Amount of text, prefixes, and script load fail

[shutdown -p now]

For one thing, it isn't just images; it's also the amount of text that you want to download and display, and that's part of the markup that the server has to finish sending before the JavaScript has a chance to make additional requests.

I don't see how you can reasonably guess that from UA string, in any case - most platforms have several different sizes, and then there are also user preferences such as zoom etc. In any case, for vast majority of pages, it's simply not an issue - text is not so expensive that it's actually worth downloading it lazily. For the rare case where it's not so, you can always start with the most pessimistic assumption - worst case, you preload an extra dozen pages of text before you get a correct measurement.

It's also which web browser's prefixed CSS properties you want to download and use (-moz-this, -o-that, -webkit-this, -ms-that);

The way it works with prefixed properties is that you usually use all of them.

For another, it fails if the script fails to load, whether through noscript-style policy on the client or through a transparent corporate "Internet security appliance" proxy.

The web has been rather dysfunctional without scripting in general (and most certainly web apps like Maps, which are the ones that really need feature detection in the first place). Obviously, you can't hope to support everything - you have to assume some minimum level of HTML support, and that goes for JS, as well.

Recently, someone complained when a WebGL application wouldn't run on Chrome for Android or Safari for iOS: "I don't think these guys are very bright if they're creating new web content that doesn't support 500+ million devices out there, and putting a message asking users to ask Google and Apple to support some obscure webgl thing furthers my belief that these guys are morons."

This is a reasonable comment given that iOS and Android are the two biggest mobile platforms. I don't think many people would complain if Google had actually used some HTML5 feature that IE10 in Maps on WP does not implement, and would show an error message corresponding to that.

In any case, it is certainly far preferable to not showing anything and just redirecting you to google.com, which is what they did. Also note that the mode of communicating the error is entirely orthogonal to the means used to detect it - if you use UA to detect an incompatible browser, you still have to decide what to do about it (and, again, silently redirecting elsewhere with no explanation is just ridiculous, and is far more likely to infuriate the user who knows that the service is accessible at that URL, sees it coming up in search results etc).

Re:Amount of text, prefixes, and script load fail

[tepples]

The way it works with prefixed properties is that you usually use all of them.

Which inflates the style sheets by a factor of five to cover unprefixed versions and all four major engines' prefixes. Remember that mobile viewers are still by and large billed by the bit. Or is CSS likewise "not so expensive that it's actually worth downloading it lazily"?

The web has been rather dysfunctional without scripting in general

Then explain the popularity of web browser extensions such as "NoScript" among Slashdot users.

and most certainly web apps like Maps, which are the ones that really need feature detection in the first place

Then how did Mapquest and other sites work before XMLHttpRequest was standardized? They had buttons to pan by a half screen, zoom in or out by 2:1, etc. Google Maps could have fallen back to that rather than redirect users to a completely different service (namely Google Search).

someone complained when a WebGL application wouldn't run on Chrome for Android or Safari for iOS: "I don't think these guys are very bright"

This is a reasonable comment given that iOS and Android are the two biggest mobile platforms.

What should one use instead of WebGL for a web application that requires 3D visualization? Once I tried rendering a 3D view with 2D canvas, but the method of edge antialiasing that popular implementations use produces gaps between polygons. Should the application run almost entirely server-side, like old-school Mapquest?

Re:Amount of text, prefixes, and script load fail

[shutdown -p now]

Which inflates the style sheets by a factor of five to cover unprefixed versions and all four major engines' prefixes.

Not really, since you don't have to prefix every single property - only HTML5 ones.

Or is CSS likewise "not so expensive that it's actually worth downloading it lazily"?

Generally speaking, yes.

Though I suppose you do give a valid case for browser detection (but I'd hope that you would still serve CSS that has both browser-prefixed and unprefixed properties to be future proof).

Then explain the popularity of web browser extensions such as "NoScript" among Slashdot users.

It's usually the same mental condition that leads to Stallman doing his browsing over email, only much less acute. Or, in some cases, straight Luddism. In any case, Slashdot audience is very far from a typical one for a website. I suppose if you're doing something that targets it, then, yes, you'd have to do something about working well without JS.

Then how did Mapquest and other sites work before XMLHttpRequest was standardized?

Pretty badly, from what I remember. We really needed to add a great deal of things to HTML to have well-working web apps.

They had buttons to pan by a half screen, zoom in or out by 2:1, etc. Google Maps could have fallen back to that rather than redirect users to a completely different service (namely Google Search).

Fallen back to what - buttons to pan? And why would they do that, if the browser they're "falling back" on does not need such a workaround?

Or do you mean in general? Like I said, it is not pragmatic to support really ancient platforms, even with feature detection. Most certainly, in 2012, you don't want to try to detect the lack of XMLHttpRequest to possibly work around it, for example. Heck, I'd be inclined to say that it's probably not worth it even to do proper feature detection and clean shutdown of that, but if you do, just throw an error message right up there - it's already a courtesy to someone using a browser from 1999.

What should one use instead of WebGL for a web application that requires 3D visualization?

Nothing - don't use a web application if you need real-time 3D visualization. Quite obviously, there is, at present, no portable browser-based technology for 3D, and no matter what non-standard way you use (WebGL is not part of HTML5 as yet, so far as I know), it will be inaccessible to a significant part of your audience. So what's the point? Writing an app generally serves some goal, it's not done just for the sake of doing it. If it can't be done well using a given technology, use a different technology to achieve the goal.

(Seven years ago, the answer would have been Flash)

Re:Amount of text, prefixes, and script load fail

[tepples]

Writing an app generally serves some goal, it's not done just for the sake of doing it.

The goal in the case I linked was to demonstrate the research to as much of the public as possible as cheaply as possible. WebGL was chosen because it supports multiple PC platforms with one development effort, reaching more potential users than an iPad-only application would have.

You asked for it, then.

[Anonymous Coward]

Define evil.

Sure, no problem.

Burning up irreplaceable resources and releasing the toxic residue into the shared atmosphere is evil.

So if you drive a petroleum-fueled car, or use petroleum to heat your home, you're evil.

It's true even though you don't want to hear it. Most of you are evil. And the most evil thing you do is not admitting it. If you admitted it you could start doing something about it.

Re:You asked for it, then.

[Anonymous Coward]

No, it would just mean that evil wasnt a bad thing to be after all.

Three words DO NOT TRACK

[Eskarel]

IE 10 has Do Not Track enabled by default, Google don't want do not track, but simultaneously don't want to look like they're violating it, so they blocked IE 10 on phones, not a shocker.

Re:Don't be evil, but be a dick.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they backed off, they weren't being evil. They were just being a dick.

Oh, for all the WP8 users...

[bigt405]

Fool me once, shame on you... I bought a Windows Phone 7 device last April and have been nothing but happy with the OS itself. However, I've been nothing but pissed off and mad at the decisions Microsoft has made about it. They shouldn't have let manufacturers make these nice, expensive "flagship" devices three months before Microsoft announce no further updates would be made. Or the elusive 7.8 update that's been full of questions and ambiguity. Now, we don't even get the crappy web based Google Maps website access because we didn't get IE 10.

Then FTC case should be re-opened

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the FTC case should be re-opened. MAPS has a monopoly on web mapping by being free.

That means Google are open to anti-trust issues. I know Microsoft have done worse (and perhaps are doing worse with Skype on Android), however that doesn't make it right.

Conspiracy theory and group think

[Anonymous Coward]

How on earth you people think that this was some evil ploy is beyond me. You really think the google maps team is getting secret orders from the upper management to cause an internet outrage (as would be the manifestly obvious effect to anyone who has met the internet)? The mobile code probably had a bug that was causing annoying server side issues for the google maps team, so they redirected mobile IE for a few days.

wait a minute

[slashmydots]

So, they basically try to attack their competition by pulling a major service from it and making it look bad and then they hand out a free maps app to Apple, which was on the verge of total user rage meltdown over Apple's maps application. Yeah, that makes sense.

Pounding Sand

[daniel_l_mills]

What a great waste of time by Google doing it in the first place, slasdot reporting it and me commenting on it.

RECOUNT!! Re:Perfect Example

[Anonymous Coward]

Shenanigans!!

there is no WAY the Samsung Galaxy S III got beat by iPHONe!

I demand a recount.

google windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Built on material things, and I believe that everything is coming against each other largely by all enterprises. do not they make hand from under it.

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