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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."
How soon they forget.
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.
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.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I think you mean U-turn
"What Are They Gonna Do When Were All Using Freenet"
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.
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.
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.
My Lumia 920 with WP8 still redirects maps.google.com to the Google homepage.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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/
Microsoft was already evil. Blocking Google from IE would have just been one more evil act floating in a sea of evil.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
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.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Google's new motto: Only be a little bit evil.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Remember Microsoft telling the world they had no obligation to support a competitor's product?
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.