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Google Will Block Access To Its Autocomplete API On August 10
An anonymous reader writes with news reported by VentureBeat that Google will be discontinuing developer access to its unofficial Autocomplete API, as of August 10 of this year. A snippet from the article: Google currently supports more than 80 APIs that developers can use to integrate Google services and data into their applications. The company also has unsupported and unpublished APIs which people outside the company have discovered and leveraged. One of those is the Autocomplete API. The company says it is making this move "in the interest of maintaining the integrity of autocomplete as part of Search," that it wants to "ensure that users experience autocomplete as it was designed to be used," and finally that "this provides the best user experience for both services." I'm sure many will disagree.
...it wants to "ensure that users experience autocomplete as it was designed to be used,... That is, solely and exclusively for the profit of google. I suspect too many others were making a profit on the API, pulling those dollars away from google.
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At the rate that google pulls working software out of production and mothballs it, I am surprised that anyone relies on any product that google has.
There does not appear to be any such thing as a long-term supported google product.
Just another monopolistic move.
oh crp!
Google is a bunch of
The Google giveth, and the Google taketh away.
In this case, Google didn't even give.
If you use undocumented calls you are all going to have a bad time mmm kay.
It seems every 'generation' of programmers gets to re-learn this lesson.
And the moral of the story is to never rely on anything Google offers to the public as it may disappear one day with minimal warning.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
A real example: PICASA. Before Google bought it, there was a healthy market for local Image|Media Management Software. Picasa was free (and decent) there were better ones though ---- or at least software that had actual options --- All of them died and are gone, except for a couple majors.
Or Email clients. There was Opera's M2 - dead. And I found "PostBox" last year, but well f' them. It's based on Firefox with "free updates between major versions". Bought in September 2014 - and not a single update was released.... until PostBox 4 - June 2015... with new icons and bugfixes. Pay Again. No Thanks.
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The reason people hate the "new" Google is because they actually liked the OLD Google, that is pre IPO.
The old Google was like this mad scientist company full of engineers just throwing out all these cool ideas and seeing what people liked, the "new" Google cares only about the stock price and I have zero doubt is no longer being run by engineers but by MBAs (Masters of Being Assholes) who show each other PPTs and say things like "our data shows that the crucial 19-35 demographic currently enjoys X", see how they tried to ram G+ down our throats because their data showed kids like Facebook. The old Google would have never done that, hell you used to have to fight for an INVITE to get to play with the newest Google stuff and people did, because it was nearly always cool and innovative takes on some idea, now its just another Charmin, a large corp cranking out products based on marketing data and that makes a lot of us sad pandas :-(
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Fun while it lasted.
Google has an amazing (and free, up to a pretty generous rate limit) geocoder (turns text strings into GPS coordinates). Only problem: you're not allowed to use it to do geocoding. The ONLY thing you're allowed to use it for is to build a Google Map. (For those looking for a free and high-quality alternative, I recommend OpenCage)
To answer your implied question, "What has Google ever done for us?" let's see...
I will grant them that they have solved the search problem, better than anyone before. Google is backpedaling a bit because they're veering more towards "search for what you think I mean" rather than "search for what I'm actually saying", but let's face it - plenty more Google searches are better served by the former than the latter, so I will give them that.
Maps? Delorme did an excellent job; Microsoft Streets and Trips was also solid. In the browser front, Yahoo Maps weren't bad for their time, MapQuest is still relied upon by many, and Nokia Here is looking like it'll be a good contender within the next year.
Gmail? aka Facebook Chat via SMTP? I don't know why everyone loves it so much. When it was first released it wasn't a terrible product, but it's gotten progressively worse; I hate logging into it now (it's my required account for having an Android phone; I check it approximately monthly as people erroneously message me there from time to time). The UI is dumbed down and annoying to use. You know it's bad when Microsoft has a better browser based mail offering.
Docs? Adobe Buzzword beat them to market and had a better product they simply didn't know how to monetize. Yeah, I'm still a bit bitter that Adobe retired it...
Android? It prevented an Apple monoculture, so props there. The OS is getting progressively more locked down. The Google that released Froyo would have been ashamed of the locked bootloaders and general unfriendliness toward the modding community that presently exists. They still haven't solved issues like apps constantly starting themselves without user intervention, and solutions to that problem require root access. Though they don't *require* a Google account to use one, they do make your life a living hell if you attempt to operate an Android device without one. They siphon data off without clear consent of the user and make it extremely difficult to opt out. Progressively less code is added to the AOSP; the majority of their development goes to their closed-source apps.
Their overall Orwellian direction, spotty track record of keeping products available for users that adopt them, and progressively transparent treatment of users as their product make me indeed say that they have done as much bad for the internet as they have good.
LMAO forever if you think that Gmail and search and everything else Google has worked on in the past wasn't a capital P Product that had business thinking behind it.
Gmail was a game changer when it was released. Most webmail gave you 2MB of storage, and every click was super slow. Some rare ones gave as much as 10 whole megabytes, but those tended to be slower and supported by punch the monkey ads. They came around with 1GB of storage and a fast interface.
"Facebook Chat via SMTP" is one of the more strangely dismissive things I've ever seen.
Maps were also a cut above the free competitors from the start, definitely better than Yahoo or MapQuest of the time. Still better than Apple Maps today. On par with their competitors today -- win some, lose some.