6 ms·

It looks from where I'm standing as if Apple has a methodology for getting rid of legacy cruft while keeping the important bits, viz: 1. Pick a product. (Pages

by cstross 11y ago

It looks from where I'm standing as if Apple has a methodology for getting rid of legacy cruft while keeping the important bits, viz: 1. Pick a product. (Pages, for example, or Logic Pro. Or the entire platform -- OSX.) 2. Create a new version with significant feature regressions (e.g. Pages 5, iOS in the early years, Logic Pro X). 3. Keep an eye on what features the customers are screaming about losing, and re-implement them (but not the bits nobody cares about). 4. Screams subside, product reaches parity again -- but is a lot less crufty, easier to maintain on new platforms. Google hasn't mastered this art, and they're unsure what their operating strategy is. First there was Chrome the browser, then ChromeOS (a thin client platform), and Android because they needed a phone OS, then running Android apps on ChromeOS, then this idea of giving ChromeOS touch support so it could replace Android, then the flagship touch-ChromeOS platform (the Pixel-C) has to ship before the OS is ready and it all falls apart. With much wheel-spinning, Google ends up falling behind an in-some-ways-inferior Apple competitor because they don't focus on iterative design. (Am I barking up the wrong tree here? TL:DR is the Pixel-C hardware looks gorgeous but the software is clearly a case of "dammit, we have to ship now, what OS can we dump on it?" rather than any strategic planning.)

derefr 11y ago
Google's strategy here might just be "hey, you can buy it now if you like, although it's not ready yet, and still get some use out of it early; but after a few point-releases, it'll turn into what it was supposed to be." I have a feeling that the code in Android to render a ChromeOS-like UX is sitting nascent on the Pixel-C, just waiting to be patched a few times to smooth out bugs, before being flipped on.
- megablast 11y ago
  Except they will just drop it in a year.
  - distances 11y ago
    I think the jab is misplaced here since Google obviously has the best track record of Android device makers on updating their products. Nexus 10, the spiritual predecessor of Pixel C, is still getting updates. It won't get Marshmallow, but still active after over three years is way better than any other Android manufacturer I know of.
    - icefox 11y ago
      > Google obviously has the best track record of Android device makers This is a really low bar. Enough Android device makers never provide updates. Got a Nexus One a few years ago, Google updated it for a grand total of 13 months before deciding it was "too old". Of course I didn't get the Nexus One until most of the way through that time period so my Google phone was updated for perhaps six months, not exactly a great user experiance.
      - fsloth 11y ago
        I bought my Note III when it came out in 2013 and have had constant support for it from Samsung. Google dropping support for their own device in their own platform really does not speak well.
      - NotOscarWilde 11y ago
        Indeed. I am still a Galaxy Nexus user and a quote from a Google Support page (which doesn't exist anymore, it seems) pains me to this day: > "Galaxy Nexus, which first launched two years ago, falls outside of the 18-month update window when Google and others traditionally update devices." 18 months is far too little, especially if you do not buy a phone on day one.
    - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
      That's with mainstream phones, yes. But not with niche products that fail to launch. I have a Nexus Q. Even though it's more powerful and capable than the Chromecast in almost every way, rather than update it to support the new Chromecast protocol, they removed the code that even allowed it to work at all from YouTube and Play Music, effectively bricking it. I don't think Android TV has ever gotten much love either. Glass went from monthly updates to completely unsupported, practically overnight. That actually was being openly sold on the Play Store for a while too. I'm not saying they haven't been on the ball with most of their mainstream products, I'm just saying you should bear in mind that they've let plenty of their failures just die on the table too.
- melted 11y ago
  Android tablets are still not up to par after _many_ point releases.
- overgard 11y ago
  I think that thing works for enthusiast projects targeted towards technical users (like, for instance, linux distros), but I have to imagine doing that with a consumer device is a really really bad idea. I'm not sure if this is a great comparison (because it didn't really work out), but people are going to be a lot more patient with, I don't know, something like Firefox OS compared to Android.
ajross 11y ago
Dunno, seems like if they had just called this a "Nexus" and not a "Pixel" most of your points would fall apart, no? It's a 10" Android Tablet. Looks nice enough I guess. Don't really see what it has to do with ChromeOS or the Chrome Books other than the reuse of the name. And re: the Apple point, this is pretty much exactly as "incremental" over a ChromeOS device as an iPad is with over a MacBook.
- hawski 11y ago
  Pixel-C probably was supposed to run on ChromeOS. Link: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/12/the-pixel-cs-bumpy-road-from-chrome-os-concept-to-android-adoptee/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/12/the-pixel-cs-bumpy-ro... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10713384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10713384
- arthurfm 11y ago
  > Don't really see what it has to do with ChromeOS or the Chrome Books other than the reuse of the name According to Google [1], "Pixel is Google designed hardware; Nexus is hardware we work closely with partners to design". [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3w3x7p/hi_im_andrew_here_at_google_and_im_with_the_team/cxt4sg3 https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3w3x7p/hi_im_andrew_h...
- ocdtrekkie 11y ago
  Google specifically bragged about the Pixel C's odd screen ratio as being designed to run side-to-side apps at a specific aspect ratio. That indicates either an Android feature set not currently available, or a Chrome OS one. The device was clearly not designed to run Android as it exists now.
protomyth 11y ago
In Apple's case some of the screaming stopped because people just decided to drop the product (e.g. Final Cut Pro X) and go with a competitor (e.g. Adobe Premiere Pro).
- themodelplumber 11y ago
  Good point. It makes me wonder if someone near the top of the food chain at Apple was thinking "not really our focus right now anyway".
- forrestthewoods 11y ago
  Apple doesn't support aspects of the product they don't want to support. Consumers get what they want from another business. That business gets, well, business. Sounds like win/win/win! Sounds like a reasonable method to ensure you focus on the 5% that's most imortant. http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/05/evernotes-5-problem-offers-a-cautionary-lesson-to-tech-companies/ http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/05/evernotes-5-problem-offers...
  - hobs 11y ago
    Apple being a bad actor for their customers is a win win win? Any other company that we see remove features and not support the ones they created would get absolutely castigated, not referred to as a win/win/win.
    - forrestthewoods 11y ago
      The bad actor is the company whose product grows too wide for them to support. Trimming back is a good actor. Apple is a bad actor for letting iTunes become a bloated piece of shit. They'd be a good actor if they cut all the crap and released a new product, or products, with fewer features but more focus.
      - sangnoir 11y ago
        > The bad actor is the company whose product grows too wide for them to support. Trimming back is a good actor You're reframing the argument in an Apple-friendly way. Screaming isn't a sign of a win, it's a sign that Apple doesn't know what to trim ahead of time - that is in no way a win for the customer.
notatoad 11y ago
That has always been my impression of Google's multi-OS strategy - Chrome OS is the "pure" operating system, where Google gets to say NO to as much as they want and just give users the features they think users need ChromeOS has a vision (even if it is an ever-changing vision), and it's up to the users to conform. Android is the forgiving operating system, it's where the engineers build the features users or OEMs are asking for rather than the features google is asking for.
nextos 11y ago
Not only that. But they are also doing odd stuff with the hardware, although most users probably don't care about this. The Pixel C had the potential to be a very nice open machine. It's even shipped with the Nouveau driver. And it runs Coreboot. But sadly Coreboot is locked down in this particular case. Also, I don't get why they mess up with the keyboard layout. Many useful keys have been removed like tilde or backslash. Yes, they are accesible via a sort-of-compose-key labeled "...". But then I need to retrain my muscle memory. It's otherwise a fantastic machine, so I'm a bit sad for the missed opportunities.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
ryanackley 11y ago
I'm thinking it was more along the lines of someone in the group responsible for Chromebook Pixel being like "Hey, lets take the Pixel brand and make a tablet under it." They don't strike me as an Apple type company that strategizes obsessively around a few products.
ThomPete 11y ago
I am guessing that one of the reasons is that Apple because of their vertical integrated approach to almost everything they do have developed a much better even distributed push forward. One of the things they are especially good at is to never introduce hardware which isnt followed by a serious piece of software. So I think it comes down to a kind of culture Apple have honed over the years.
overgard 11y ago
Well, I think the expectations for Apple stuff tends to be different, just because of their identity and their core customers. To draw an analogy, if you drive an Alfa Romeo, your expectations for reliability are a lot different compared to a Toyota Corolla. You certainly wouldn't be happy if your Alfa breaks down... but you wouldn't be shocked either. Likewise, your expectations for long term support on Apple stuff is probably going to be different than Microsoft and Google stuff. I don't think Apple customers are happy with the behavior your describing, they're just way more willing to tolerate it because it's not unexpected. The thing is, I don't think Google could get away with doing the same things. I think Apple's strategy works for Apple, but I don't think it generalizes.
- overgard 11y ago
  Hmm, since I'm getting downvoted (which is fine, maybe you all just disagree), I should clarify none of that is meant as an insult to apple customers. (I'm one of them!) Just pointing out that different brands have wildly different consumer expectations.
- CountSessine 11y ago
  Well, let me vote you up to compensate. I think maybe the way you phrased it seemed like you were implying Google hold themselves to a higher standard than Apple, which certainly isn't the case. But I agree with you - Apple users have different expectations than Android users. As an Android user, I am positively revolted - outraged, really - when an Android hardware manufacturer locks the bootloader making custom ROMs mostly impossible. And yet it doesn't bother me that much when Apple does this? As an Apple user, I'm upset when my Apple device doesn't behave smoothly and responsively. Really, it needs to be like butter. And yet as a Note 4 user, I overlook all sorts of bad Android behavior - slow app startup, poor battery life, not being able to hold more than 3 apps in memory on a 3GB RAM device, dog-slow task button. Not terrible at all, but certainly not like an iphone.
zanny 11y ago
Android must grind on Google's product vision. Especially with Oracle suing them. This whole app store widget dashboard Java ecosystem is antithetical to the web as a platform Google has wanted since the 90s. ChromeOS is the goal - the problem is getting there without driving all those Android users, developers, and revenue streams away.
- pjmlp 11y ago
  I for one hope that ChromeOS goes away, I will never buy a browser as main OS. The proof is the amount of ChromeOS devices one sees on sale here in Germany. Almost zero and the ones that do sell, tend to get discounted almost all the way to zero before anyone buys them, just to replace ChromeOS with a standard GNU/Linux distribution. As for Oracle's suing them, Google should have played by the rules all JVM vendors follow instead of playing dirty on Sun.
  - kyrra 11y ago
    In the US I have seen it only once: from people who got them free from Google I/O. But they still sell a lot of these devices. The target market are people who just need a browser or for schools. Go read some sysadmin posts about Chromebooks, they are highly loved by schools. They are cheap, interchangeable between students with little issue (since it is all cloud based), and have great admin tools when you have a fleet of them.
nkoren 11y ago
Apple as a model for how to produce slick software? Once upon a time, perhaps -- but these days, surely you jest! The quality of their software has become abysmal. The latest versions of iMovie, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, on the App Store, have a median user rating of one star. Tasks which I was routinely doing with those applications, 5 years ago, are now impossible. That's an intolerable situation. Not saying you're wrong about Google, though. I'm sure the Pixel-C problems are quite real: I encountered all of them myself, when my Moto-G was essentially bricked by the update to Android 5 (think 10-to-30-second lag on every keypress). These frustrations with my Apple computer and Google phone are almost bad enough to push me into the arms of Microsoft... or would be, if every interaction I had with Microsoft products didn't immediately show them to be even less competently executed than Apple or Google.
- FireBeyond 11y ago
  Agreed. My girlfriend nearly broke her Macbook at the frustration of trying to fine tune table formatting in Pages, that she breezed through in Word.

by cstross 11y ago

derefr 11y ago

Google's strategy here might just be "hey, you can buy it now if you like, although it's not ready yet, and still get some use out of it early; but after a few point-releases, it'll turn into what it was supposed to be." I have a feeling that the code in Android to render a ChromeOS-like UX is sitting nascent on the Pixel-C, just waiting to be patched a few times to smooth out bugs, before being flipped on.

megablast 11y ago
Except they will just drop it in a year.
- distances 11y ago
  I think the jab is misplaced here since Google obviously has the best track record of Android device makers on updating their products. Nexus 10, the spiritual predecessor of Pixel C, is still getting updates. It won't get Marshmallow, but still active after over three years is way better than any other Android manufacturer I know of.
  - icefox 11y ago
    > Google obviously has the best track record of Android device makers This is a really low bar. Enough Android device makers never provide updates. Got a Nexus One a few years ago, Google updated it for a grand total of 13 months before deciding it was "too old". Of course I didn't get the Nexus One until most of the way through that time period so my Google phone was updated for perhaps six months, not exactly a great user experiance.
    - fsloth 11y ago
      I bought my Note III when it came out in 2013 and have had constant support for it from Samsung. Google dropping support for their own device in their own platform really does not speak well.
    - NotOscarWilde 11y ago
      Indeed. I am still a Galaxy Nexus user and a quote from a Google Support page (which doesn't exist anymore, it seems) pains me to this day: > "Galaxy Nexus, which first launched two years ago, falls outside of the 18-month update window when Google and others traditionally update devices." 18 months is far too little, especially if you do not buy a phone on day one.
  - ocdtrekkie 11y ago
    That's with mainstream phones, yes. But not with niche products that fail to launch. I have a Nexus Q. Even though it's more powerful and capable than the Chromecast in almost every way, rather than update it to support the new Chromecast protocol, they removed the code that even allowed it to work at all from YouTube and Play Music, effectively bricking it. I don't think Android TV has ever gotten much love either. Glass went from monthly updates to completely unsupported, practically overnight. That actually was being openly sold on the Play Store for a while too. I'm not saying they haven't been on the ball with most of their mainstream products, I'm just saying you should bear in mind that they've let plenty of their failures just die on the table too.
melted 11y ago
Android tablets are still not up to par after _many_ point releases.
overgard 11y ago
I think that thing works for enthusiast projects targeted towards technical users (like, for instance, linux distros), but I have to imagine doing that with a consumer device is a really really bad idea. I'm not sure if this is a great comparison (because it didn't really work out), but people are going to be a lot more patient with, I don't know, something like Firefox OS compared to Android.

ajross 11y ago

Dunno, seems like if they had just called this a "Nexus" and not a "Pixel" most of your points would fall apart, no? It's a 10" Android Tablet. Looks nice enough I guess. Don't really see what it has to do with ChromeOS or the Chrome Books other than the reuse of the name. And re: the Apple point, this is pretty much exactly as "incremental" over a ChromeOS device as an iPad is with over a MacBook.

hawski 11y ago
Pixel-C probably was supposed to run on ChromeOS. Link: http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/12/the-pixel-cs-bumpy-road-from-chrome-os-concept-to-android-adoptee/ http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2015/12/the-pixel-cs-bumpy-ro... Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10713384 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10713384
arthurfm 11y ago
> Don't really see what it has to do with ChromeOS or the Chrome Books other than the reuse of the name According to Google [1], "Pixel is Google designed hardware; Nexus is hardware we work closely with partners to design". [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3w3x7p/hi_im_andrew_here_at_google_and_im_with_the_team/cxt4sg3 https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/3w3x7p/hi_im_andrew_h...
ocdtrekkie 11y ago
Google specifically bragged about the Pixel C's odd screen ratio as being designed to run side-to-side apps at a specific aspect ratio. That indicates either an Android feature set not currently available, or a Chrome OS one. The device was clearly not designed to run Android as it exists now.

protomyth 11y ago

In Apple's case some of the screaming stopped because people just decided to drop the product (e.g. Final Cut Pro X) and go with a competitor (e.g. Adobe Premiere Pro).

themodelplumber 11y ago
Good point. It makes me wonder if someone near the top of the food chain at Apple was thinking "not really our focus right now anyway".
forrestthewoods 11y ago
Apple doesn't support aspects of the product they don't want to support. Consumers get what they want from another business. That business gets, well, business. Sounds like win/win/win! Sounds like a reasonable method to ensure you focus on the 5% that's most imortant. http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/05/evernotes-5-problem-offers-a-cautionary-lesson-to-tech-companies/ http://venturebeat.com/2016/01/05/evernotes-5-problem-offers...
- hobs 11y ago
  Apple being a bad actor for their customers is a win win win? Any other company that we see remove features and not support the ones they created would get absolutely castigated, not referred to as a win/win/win.
  - forrestthewoods 11y ago
    The bad actor is the company whose product grows too wide for them to support. Trimming back is a good actor. Apple is a bad actor for letting iTunes become a bloated piece of shit. They'd be a good actor if they cut all the crap and released a new product, or products, with fewer features but more focus.
    - sangnoir 11y ago
      > The bad actor is the company whose product grows too wide for them to support. Trimming back is a good actor You're reframing the argument in an Apple-friendly way. Screaming isn't a sign of a win, it's a sign that Apple doesn't know what to trim ahead of time - that is in no way a win for the customer.

notatoad 11y ago

That has always been my impression of Google's multi-OS strategy - Chrome OS is the "pure" operating system, where Google gets to say NO to as much as they want and just give users the features they think users need ChromeOS has a vision (even if it is an ever-changing vision), and it's up to the users to conform. Android is the forgiving operating system, it's where the engineers build the features users or OEMs are asking for rather than the features google is asking for.

nextos 11y ago

Not only that. But they are also doing odd stuff with the hardware, although most users probably don't care about this. The Pixel C had the potential to be a very nice open machine. It's even shipped with the Nouveau driver. And it runs Coreboot. But sadly Coreboot is locked down in this particular case. Also, I don't get why they mess up with the keyboard layout. Many useful keys have been removed like tilde or backslash. Yes, they are accesible via a sort-of-compose-key labeled "...". But then I need to retrain my muscle memory. It's otherwise a fantastic machine, so I'm a bit sad for the missed opportunities.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

ryanackley 11y ago

I'm thinking it was more along the lines of someone in the group responsible for Chromebook Pixel being like "Hey, lets take the Pixel brand and make a tablet under it." They don't strike me as an Apple type company that strategizes obsessively around a few products.

ThomPete 11y ago

I am guessing that one of the reasons is that Apple because of their vertical integrated approach to almost everything they do have developed a much better even distributed push forward. One of the things they are especially good at is to never introduce hardware which isnt followed by a serious piece of software. So I think it comes down to a kind of culture Apple have honed over the years.

overgard 11y ago

Well, I think the expectations for Apple stuff tends to be different, just because of their identity and their core customers. To draw an analogy, if you drive an Alfa Romeo, your expectations for reliability are a lot different compared to a Toyota Corolla. You certainly wouldn't be happy if your Alfa breaks down... but you wouldn't be shocked either. Likewise, your expectations for long term support on Apple stuff is probably going to be different than Microsoft and Google stuff. I don't think Apple customers are happy with the behavior your describing, they're just way more willing to tolerate it because it's not unexpected. The thing is, I don't think Google could get away with doing the same things. I think Apple's strategy works for Apple, but I don't think it generalizes.

overgard 11y ago
Hmm, since I'm getting downvoted (which is fine, maybe you all just disagree), I should clarify none of that is meant as an insult to apple customers. (I'm one of them!) Just pointing out that different brands have wildly different consumer expectations.
CountSessine 11y ago
Well, let me vote you up to compensate. I think maybe the way you phrased it seemed like you were implying Google hold themselves to a higher standard than Apple, which certainly isn't the case. But I agree with you - Apple users have different expectations than Android users. As an Android user, I am positively revolted - outraged, really - when an Android hardware manufacturer locks the bootloader making custom ROMs mostly impossible. And yet it doesn't bother me that much when Apple does this? As an Apple user, I'm upset when my Apple device doesn't behave smoothly and responsively. Really, it needs to be like butter. And yet as a Note 4 user, I overlook all sorts of bad Android behavior - slow app startup, poor battery life, not being able to hold more than 3 apps in memory on a 3GB RAM device, dog-slow task button. Not terrible at all, but certainly not like an iphone.

zanny 11y ago

Android must grind on Google's product vision. Especially with Oracle suing them. This whole app store widget dashboard Java ecosystem is antithetical to the web as a platform Google has wanted since the 90s. ChromeOS is the goal - the problem is getting there without driving all those Android users, developers, and revenue streams away.

pjmlp 11y ago
I for one hope that ChromeOS goes away, I will never buy a browser as main OS. The proof is the amount of ChromeOS devices one sees on sale here in Germany. Almost zero and the ones that do sell, tend to get discounted almost all the way to zero before anyone buys them, just to replace ChromeOS with a standard GNU/Linux distribution. As for Oracle's suing them, Google should have played by the rules all JVM vendors follow instead of playing dirty on Sun.
- kyrra 11y ago
  In the US I have seen it only once: from people who got them free from Google I/O. But they still sell a lot of these devices. The target market are people who just need a browser or for schools. Go read some sysadmin posts about Chromebooks, they are highly loved by schools. They are cheap, interchangeable between students with little issue (since it is all cloud based), and have great admin tools when you have a fleet of them.

nkoren 11y ago

Apple as a model for how to produce slick software? Once upon a time, perhaps -- but these days, surely you jest! The quality of their software has become abysmal. The latest versions of iMovie, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers, on the App Store, have a median user rating of one star. Tasks which I was routinely doing with those applications, 5 years ago, are now impossible. That's an intolerable situation. Not saying you're wrong about Google, though. I'm sure the Pixel-C problems are quite real: I encountered all of them myself, when my Moto-G was essentially bricked by the update to Android 5 (think 10-to-30-second lag on every keypress). These frustrations with my Apple computer and Google phone are almost bad enough to push me into the arms of Microsoft... or would be, if every interaction I had with Microsoft products didn't immediately show them to be even less competently executed than Apple or Google.

FireBeyond 11y ago
Agreed. My girlfriend nearly broke her Macbook at the frustration of trying to fine tune table formatting in Pages, that she breezed through in Word.