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The fact that the situation exists where Google has two products that do the same thing and one of them has the same name as another of their products that does

The fact that the situation exists where Google has two products that do the same thing and one of them has the same name as another of their products that does something different is just bad news overall. It's great that this specific instance will be resolved soon but are Google, as an organisation, learning any broader lessons at all?

odux 5y ago
In this case, these are very complementary and can even be considered the same thing. the core Android auto idea is to give a driving interface with limited features, less distractions, large legible texts etc. It is by default displayed in the car displays but there can be cars which do not support this. For those situations Google had a solution to display the same interface on the phone. This was especially useful for people to get used to this technology before upgrading their car. Google probably decided that there are enough bee cars and enough after market units with this technology that they don't have to support this anymore. I think it is too early considering there are a lot of older cars on the road and there is a acute shortage of new cars.
scld 5y ago
The lesson, I guess, is that if you print money from some other dominant business unit, you don't have to have any other good ideas or execution.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Google has tons of other good ideas. They just seem to suck at executing them. And specifically, at evolving and supporting them.
  - travisgriggs 5y ago
    Why do you think that is?
    - Closi 5y ago
      I suspect it’s cultural - maybe starting new apps is seen as more desirable than making existing apps better. And if you keep starting new apps you can’t keep iterating/updating/maintaining all the old ones too without spreading your engineering talent too thinly. Google’s internal culture, at least from the outside, doesn’t seem to be one that often releases a bad product and iterates it into a good one - sometimes they do, but with most either it gets lots of interest/users from day 1 of general release or it’s quickly abandoned.
      - hulitu 5y ago
        Google culture seems to be : they release a bad product and they make it worse. Android Auto is crap. Never worked
      - ethbr0 5y ago
        What seems broken at Google is the iteration process. I'll let more informed others speculate as to why. But I would contrast it with Apple (who seem to spend much longer in the pre-release baking stage + have a more mature user feedback cycle post-release [for hardware...]) and Amazon (spray and pray + iterate like crazy + a more mature deprecation and support story) and Microsoft (developers, developers, developers [and especially enterprise developers]).
    - AlbertCory 5y ago
      I worked there 11 1/2 years. An engineer gets promotion from "having impact." Improving an existing app is usually not enough impact. Replacing it with some shiny new thing is. Once it's out there, you ideally transfer to something else where you can also have impact, or you quit & join an outside company. As many people have pointed out, your own manager cannot promote you; only the Promotion Committee can (although your manager can certainly help).
deleted 5y ago
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gangstead 5y ago
At least these are two similar "driving mode android app" products. I feel like Microsoft is a worse offender at this. As soon as they get some traction with one product they start overloading the name. Think of all the unrelated products crammed together under the umbrellas: ".*365", "Visual Studio .*", "Surface .*"
- JiNCMG 5y ago
  LIVE* and POWER*
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
dmix 5y ago
It basically like having a responsive website that works with both mobile/desktop web. But in this case it's mobile/auto interface. Not really two different products, just maintaining two different UIs built using the same underlying language and core system. They probably just measured how much people with new devices are using the phone version + projected 3-4yrs into the future and saw it declining even further (it'd probably take about ~2yrs for the release to hit mainstream). Then evaluated whether it was worth slowing down product development and new releases to support two UI versions. It could be better for customers in the end as the number of used cars without a screen dwindles each year and they can improve the product quicker. The other question is what Apple is doing...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

odux 5y ago

In this case, these are very complementary and can even be considered the same thing. the core Android auto idea is to give a driving interface with limited features, less distractions, large legible texts etc. It is by default displayed in the car displays but there can be cars which do not support this. For those situations Google had a solution to display the same interface on the phone. This was especially useful for people to get used to this technology before upgrading their car. Google probably decided that there are enough bee cars and enough after market units with this technology that they don't have to support this anymore. I think it is too early considering there are a lot of older cars on the road and there is a acute shortage of new cars.

scld 5y ago

The lesson, I guess, is that if you print money from some other dominant business unit, you don't have to have any other good ideas or execution.

ethbr0 5y ago
Google has tons of other good ideas. They just seem to suck at executing them. And specifically, at evolving and supporting them.
- travisgriggs 5y ago
  Why do you think that is?
  - Closi 5y ago
    I suspect it’s cultural - maybe starting new apps is seen as more desirable than making existing apps better. And if you keep starting new apps you can’t keep iterating/updating/maintaining all the old ones too without spreading your engineering talent too thinly. Google’s internal culture, at least from the outside, doesn’t seem to be one that often releases a bad product and iterates it into a good one - sometimes they do, but with most either it gets lots of interest/users from day 1 of general release or it’s quickly abandoned.
    - hulitu 5y ago
      Google culture seems to be : they release a bad product and they make it worse. Android Auto is crap. Never worked
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      What seems broken at Google is the iteration process. I'll let more informed others speculate as to why. But I would contrast it with Apple (who seem to spend much longer in the pre-release baking stage + have a more mature user feedback cycle post-release [for hardware...]) and Amazon (spray and pray + iterate like crazy + a more mature deprecation and support story) and Microsoft (developers, developers, developers [and especially enterprise developers]).
  - AlbertCory 5y ago
    I worked there 11 1/2 years. An engineer gets promotion from "having impact." Improving an existing app is usually not enough impact. Replacing it with some shiny new thing is. Once it's out there, you ideally transfer to something else where you can also have impact, or you quit & join an outside company. As many people have pointed out, your own manager cannot promote you; only the Promotion Committee can (although your manager can certainly help).

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

gangstead 5y ago

At least these are two similar "driving mode android app" products. I feel like Microsoft is a worse offender at this. As soon as they get some traction with one product they start overloading the name. Think of all the unrelated products crammed together under the umbrellas: ".*365", "Visual Studio .*", "Surface .*"

JiNCMG 5y ago
LIVE* and POWER*
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

dmix 5y ago

It basically like having a responsive website that works with both mobile/desktop web. But in this case it's mobile/auto interface. Not really two different products, just maintaining two different UIs built using the same underlying language and core system. They probably just measured how much people with new devices are using the phone version + projected 3-4yrs into the future and saw it declining even further (it'd probably take about ~2yrs for the release to hit mainstream). Then evaluated whether it was worth slowing down product development and new releases to support two UI versions. It could be better for customers in the end as the number of used cars without a screen dwindles each year and they can improve the product quicker. The other question is what Apple is doing...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]