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That's disruption, in the sense intended by Clayton M. Christensen. Walmart was never going to provide a better service than Whole Foods (or some equivalent-to

That's disruption, in the sense intended by Clayton M. Christensen. Walmart was never going to provide a better service than Whole Foods (or some equivalent-to-WF store that predates Walmart, since I'm sure there are some). But it might provide a service that's 80% as good, at 20% of the price. And if it does, you might buy it. Are you under the impression that it's no longer possible to install a dedicated guitar-tuning Android app, or indeed that it's no longer possible to buy a dedicated guitar tuner?

bjt 5y ago
OK but, is Google really trying to disrupt the guitar tuner market? This isn't them trying to disrupt an incumbent. It's a neat hack from a company with more money than they know what to do with.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  The top result on the Play store for "Guitar Tuner" is GuitarTuna, which is around 200 MB in size if memory serves me well. The second result's reviews indicate that it's full of extremely disruptive ads. So whatever Google is trying to do, for me it has disrupted that "market" by providing an easy-to-find, clean alternative.
  - jcoq 5y ago
    I've been using Guitar Tuna for years. It's extremely effective and I don't really notice the ads.
- asdff 5y ago
  No, but they want permission to use your microphone.
- xeromal 5y ago
  It's most likely from Google's dev time program where a dev gets to work on a pet project 20%(?) of their time. That's why a ton of new projects come out of google but get canned in a few years.
  - harry8 5y ago
    Does that still exist as a policy?
    - hn_go_brrrrr 5y ago
      The policy still exists. The practice is dying out, however.
      - harry8 5y ago
        I don't understand. People would rather spend a day per week working on google's stuff than their own project?
        thesimon 5y ago
        Working on your own projects won't get you promoted I would guess.
        mkr-hn 5y ago
        Unless that project is a messaging app.
        iamevn 5y ago
        Projects aren't typically scheduled to account for it in my experience. If I took that much time to work on something that's not an OKR then I'd just be falling behind.
        harry8 5y ago
        So you totally can work on your own project for 20% of your time but you won't get 20% of your time to work on your project. Right. So the policy is dead with only a dishonest echo remaining..? Doesn't even qualify as evil anymore on google's standards, but when google hired freelance recruiters were ringing me several times a week it really would have. Those were the days, we used to think microsoft were horrible. And they were!
analog31 5y ago
If you look for a tuner app in the Android app store, there are like thousands of choices. Most of them are adware, or they don't register my double bass very well. I would have no idea where to begin looking for an app that is better in some way, or that even works. That market has pretty much disrupted itself. Fortunately I learned to tune by ear, so a tuner app is really a first world problem.
- lucas_membrane 5y ago
  With on-line music sessions now spanning the globe, and only a small minority of people able to achieve perfect absolute pitch, standard pitch is the lingua franca of internet music, and should be widely useful.
  - asdff 5y ago
    What is standard pitch?
    - YZF 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A440_(pitch_standard) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A440_(pitch_standard) Most people that tune by ear tune relatively, e.g. they tune each string to another string. If there's no standard reference then it'll sound fine but you can't play with anyone else who is tuned to the standard... Though many people can tune to a reference pitch as well without using a tuner.
      - asdff 5y ago
        Oh yeah, my chromatic tuner is set to 440 hz. My guitar stays in pretty good tune to my ears at least but I would retune it with the tuner if playing with other instruments for sure or if it were to get out of tune (never seems to). When I change strings I do check my intonation too. Pretty easy to set on stratocasters. I think a lot of guitars especially are not set up well and intonation is probably off even if the open strings are in tune.

bjt 5y ago

OK but, is Google really trying to disrupt the guitar tuner market? This isn't them trying to disrupt an incumbent. It's a neat hack from a company with more money than they know what to do with.

tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
The top result on the Play store for "Guitar Tuner" is GuitarTuna, which is around 200 MB in size if memory serves me well. The second result's reviews indicate that it's full of extremely disruptive ads. So whatever Google is trying to do, for me it has disrupted that "market" by providing an easy-to-find, clean alternative.
- jcoq 5y ago
  I've been using Guitar Tuna for years. It's extremely effective and I don't really notice the ads.
asdff 5y ago
No, but they want permission to use your microphone.
xeromal 5y ago
It's most likely from Google's dev time program where a dev gets to work on a pet project 20%(?) of their time. That's why a ton of new projects come out of google but get canned in a few years.
- harry8 5y ago
  Does that still exist as a policy?
  - hn_go_brrrrr 5y ago
    The policy still exists. The practice is dying out, however.
    - harry8 5y ago
      I don't understand. People would rather spend a day per week working on google's stuff than their own project?
      - thesimon 5y ago
        Working on your own projects won't get you promoted I would guess.
        mkr-hn 5y ago
        Unless that project is a messaging app.
      - iamevn 5y ago
        Projects aren't typically scheduled to account for it in my experience. If I took that much time to work on something that's not an OKR then I'd just be falling behind.
        harry8 5y ago
        So you totally can work on your own project for 20% of your time but you won't get 20% of your time to work on your project. Right. So the policy is dead with only a dishonest echo remaining..? Doesn't even qualify as evil anymore on google's standards, but when google hired freelance recruiters were ringing me several times a week it really would have. Those were the days, we used to think microsoft were horrible. And they were!

analog31 5y ago

If you look for a tuner app in the Android app store, there are like thousands of choices. Most of them are adware, or they don't register my double bass very well. I would have no idea where to begin looking for an app that is better in some way, or that even works. That market has pretty much disrupted itself. Fortunately I learned to tune by ear, so a tuner app is really a first world problem.

lucas_membrane 5y ago
With on-line music sessions now spanning the globe, and only a small minority of people able to achieve perfect absolute pitch, standard pitch is the lingua franca of internet music, and should be widely useful.
- asdff 5y ago
  What is standard pitch?
  - YZF 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A440_(pitch_standard) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A440_(pitch_standard) Most people that tune by ear tune relatively, e.g. they tune each string to another string. If there's no standard reference then it'll sound fine but you can't play with anyone else who is tuned to the standard... Though many people can tune to a reference pitch as well without using a tuner.
    - asdff 5y ago
      Oh yeah, my chromatic tuner is set to 440 hz. My guitar stays in pretty good tune to my ears at least but I would retune it with the tuner if playing with other instruments for sure or if it were to get out of tune (never seems to). When I change strings I do check my intonation too. Pretty easy to set on stratocasters. I think a lot of guitars especially are not set up well and intonation is probably off even if the open strings are in tune.