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This is such a tired take, they're doing plenty of innovation in AI and bringing them to consumers with innovative products like Google Home. I really love my

This is such a tired take, they're doing plenty of innovation in AI and bringing them to consumers with innovative products like Google Home. I really love my Google smart home speaker and it's been extremely useful day to day. Being able to just say "Google set an apartment in my calendar to meet John for coffee next week at 3pm" is infinitely more convenient than opening my phone or laptop and clicking through the UI to do so. Or "Google remind me to cancel my subscription in 10 days" or "Set a timer for 10 minutes" etc etc. Likewise Firebase has made it infinitely easier and smoother to deploy a web app. Google Domains is probably the most seamless way to purchase and register a domain. Waymo is innovating like crazy and possesses the most advanced autonomous driver agent. Wing is innovating drone delivery in rural and suburban areas. They are innovating to the highest degree and anyone who claims otherwise is deluding themselves. (I'm not affiliated with Google in any way, but I do hold stock)

ajsnigrutin 4y ago
So, a speech-to-text and vice versa with a limited set of options, a website to buy domains from and "inovations", that you cannot buy yet, and might be cancelled before they ever come to consumer-ready completion? That doesn't sound like a lot. Google had an XMPP compatible chat client, that they killed of and revived with a new product every few years, so from gtalk, to wave, duo, alo, meet, chat, or whatever else it was called. Youtube stopped promoting independent producers, and is basically just a frontend to legacy media. Google apps was a great free tool for your own domain, but nope, not free anymore. Google maps started featuring ads everywhere and is a pain to try to find thing X with lidl logos everywhere. Google reader, great product, dead. Google cardboard... great, cheap VR "for the masses"... dead. Google fusion tables.. dead. Google search results are 50% pinterest, 50% unrelated. Google inbox, dead. The audio only chromecast.. dead. Google mytracks, great tool, killed by google (luckily an opensource replacement exists). Picasa. Google+ was a great idea... create bubbles, share stuff to only specific groups... too much forced integration everywhere, people hated it, dead. Google nexus/pixel phones were great in the nexus 4/5/5x era.. now they're expesive and "meh". Android privacy features are broken... no way to change unique ids, and most of the permissions are not granular enough, and people have been complaining for years about that. The only thing google is really great at, is taking a chat service, making a new one and killing the old one... everything else is building nice prototypes and killing them.
- claaams 4y ago
  Does anyone have any good alternatives to google maps? The new sponsored content is extremely obnoxious and god forbid you accidentally mouse over it while looking at the map.
  - ajsnigrutin 4y ago
    OsmAnd on android for an opensource solution - downloads openstreetmaps and renders them locally, but can also use web maps if needed Here maps from nokia for a commercial solution
    - YarickR2 4y ago
      Any of those with as complete list of local businesses as Google ? If I want to find an ice cream parlor, or an engine oil dealer, or a sports equipment shop in my vicinity , would all three have similar results ?
      - thayne 4y ago
        Probably depends on the area. Where I live, OSM doesn't really have anything beyond just streets. But I've heard other areas have much better coverage.
        NGRhodes 4y ago
        Yes, complete opposite for me, loads of single track roads and whole 4sq miles of woods/Forrest missing, including numerous public paths .
      - galbar 4y ago
        I use OSMAnd for navigation a and location-related stuff. Sadly, the only complete business listing I've found is Google Maps... So I use it just for that, with all permissions revoked. Lately, I've started to add my favorite places in OSM, directly through OSMAnd. So my personal experience has gotten better
kmbfjr 4y ago
Try out GCP sometime…lemme know how you feel when they want you to pay 3% of your annual spend for the privilege of being able to email them as to why their (pick a service, but BigQuery is usually my source of frustration) is degraded. The response and escalation for that 3% is essentially whenever they feel like it. Stay away from Google. AWS has its issues but not with that level of hubris and indifference.
- cornel_io 4y ago
  BigQuery is so many light-years ahead of Redshift, though, even everyone on AWS still tends to use BigQuery.
- highwaylights 4y ago
  You should try Azure sometime. It’s a cloud service run by some scrappy upstart in the Pacific Northwest. I heard they have some of the best support for developers, despite not having the name cachet around HN that the bigger players have.
  - samb1729 4y ago
    They also unfortunately have some shockingly bad issues with securing their services
  - mschuster91 4y ago
    Azure's UI is so shockingly bad, confusing and complex it puts AWS to shame.
    - highwaylights 4y ago
      Seriously? I thought it made way more sense. I kind of wonder if this is a case of what-I-already-know bias for both of us.
      - smeagull 4y ago
        I found similar. Their documentation often refers to things that simply don't exist. Pictures of how menus used to look and no longer do. Multiple ways of doing the same thing that give slightly different results, with no real reason for the difference. I have heard though, that it makes more sense for people coming out of sysadmining Windows Server networks.
rossjudson 4y ago
Check out https://imagen.research.google/ https://imagen.research.google/
iqkznnft 4y ago
> I really love my Google smart home speaker and it's been extremely useful day to day. There's lots of uncertainties on my life, but the fact I don't want a "Google smart home speaker" isn't one of them. In fact, I just had a realization. If you have to say something is "smart", then it's shit. Then reason is, when a product is useful you don't need to call it smart to sell it.
- meibo 4y ago
  Discounting that... "Smart Speaker" is the class of product being sold? A "speaker" still is a regular old box that you hook up to your phone or HiFi. People clearly get something out of these and they've been around for a while.
  - realharo 4y ago
    The term is mostly used for speakers with a built-in assistant (Google Assistant, Alexa, etc.), where the assistant is one of the main reasons for wanting a smart speaker. It's great for things like setting alarms, kitchen timers (don't have to touch anything with your hands, just talk), checking the weather, and controlling the other smart devices like lights, with just your voice.
kortilla 4y ago
Your list is: - item they are at parity with on Amazon (Alexa) - worse cloud product struggling to compete - a registrar without any up-sell. Literally no innovation, just a sales funnel into google @ work - waymo is innovating, this may be one of the only spots, but they seem to be behind cruise as far as difficult scenarios - how is wing innovating? I’ve heard no news here Google is a bloated beast that has grown headcount by 90% in the last 5-10 years and it wasn’t by suddenly finding a trove of people that met the bar set when Gmail was a 20% and search was useful.
reitanqild 4y ago
> "Google set an apartment in my calendar to meet John for coffee next week at 3pm" (emphasis mine) Was this what you meant or did you just get a taste of what Google has been doing to me for over a decade, autocorrect words to something ridiculous without telling me?
smeagull 4y ago
So they've caught up to Apple and Amazon, and are making it easier to register a domain, something that was already incredibly simple. And they have some other products in areas that won't see the light of day for years. Cool.
pjmlp 4y ago
I lost count of the "innovations" that don't last more than one Google IO.
ghusbands 4y ago
The voice assistant stuff is fraught - phrases work for a while and then stop working, and you have to work out the new phrase they've chosen. Like, recently, "Walk to [X]" stopped working a majority of the time, so now I'm not sure what phrasing to use when I want it to show a walking route. Same goes for adding things to a calendar or starting a timer - it works until it doesn't. As with search, things just change so much that you just can't trust it. Almost none of the other things you mention are likely long-term significant. Firebase is going to continue at low popularity until it vanishes. Waymo can't make much progress when the current zeitgeist is that everyone can produce self-driving cars. Drone delivery keeps getting tried by lots of companies and never delivers. Google Home is copying Amazon's (Alexa) success just as Android was copying Apple's (iPhone). AI is the lone exception in what you mention - the sheer size and scope of their AI projects has been impressive. As with Google Translate, though, the output is now polluting the very data sources that they use, making future efforts harder.

ajsnigrutin 4y ago

So, a speech-to-text and vice versa with a limited set of options, a website to buy domains from and "inovations", that you cannot buy yet, and might be cancelled before they ever come to consumer-ready completion? That doesn't sound like a lot. Google had an XMPP compatible chat client, that they killed of and revived with a new product every few years, so from gtalk, to wave, duo, alo, meet, chat, or whatever else it was called. Youtube stopped promoting independent producers, and is basically just a frontend to legacy media. Google apps was a great free tool for your own domain, but nope, not free anymore. Google maps started featuring ads everywhere and is a pain to try to find thing X with lidl logos everywhere. Google reader, great product, dead. Google cardboard... great, cheap VR "for the masses"... dead. Google fusion tables.. dead. Google search results are 50% pinterest, 50% unrelated. Google inbox, dead. The audio only chromecast.. dead. Google mytracks, great tool, killed by google (luckily an opensource replacement exists). Picasa. Google+ was a great idea... create bubbles, share stuff to only specific groups... too much forced integration everywhere, people hated it, dead. Google nexus/pixel phones were great in the nexus 4/5/5x era.. now they're expesive and "meh". Android privacy features are broken... no way to change unique ids, and most of the permissions are not granular enough, and people have been complaining for years about that. The only thing google is really great at, is taking a chat service, making a new one and killing the old one... everything else is building nice prototypes and killing them.

claaams 4y ago
Does anyone have any good alternatives to google maps? The new sponsored content is extremely obnoxious and god forbid you accidentally mouse over it while looking at the map.
- ajsnigrutin 4y ago
  OsmAnd on android for an opensource solution - downloads openstreetmaps and renders them locally, but can also use web maps if needed Here maps from nokia for a commercial solution
  - YarickR2 4y ago
    Any of those with as complete list of local businesses as Google ? If I want to find an ice cream parlor, or an engine oil dealer, or a sports equipment shop in my vicinity , would all three have similar results ?
    - thayne 4y ago
      Probably depends on the area. Where I live, OSM doesn't really have anything beyond just streets. But I've heard other areas have much better coverage.
      - NGRhodes 4y ago
        Yes, complete opposite for me, loads of single track roads and whole 4sq miles of woods/Forrest missing, including numerous public paths .
    - galbar 4y ago
      I use OSMAnd for navigation a and location-related stuff. Sadly, the only complete business listing I've found is Google Maps... So I use it just for that, with all permissions revoked. Lately, I've started to add my favorite places in OSM, directly through OSMAnd. So my personal experience has gotten better

kmbfjr 4y ago

Try out GCP sometime…lemme know how you feel when they want you to pay 3% of your annual spend for the privilege of being able to email them as to why their (pick a service, but BigQuery is usually my source of frustration) is degraded. The response and escalation for that 3% is essentially whenever they feel like it. Stay away from Google. AWS has its issues but not with that level of hubris and indifference.

cornel_io 4y ago
BigQuery is so many light-years ahead of Redshift, though, even everyone on AWS still tends to use BigQuery.
highwaylights 4y ago
You should try Azure sometime. It’s a cloud service run by some scrappy upstart in the Pacific Northwest. I heard they have some of the best support for developers, despite not having the name cachet around HN that the bigger players have.
- samb1729 4y ago
  They also unfortunately have some shockingly bad issues with securing their services
- mschuster91 4y ago
  Azure's UI is so shockingly bad, confusing and complex it puts AWS to shame.
  - highwaylights 4y ago
    Seriously? I thought it made way more sense. I kind of wonder if this is a case of what-I-already-know bias for both of us.
    - smeagull 4y ago
      I found similar. Their documentation often refers to things that simply don't exist. Pictures of how menus used to look and no longer do. Multiple ways of doing the same thing that give slightly different results, with no real reason for the difference. I have heard though, that it makes more sense for people coming out of sysadmining Windows Server networks.

rossjudson 4y ago

Check out https://imagen.research.google/ https://imagen.research.google/

iqkznnft 4y ago

> I really love my Google smart home speaker and it's been extremely useful day to day. There's lots of uncertainties on my life, but the fact I don't want a "Google smart home speaker" isn't one of them. In fact, I just had a realization. If you have to say something is "smart", then it's shit. Then reason is, when a product is useful you don't need to call it smart to sell it.

meibo 4y ago
Discounting that... "Smart Speaker" is the class of product being sold? A "speaker" still is a regular old box that you hook up to your phone or HiFi. People clearly get something out of these and they've been around for a while.
- realharo 4y ago
  The term is mostly used for speakers with a built-in assistant (Google Assistant, Alexa, etc.), where the assistant is one of the main reasons for wanting a smart speaker. It's great for things like setting alarms, kitchen timers (don't have to touch anything with your hands, just talk), checking the weather, and controlling the other smart devices like lights, with just your voice.

kortilla 4y ago

Your list is: - item they are at parity with on Amazon (Alexa) - worse cloud product struggling to compete - a registrar without any up-sell. Literally no innovation, just a sales funnel into google @ work - waymo is innovating, this may be one of the only spots, but they seem to be behind cruise as far as difficult scenarios - how is wing innovating? I’ve heard no news here Google is a bloated beast that has grown headcount by 90% in the last 5-10 years and it wasn’t by suddenly finding a trove of people that met the bar set when Gmail was a 20% and search was useful.

reitanqild 4y ago

> "Google set an apartment in my calendar to meet John for coffee next week at 3pm" (emphasis mine) Was this what you meant or did you just get a taste of what Google has been doing to me for over a decade, autocorrect words to something ridiculous without telling me?

smeagull 4y ago

So they've caught up to Apple and Amazon, and are making it easier to register a domain, something that was already incredibly simple. And they have some other products in areas that won't see the light of day for years. Cool.

pjmlp 4y ago

I lost count of the "innovations" that don't last more than one Google IO.

ghusbands 4y ago

The voice assistant stuff is fraught - phrases work for a while and then stop working, and you have to work out the new phrase they've chosen. Like, recently, "Walk to [X]" stopped working a majority of the time, so now I'm not sure what phrasing to use when I want it to show a walking route. Same goes for adding things to a calendar or starting a timer - it works until it doesn't. As with search, things just change so much that you just can't trust it. Almost none of the other things you mention are likely long-term significant. Firebase is going to continue at low popularity until it vanishes. Waymo can't make much progress when the current zeitgeist is that everyone can produce self-driving cars. Drone delivery keeps getting tried by lots of companies and never delivers. Google Home is copying Amazon's (Alexa) success just as Android was copying Apple's (iPhone). AI is the lone exception in what you mention - the sheer size and scope of their AI projects has been impressive. As with Google Translate, though, the output is now polluting the very data sources that they use, making future efforts harder.