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that is one potential worry, but they are losing the cloud game, they are absolutely bad at products, UX, support, etc. at this point I think Android and Chrom

by pas 4y ago

that is one potential worry, but they are losing the cloud game, they are absolutely bad at products, UX, support, etc. at this point I think Android and Chrome are their most high-quality things. Calendar is okay too, but it does what it did 10 years ago, oh, sure, it has Meet integration too (which sucks, and 720p) Maps' mass transit things are getting better, but it's not going to save Alphabet

aix1 4y ago
Since you mention support, customer service is just atrocious. My Pixel 5 phone is still under warranty and has developed a battery fault. I contacted Google support: 1. No option to repair, only replacement and only by post (unnecessarily inconvenient given that it's just a straightforward battery swap that any number of local shops can do -- I did this myself in the past except that this phone's still under warranty and I'm too pressed for time to be sourcing parts etc). 2. I got repeatedly prompted to confirm that I was using the charger that came with the phone (this seemed to suggest there might be warranty implications if I wasn't -- not sure this is even legal in the UK). 3. I had to consent to a page worth of legalese, including granting Google permission to access my phone usage data -- wtf is that? In the end, I chose to walk into a third-party repair centre and just pay for an out-of-warranty repair. Took an hour, £50 ($60) and a voided phone warranty -- IMO a great deal compared to getting warranty service from Google.
klibertp 4y ago
A little bit off topic, but I have to vent somewhere... I don't know about Chrome, but if Android is their most high-quality thing, then at the very least they are also losing in developer experience. The churn in libraries and frameworks there is, from what I've seen, only second to Web frontend, and bugs in newer things are really embarrassing. "Ready for production" (they claim in the FAQ) Jetpack Compose is great when it works, but even the Android Studio-generated Compose template crashed the IDE several times, while manually setting it up crashed Kotlin compiler[1]. WorkManager and Room are important things that bugged out for me, too. And I'm at it for just 5 months - there's got to be way more dragons that I'm yet to see. [1] https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/249653885 https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/249653885
- pohuing 4y ago
  Starting an empty watch face project has a ton of deprecated warnings as well. Not very reassuring...
- pas 4y ago
  I was mostly thinking about Android userspace/kernel/UX. The DX is of course tragic, and has been going down the drain since ... well, since the good old days of the first few years of Android Studio. But even back then it was a shitshow. When documentation wasn't completely useless then the APIs themselves were. (NDK is worth a dishonorable mention.) In-app payment APIs are also pretty meh - which directly make money for them! And yeah, there's Flutter, and now there's this new Jetpack/Compose whatever. But as is tradition it's nowhere near production ready. And when it becomes finally solid, they just abandon it. Angular went through the same cycle. I'm looking forward to their new React++ :D

by pas 4y ago

aix1 4y ago

Since you mention support, customer service is just atrocious. My Pixel 5 phone is still under warranty and has developed a battery fault. I contacted Google support: 1. No option to repair, only replacement and only by post (unnecessarily inconvenient given that it's just a straightforward battery swap that any number of local shops can do -- I did this myself in the past except that this phone's still under warranty and I'm too pressed for time to be sourcing parts etc). 2. I got repeatedly prompted to confirm that I was using the charger that came with the phone (this seemed to suggest there might be warranty implications if I wasn't -- not sure this is even legal in the UK). 3. I had to consent to a page worth of legalese, including granting Google permission to access my phone usage data -- wtf is that? In the end, I chose to walk into a third-party repair centre and just pay for an out-of-warranty repair. Took an hour, £50 ($60) and a voided phone warranty -- IMO a great deal compared to getting warranty service from Google.

klibertp 4y ago

A little bit off topic, but I have to vent somewhere... I don't know about Chrome, but if Android is their most high-quality thing, then at the very least they are also losing in developer experience. The churn in libraries and frameworks there is, from what I've seen, only second to Web frontend, and bugs in newer things are really embarrassing. "Ready for production" (they claim in the FAQ) Jetpack Compose is great when it works, but even the Android Studio-generated Compose template crashed the IDE several times, while manually setting it up crashed Kotlin compiler[1]. WorkManager and Room are important things that bugged out for me, too. And I'm at it for just 5 months - there's got to be way more dragons that I'm yet to see. [1] https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/249653885 https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/249653885

pohuing 4y ago
Starting an empty watch face project has a ton of deprecated warnings as well. Not very reassuring...
pas 4y ago
I was mostly thinking about Android userspace/kernel/UX. The DX is of course tragic, and has been going down the drain since ... well, since the good old days of the first few years of Android Studio. But even back then it was a shitshow. When documentation wasn't completely useless then the APIs themselves were. (NDK is worth a dishonorable mention.) In-app payment APIs are also pretty meh - which directly make money for them! And yeah, there's Flutter, and now there's this new Jetpack/Compose whatever. But as is tradition it's nowhere near production ready. And when it becomes finally solid, they just abandon it. Angular went through the same cycle. I'm looking forward to their new React++ :D