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The dedicated Streetview app was finally killed because streetview is already integrated in regular google maps. To me, that seems like a good reason to discont
by remirk 3y ago
The dedicated Streetview app was finally killed because streetview is already integrated in regular google maps. To me, that seems like a good reason to discontinue the dedicated app.
I don't get the reasoning behind this article. Half of this list is side projects which didn't work out, which is understandable to a certain degree. The article feels like blogspam riding on the hypetrain of people disliking when google discontinues products like Stadia.
- gondaloof 3y agoYou could say the same about Google Earth on mobile. Do you need a separate app? I’m honestly surprised it still exists.
- mulmboy 3y agoGoogle earth on mobile lets you load up local KML files, which I don't think normal maps does
- Kye 3y agoGoogle has never been great at integrating their acquisitions. Even their own video search still can't seem to match YouTube's search for things on YouTube even with exact titles. Google Earth started as Keyhole. It's the K in KML. It gained notoriety pre-acquisition for being used in reporting on the invasion of Iraq. Maps was a different company. You can export and import KML in Maps, but it's in a separate custom map interface under Saved->Maps. It's not integrated with the main interface like in Earth as far as I can tell. If there's a way to load them like overlays in Earth, that would be useful.
- mrguyorama 3y agoLast I knew, Google Earth on desktop also lets you play with local KML files.
- FinnKuhn 3y agowait, how is this comment already in the article?
- gt2 3y agoNoticed that too-- happened within about 5 mins of the comment. Perhaps the poster is the author of article, and possibly the user gondaloof (they are both green accounts). Or maybe the author of the article is just paying attention to HN.
- dvh 3y agohttps://youtu.be/5drjr9PmTMA https://youtu.be/5drjr9PmTMA
- ryanbrunner 3y agoGoogle Earth presents the same data in a very different way - Google Maps is mostly about navigation and discovering businesses and other locations in an area, Google Earth is more about exploration and discovering cool places. Sort of like how paper maps and atlases both had reasons to exist.
- pqb 3y ago> As [this](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35553634 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35553634) comment on HN pointed out, this was a good move by Google. You can feel fulfilled as an HN user. Your comment was cited (linked) in the article. Note: I am not an author of the article :)
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- hunter2_ 3y agoVery peculiar to link to a comment that criticizes TFA as blogspam, though, right? Unless perhaps the comment wasn't so critical at time of linking and was later edited...
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> Half of this list is side projects which didn't work out, which is understandable to a certain degree What happens to the people who bet on them? Do they even have a point of contact if e.g. an integration breaks? That’s the point. They’re half-baked products being put out and pulled with no care in the world. That’s the brand. Which means when a Stadia comes out, a product that could have worked if people trusted it, nobody budges. Because half the crap Google ships are “side projects which didn’t work out,” a list which apparently now includes its cloud.
- londons_explore 3y agoThey really just need clear branding between "This is a side project, we might take it away with just a months notice" and "This is a product we will give you many years notice and a migration path if we decide to get rid of it". I think they should label everything in the former category "experimental". Put the label right in the logo so it is really obvious.
- arcbyte 3y agoThey used to do public betas. I remember Gmail being labeled beta in the early days.
- amenghra 3y agoGmail was in beta for 5 years, from 2004 until 2009 — imho it didn’t make much sense to label something as beta when it is used by ~1B people.
- kmlx 3y agoi think it's about expectations
- londons_explore 3y agoThing is... imagine they had announced "Thanks for being part of the gmail beta. We learnt a lot, but have now decided to close GMail. You have 3 days to download your emails and find a new email provider". A lot of people would have been very pissed off, even though it said 'beta'.
- vaasuu 3y agoI mostly used the Street View app to capture 360° spherical panoramas, offline, on-device. Now that Google has killed the app, I can’t capture those photos! The app worked fine a month ago, why not let me use it, as it worked offline‽ No one seems to be talking about this issue. I haven’t found suitable replacement apps to capture photospheres on a (i)Phone. The suggested Street View Studio doesn’t let you capture Photo Spheres!
- tuukkah 3y agoOn Android, you may be able to use e.g. Google Camera or F-Droid's Focal.
- hn2017 3y agoAnything for iOS?
- Gordonjcp 3y ago[flagged]
- arafatamim 3y agoTry GCam. It's not officially supported by Google outside of Pixel devices, but people have tried porting it for other phones. https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/ https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/
- paulcole 3y ago> No one seems to be talking about this issue. This is kind of your answer right? It’s not the issue to others that it is to you. If Google sunsetted Search, for example, I think people would talk about that issue.
- romwell 3y ago>Now that Google has killed the app, I can’t capture those photos! The app worked fine a month ago, why not let me use it, as it worked offline‽ Laughs/cries in Picasa
- elif 3y agoI'd love to know your breakdown of which 3 are "side projects." the 2 I can imagine you are referring to, jacquard and onhub, had 3rd party hardware manufacturers implementing them. These are all projects that google wanted developers to engage with their ecosystem. Routinely inviting devs over to work with you, then kicking them out in the cold, will obviously have consequences. I remember participating in CodeJam 2003 twenty years ago, and it was such a positive experience that Google was the first company I applied to out of college. Right now I'm working on a project using a gcp API, and now I'm considering finding an alternative because arbitrarily doing the same work twice is never the most efficient way.
- conradfr 3y agoKilling hardware products via software creates more e-waste.
- fractalb 3y agoRight. You can’t call ‘Google Codejam’ a product. It’s an open competition.
- interestica 3y agoCan you upload street view footage via the maps app? That's a major loss.
- prepend 3y agoStadia is a big deal. And OnHub must really suck if you have it as your router. I think it’s probably 90% blogspam and reinforces that anyone sane should very carefully evaluate whether they rely on anything google releases. Personally, I’ve looked at google phones and networking and home stuff and won’t touch it with a ten foot pole because I don’t want to switch out my router because google decides to kill it. I agree on the side projects or conferences being shut down and thought the same thing of “why is this even a stand alone app, wouldn’t people just use maps?”
- romwell 3y ago>The article feels like blogspam riding on the hypetrain of people disliking when google discontinues products like Stadia. Stadia and CodeJam are more than enough. Perhaps there wouldn't be "blogspam" like this if Google didn't regularly provided content by shutting down things that people actually loved.
- DANmode 3y agoDoes anyone have firsthand knowledge why Google split Street View into its own app way back when? I think I know (resource allocation), but I'd love to be certain.