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You're nuts. Google certainly has some mediocre "products," but they have many great products as well besides search. Gmail, of course, essentially sets the b

You're nuts. Google certainly has some mediocre "products," but they have many great products as well besides search. Gmail, of course, essentially sets the bar for online mail, and is still leaps and bounds better than any of its competitors. Google maps is very, very, good, vastly better than most of the competition (a point made starkly clear by Apple's recent maps C-F). Google+ is, technically, absolutely excellent, much better than FB. If all your old high-school buddies are only on FB, it's a shame, but there's not much Google can do about that. Android is vastly better than iOS (I use both, and using iOS always makes it feel like my hands are tied behind my back). ...etc. Google has its downsides (e.g. their online support sucks), and you may not like them for other reasons, but they're very, very, good at writing software...

shurcooL 13y ago
> Android is vastly better than iOS (I use both, and using iOS always makes it feel like my hands are tied behind my back). For me, I feel like I have 2 hands when using iOS but 17 hands when using Android. It asked me to pick one of 3 power-savings modes for Wi-Fi when in sleep mode. I don't want to have to care about that (nor do I want to pick one of the three options without thinking, because then I'll not have an optimal configuration). I have enough things to tweak on my computer.
- timmm 13y ago
  Yeah I get that, you might like Google maps more if say you cared about the actual maps.
  - 6d0debc071 13y ago
    That'd be Bing maps then - which I use pretty much exclusively these days.
    - DigitalTurk 13y ago
      Bing is great… unless you travel. It fails for many countries. Even for major cities in China it will only show the main roads.
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  Regarding the power-savings mode selection issue, that is most definitely not a part of stock Android. Google releases Android without any OEM or carrier modifications. If the OEMs/carriers decide to do something, Google is (generally) not involved.
  - invisible 13y ago
    This fragmentation issue is always presented when a flaw like this is incorrectly attributed to Google, but somehow that has nothing to do with Android? That seems like a silly thing to say. Yes, iOS suffers some problems but so does Android, as a fragmented beast that is still stuck on jelly bean as the majority version (which IMO is pretty lacking). I do look forward to Android's future though.
    - ericd 13y ago
      It's really pretty easy to avoid this by buying a Nexus branded device, though.
      - ahsteele 13y ago
        Agreed, but explain that to a regular consumer in the Verizon store.
        w1ntermute 13y ago
        I don't think anyone is suggesting that we explain anything to regular consumers in Verizon stores. The point is that an HN member should be able to understand and appreciate the fact that stock Android is very different from what most Android phones have, and that those who want stock Android should get a Nexus.
  - jsnell 13y ago
    It's been part of stock Android at least since 2.0. But it's also hidden 4 layers deep within Settings (Wifi / Menu / Advanced / Keep Wifi On During Sleep / ...). Complaining about being "asked to pick" a setting when it's hidden that well is pretty disingenuous.
philwelch 13y ago
> Gmail, of course, essentially sets the bar for online mail, and is still leaps and bounds better than any of its competitors. If Gmail keeps lowering the bar instead of raising it, that's not going to be true for much longer.
- nijk 13y ago
  There about two features that matter in consumer mail: storage quota, multi-location/mobile availability (not a fixed single client machine), and spam.
  - philwelch 13y ago
    Storage is storage, no worry catching up there. Multi-location availability is just IMAP. That leaves spam as the only hard problem, though admittedly it's a problem squarely in Google's wheelhouse.
threeseed 13y ago
The days of Google Maps being vastly better than Apple Maps are fast disappearing. It is about 95% parity for Australia and UK at least and any differences are being eliminated rapidly. And the touted advantages of Street View aren't there since the data is at least 4 years out of date in some countries. The fact is that Maps aren't something you can dramatically keep improving. You reach the "everything is mapped" point and then it becomes a keeping everything up to date scenario.
- BitMastro 13y ago
  Good luck with that. BTW aren't you going to point out once again that for example in Australia all the data comes from Tele Atlas and Whereis?
- new299 13y ago
  I don't know about the rest of the world, but it's still a lot worse than Google Maps in Japan. I'm sure it will come in time, but it's a difficult problem and one that google has a better handle on with it's background in "big data".
- nickles 13y ago
  I'm not quite sure that this is true. I've been noticing many more house addresses in captchas recently, indicating that Google is working to make sure that home addresses in Maps accurately correspond to those in the real world. While improvements of this nature are far less noticeable, they demonstrate that many of the remaining improvements to the product are being made 'under the hood'.
- snogglethorpe 13y ago
  > The days of Google Maps being vastly better than Apple Maps are fast disappearing. It is about 95% parity [...] Not where I live (Tokyo), it isn't. I have an iPad mini (got it for free!! :] ), which has a nice large display, and I'd really like to be able to use a mapping app on it when I'm at home, but using Apple Maps is painful compared to Google Maps (which I have on my phone). The presentation in Apple Maps is very pretty (well, as long as you don't turn on satellite view and notice the super low-resolution images...), but the data/integration just isn't there. If you live in Cupertino, of course, Apple Maps probably has fewer issues...
new299 13y ago
> Android is vastly better than iOS (I use both, and using iOS always makes it feel like my hands are tied behind my back). It's really in no sense "vastly better" the market pretty much bears this out. From a developer/technical standpoint it can be a pain that you have less access to device features on iOS and the AppStore review process can be a nightmare. But developing on XCode isn't bad, as is the UIKit architecture. It's unfortunate that iOS isn't open source like Android, but I can see no way from a user or technical perspective that it's "vastly better".
- tripzilch 13y ago
  > It's really in no sense "vastly better" the market pretty much bears this out. Some markets. iOS is big in the US, Android's big in the EU. It's clearly network-effect. Because of that, "the market" doesn't bear out anything regarding quality.
  - new299 13y ago
    I'd like to see citations for that. But one of the reasons could be that low end smartphones and off contract phones are far more popular in Europe. That drives the market towards cheaper devices which tend to run Android. In any case it was the word "vastly" I was objecting to. It's possible to subjectively think Android or iOS is better but I don't see how to can make a reasoned argument that Android is objectively vastly superior (aside from the fact that it's open source which could be considered critical).
    - snogglethorpe 13y ago
      Here's some data for Japan; Apple has about 1/3 of the smartphone market, almost all of the rest is Android. There's generally little difference in device capability or pricing between iphones and non-iphones in Japan, so it's not a low-end vs. high-end thing, and two out of the three major carriers heavily push the iphone, so it's certainly not marketing.... http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2012/4/1_in_5_Mobile_Phone_Users_in_Japan_Now_Owns_a_Smartphone http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2012/4/1_in_... > I don't see how to can make a reasoned argument that Android is objectively vastly superior It's an opinion... :]

shurcooL 13y ago

> Android is vastly better than iOS (I use both, and using iOS always makes it feel like my hands are tied behind my back). For me, I feel like I have 2 hands when using iOS but 17 hands when using Android. It asked me to pick one of 3 power-savings modes for Wi-Fi when in sleep mode. I don't want to have to care about that (nor do I want to pick one of the three options without thinking, because then I'll not have an optimal configuration). I have enough things to tweak on my computer.

timmm 13y ago
Yeah I get that, you might like Google maps more if say you cared about the actual maps.
- 6d0debc071 13y ago
  That'd be Bing maps then - which I use pretty much exclusively these days.
  - DigitalTurk 13y ago
    Bing is great… unless you travel. It fails for many countries. Even for major cities in China it will only show the main roads.
w1ntermute 13y ago
Regarding the power-savings mode selection issue, that is most definitely not a part of stock Android. Google releases Android without any OEM or carrier modifications. If the OEMs/carriers decide to do something, Google is (generally) not involved.
- invisible 13y ago
  This fragmentation issue is always presented when a flaw like this is incorrectly attributed to Google, but somehow that has nothing to do with Android? That seems like a silly thing to say. Yes, iOS suffers some problems but so does Android, as a fragmented beast that is still stuck on jelly bean as the majority version (which IMO is pretty lacking). I do look forward to Android's future though.
  - ericd 13y ago
    It's really pretty easy to avoid this by buying a Nexus branded device, though.
    - ahsteele 13y ago
      Agreed, but explain that to a regular consumer in the Verizon store.
      - w1ntermute 13y ago
        I don't think anyone is suggesting that we explain anything to regular consumers in Verizon stores. The point is that an HN member should be able to understand and appreciate the fact that stock Android is very different from what most Android phones have, and that those who want stock Android should get a Nexus.
- jsnell 13y ago
  It's been part of stock Android at least since 2.0. But it's also hidden 4 layers deep within Settings (Wifi / Menu / Advanced / Keep Wifi On During Sleep / ...). Complaining about being "asked to pick" a setting when it's hidden that well is pretty disingenuous.

philwelch 13y ago

> Gmail, of course, essentially sets the bar for online mail, and is still leaps and bounds better than any of its competitors. If Gmail keeps lowering the bar instead of raising it, that's not going to be true for much longer.

nijk 13y ago
There about two features that matter in consumer mail: storage quota, multi-location/mobile availability (not a fixed single client machine), and spam.
- philwelch 13y ago
  Storage is storage, no worry catching up there. Multi-location availability is just IMAP. That leaves spam as the only hard problem, though admittedly it's a problem squarely in Google's wheelhouse.

threeseed 13y ago

The days of Google Maps being vastly better than Apple Maps are fast disappearing. It is about 95% parity for Australia and UK at least and any differences are being eliminated rapidly. And the touted advantages of Street View aren't there since the data is at least 4 years out of date in some countries. The fact is that Maps aren't something you can dramatically keep improving. You reach the "everything is mapped" point and then it becomes a keeping everything up to date scenario.

BitMastro 13y ago
Good luck with that. BTW aren't you going to point out once again that for example in Australia all the data comes from Tele Atlas and Whereis?
new299 13y ago
I don't know about the rest of the world, but it's still a lot worse than Google Maps in Japan. I'm sure it will come in time, but it's a difficult problem and one that google has a better handle on with it's background in "big data".
nickles 13y ago
I'm not quite sure that this is true. I've been noticing many more house addresses in captchas recently, indicating that Google is working to make sure that home addresses in Maps accurately correspond to those in the real world. While improvements of this nature are far less noticeable, they demonstrate that many of the remaining improvements to the product are being made 'under the hood'.
snogglethorpe 13y ago
> The days of Google Maps being vastly better than Apple Maps are fast disappearing. It is about 95% parity [...] Not where I live (Tokyo), it isn't. I have an iPad mini (got it for free!! :] ), which has a nice large display, and I'd really like to be able to use a mapping app on it when I'm at home, but using Apple Maps is painful compared to Google Maps (which I have on my phone). The presentation in Apple Maps is very pretty (well, as long as you don't turn on satellite view and notice the super low-resolution images...), but the data/integration just isn't there. If you live in Cupertino, of course, Apple Maps probably has fewer issues...

new299 13y ago

> Android is vastly better than iOS (I use both, and using iOS always makes it feel like my hands are tied behind my back). It's really in no sense "vastly better" the market pretty much bears this out. From a developer/technical standpoint it can be a pain that you have less access to device features on iOS and the AppStore review process can be a nightmare. But developing on XCode isn't bad, as is the UIKit architecture. It's unfortunate that iOS isn't open source like Android, but I can see no way from a user or technical perspective that it's "vastly better".

tripzilch 13y ago
> It's really in no sense "vastly better" the market pretty much bears this out. Some markets. iOS is big in the US, Android's big in the EU. It's clearly network-effect. Because of that, "the market" doesn't bear out anything regarding quality.
- new299 13y ago
  I'd like to see citations for that. But one of the reasons could be that low end smartphones and off contract phones are far more popular in Europe. That drives the market towards cheaper devices which tend to run Android. In any case it was the word "vastly" I was objecting to. It's possible to subjectively think Android or iOS is better but I don't see how to can make a reasoned argument that Android is objectively vastly superior (aside from the fact that it's open source which could be considered critical).
  - snogglethorpe 13y ago
    Here's some data for Japan; Apple has about 1/3 of the smartphone market, almost all of the rest is Android. There's generally little difference in device capability or pricing between iphones and non-iphones in Japan, so it's not a low-end vs. high-end thing, and two out of the three major carriers heavily push the iphone, so it's certainly not marketing.... http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2012/4/1_in_5_Mobile_Phone_Users_in_Japan_Now_Owns_a_Smartphone http://www.comscore.com/Insights/Press_Releases/2012/4/1_in_... > I don't see how to can make a reasoned argument that Android is objectively vastly superior It's an opinion... :]