7 ms·

This touches back to Gruber's assertion that Google is getting better at what Apple does best (device design) faster than Apple is getting better at what Google

• Thirdegree 13y ago
  I feel like Google in 2014 is going to be releasing a lot of aesthetic updates. With the recent acquisition of timely + this new one, they've bought two teams at least partially known for beautiful design.
• gfodor 13y ago
  ...and soon robotics. I'm a huge Apple fanboy but they really need to get their shit together on the web services front. Siri still sucks almost unbelievably bad. It never works. Maps still leads me to random streets and goes in circles. As we move towards smaller and smaller devices one has to assume more of the work is going to be happening in the data center. Not good news for Apple unless they start making some real strategic acquisitions stat. (They've started at least.)
  • rmason 13y ago
    Can someone explain to me why Apple didn't acquire Nest? He's a known quantity at Apple and he's doing hardware that would expand their market. I know they don't do a lot of acquisitions but this would seem to be a no-brainer for them.
    • laureny 13y ago
      > Can someone explain to me why Apple didn't acquire Nest? I'm guessing that to them, it's all or nothing: either they invent and market the product, or they're not interested. Unsustainable hubris, if you ask me.
      • snom380 13y ago
        My guess from the kind of companies they buy, is that their products really need to fit with Apples area of focus. If not, they buy the company for the talent or technology (like FingerWorks).
      • rmason 13y ago
        So the only reason that they'd buy a company is if purchasing the company's technology lets them get a product to market sooner than if it were built in house? Or by doing an acqui-hire they can get a team at at the right price to fast forward a new product? So you're saying that they've become a 'not invented here' kind of company?
      • iand 13y ago
        Unlikely. Siri was an acquisition for example.
      • cowsandmilk 13y ago
        > Unsustainable hubris, if you ask me. Or the opposite of hubris. They want to stay focused on their product line. They're happy to put connected home products in their stores, as they've done with nest; but they recognize they are already spread thin, so they do not actually want to make products in that space. Apple's acquisitions tend to be targeted improving their existing product line, not rapid expansions into new products. I would bet Apple could make a good washer and dryer, but no one is claiming Apple is not out there courting the best washer/dryer company due to hubris.
    • bluthru 13y ago
      Getting a return on 3.2bn seems like a risky bet for Apple. Google has the incentive to bring in Tony Fadell, but his disciples have already shipped many products at Apple.
    • nairteashop 13y ago
      Apple's MO has always been to do a few things, and do them well. Perhaps home automation is not on their radar. Google, on the other hand, is used to running a million different unrelated projects, so they are better setup for something like this.
    • smackfu 13y ago
      Apple makes acquisitions to improve their existing products. If the people at Nest wanted to improve Apple products, they wouldn't have left Apple and formed Nest in the first place.
    • bedhead 13y ago
      I would speculate that it's because Nest's products aren't scalable in the way most of Apple's other products are. The appeal is too narrow, appealing primarily to ultra-techy folks or people building/redoing their home. Phones and mp3 players and computers are owned by almost everyone. I just don't see smoke detectors and thermostats having that same kind of broad appeal. Nest is neat. I don't have one but my neighbor does and it's a fine product. I'm as "gadgety" as the next guy here, but even after playing with Nest and being impressed I still wasn't compelled to buy one. I dunno, maybe one day.
  • bitserf 13y ago
    Are they capable of shifting from device centric thinking? Feels like Google has a lock on the talent that could help Apple build out their capability here. They'd need to take services seriously as well, for starters.
    • erichocean 13y ago
      Are they capable of shifting from device centric thinking? Sadly, no. I doubt even Jobs would have made that shift were he still alive, but I'm certain Tim Cook won't.
      • 001sky 13y ago
        Apple owns identity. Google not so much. Yet. Once they are in your glasses, car, and thermostat...things will be different.
  • IBM 13y ago
    Do you actually use Siri or Maps? Because I find your complaints about them absurd, I use both of these services every day and they work marvelously.
    • catshirt 13y ago
      for what it's worth, i stopped actually using them because they both suck terribly even before you compare them to their Google alternatives. maps has notoriously bad data.
      • IBM 13y ago
        Better start giving it a look again with the trend Google's services are heading in.
      • natevancouver 13y ago
        There is mapping data, and then there is place data (where a business is located). Google and Apple must use the same mapping data, because I see the same errors in both apps. Of course with Google, after I report the error it gets fixed. I can’t say the same for Apple. And Navteq* has more detailed and accurate data than either of them. What Google has is superb place data. Apple has… Yelp. *Assuming you have recent Navteq data. Not the nav system in your car that hasn’t been updated in 2 years.
        • Angostura 13y ago
          Something's happened with Apple place data in the UK in the last month or two - it's suddenly become... OK. It was a laughable joke before.
    • x0x0 13y ago
      Do you? apple maps just led us 18 minutes out of the way just this weekend. It's apparently incapable of leading people to restaurants just off 80 in Auburn, CA. When we gave up and used decent software -- ie google maps -- it got us straight there.
  • striglia 13y ago
    You're comparing them on uneven terms. Show me one company besides Google that can even stack up to what Apple's done in Maps or with Siri. There's none. That's because both require amazing amount of expertise, money, and data to deploy properly. Apple has correctly done what they had to (break off the data flow from iOS to Google) even where it may have reduced the experience for their customers. That's a long term play. Funny how Google is continuing to corner the data market via acquisitions like Nest. Almost feels...anti-competitive, no? I wonder how long until we start talking about Google the way we still talk about 1990s Microsoft. Is it plausible that a new company, starting from scratch in the Maps/Search/Personal Assistant/etc. field could actually compete with Google? Or would they just get crushed under the personalizing power of Google's raw data and computational advantage?
    • magicalist 13y ago
      > Show me one company besides Google that can even stack up to what Apple's done in Maps or with Siri Well Microsoft, easily, if they had the will. I guess the pieces are actually all there, but they aren't as direct with posing it as a "personal assistant" or whatever. If you consider the products separately: there are several major mapping companies, though there have been a ton of confusing mergers and splits in the last 5 years, not to mention OSM. As for Siri, it was a tiny team at Siri, Inc that created the foundations of Siri. Apple has done a ton with it (though I was hoping for more by now), but you can easily imagine a next-gen Siri coming out of a startup. > Funny how Google is continuing to corner the data market via acquisitions like Nest. Almost feels...anti-competitive, no? This becomes a little farcical, honestly. First, you can get far more information from a phone, and there are like 3 orders of magnitude more Android phones out there than there are Nest devices. But more importantly, if we're going to talk about the "data market" -- as if that's some sort of thing -- virtually any acquisition that has customers would help them corner it. But that also means any other company with customers also has a stake in that "market", in which case, no, it does not feel anti-competitive.
      • striglia 13y ago
        I think you underestimate the importance of context in all of this. You can't build any of these products well without knowing (deeply and certainly) users' patterns. Microsoft has no realistic way of knowing when it routes you to the wrong place...no continuous training data to let it feed and refine a personal assistant. Data products can be cool demos (see Siri) from a startup, but without both the starting dataset and the continuous feedback that you get by deploying these against real users and capturing the resulting behavior, I think they are quite limited. Continuous adaptation and learning is as important as the initial algorithm. And while I certainly am looking into the future when I talk about cornering the market, I think it's an interesting question to ask how you compete against a company like Google that starts with this much user context. How can you build better experiences when they have the advantage in data, ML expertise, and the raw computational power? The incremental acquisitions of data and companies are not the issue...it's the web of connections that is valuable. And Google is not only trouncing Apple, their only meaningful competitor, in that race...Google is pulling even further ahead.
  • Angostura 13y ago
    I've found that the data in Maps has been significantly improved (in the UK) over the last couple of months, its now actually possible to find businesses on it (road data has always been reasonable). The more concerning thing to me, is Apple's apparent usability weakness when it comes to iCloud, syncing and its devices. I've worked it out now, more or less, but the potential for confusion is tremendous. If I turn on syncing, I expect syncing. If I turn off syncing, I expect syncing to stop, I do not expect warnings about documents being deleted from various devices. Similar with calendars. Turn on iCloud and suddenly you have calendars 'On My Mac' and in iCloud. All the calendars are duplicated. Horribly confusing behaviour for someone who is new to it.
    • statictype 13y ago
      If I turn off syncing, I expect syncing to stop, I do not expect warnings about documents being deleted from various devices. This has been a problem with iTunes syncing as well. Constantly warning me about deleting apps and photos when I check or uncheck a box. Does anyone ever want to say yes to any of those questions? Very user hostile behavior. There's still no easy way to randomly get photos from a computer onto my ipad. I have to use some 3rd party app or frickin mail them to myself. The photo syncing feature is useless.
    • xutopia 13y ago
      In Quebec, Canada I find it leads me to impossible places. Even hospitals have the wrong address.
    • deleted 13y ago
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    • deleted 13y ago
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    • dzhiurgis 13y ago
      TBH, I haven't had a single success in finding a business on any map. Stations are fine, but anything else has terrible signal to noise ratio. I.e. Try finding IKEA in London. There are two, but results pull Muji, Habitat and other nonsense.
  • saturdaysaint 13y ago
    As someone that uses both platforms extensively, I find claims of Siri and Maps inferiority utterly mind-boggling. On an iPhone, I can get directions to anywhere or call anyone or create calendar events while barely looking at my phone. Google Now is nice in some respects but almost always requires an off-putting degree of annoying manual manipulation to accomplish actions as simple as calling someone. For me, Maps gives me eerily accurate drivetime estimates whereas Google's times are utterly useless. And I consider the UI patently inferior. I feel like a need two hands and a full minute to do things that require a few quick taps in iOS. Google seems to need to ping their server to get my search history or home address, whereas iOS calls it up in milliseconds. I would also kill to have navigation on the lockscreen as in iOS - it always requires a janky series of button presses and swipes on my Android phone.
    • smackfu 13y ago
      >For me, Maps gives me eerily accurate drivetime estimates whereas Google's times are utterly useless. Fascinating. Apple Maps is always wrong for me, with the estimated time of arrival constantly changing as I drive, while Google (and Waze) are spot on.
      • epmatsw 13y ago
        It's heavily dependent on the city you're in as far as I can tell. Google Maps is awful in Madison, but I've had better results with it in Atlanta.
      • micampe 13y ago
        Well of course the ETA changes while you are driving, that seems obvious. It's an estimate, it depends on current conditions, it can't be correct from the start.
        • smackfu 13y ago
          For instance, just now I pulled up directions to the place I drove on Sunday. Apple Maps gives three routes, ranging from 35-40 minutes. Google Maps gives three routes, ranging from 29-33 minutes. In my experience, it will take closer to the time Google says, so if I'm using Apple Maps, the ETA will start out at 35 minute from now, and by the time I get there, it will be 5 minutes sooner. The only "current condition" it is depending on is that I'm driving faster over the route than it expects.
• Pxtl 13y ago
  Idunno, I'm an Android fanboy but at this point I'm getting less and less impressed with it. The UI looks dated now that everybody's going flat, and the "new device" experience is now terrible with tons of services being confused about your Google Plus account. It takes a day or two for a fresh Android device and account to stop bombarding you with irritating inscrutable confirmations and Plus-related shenanigans. I recently set up a device without the Google account and added it later, and every Google app was horribly confused after I added the google account - had to reboot it to make it behave. Android is good, but it's quickly turning into Windows 98 - productive but messy. At the same time Microsoft is making an impressive pace in both the hardware and web-service fields.