W3W is one of the stupidest proposals I've ever seen, because it's proprietary. We want everybody on earth to need to pay licensing fees and contact a remote API to resolve address?
To call it mad would be far too kind. I may call it evil.
Their UX continues to g et worse. Google Voice on iOS has had 10-20 second lag (no joke) on older versions of iOS (used to be jus fine!) for 1-2 years now. One previous version of GV in particular froze for 10 seconds on your first key press, now I can't rely on it to open properly, or send messages. It seems intentionally sabotaged.
I heard employees quit when G merged the YT with "real name" accounts.
Personally I've had a real pain getting support for android development. Wrong and misleading documentation, rude forum moderators, no way to report a bug (they have a bug where Payments page will show errors -- in Incognito Chrome) -- on the admob site. Solution was to sign up for Adwords (how could I tell?) and check the page in Safari or sign into Adwords on Chrome. Shit documentation. Help your developers earn you money better, Google. And stop changing your UI. It looks like they have low-tier coders who get hired with not enough power to rock the boat so they roll out a UI re-vamp no one wants without bothering to fix systemic problems that repeatedly kill products, break products and have a completely INSULTING policy towards their developers. Admob: "You can't even complain to us without earning enough money.. here's a phone number.. it literally never connects." Why even bother? I interpret that they hate me. The feeling is mutual.
I know I am flogging a dead horse here, but the constant retiring of Google apps makes me reluctant to adopt anything beyond Gmail and Youtube. I am a heavy Google Keep user, but I worry I am going to be kicked off that eventually.
> And stop changing your UI. It
The Youtube UI just gets worse and worse. I can only imagine what it must be like for non-Youtube Red subscribers. The add playlist button now defaults to your last playlist, which for me 75% of the time is not the playlist I want. Then I have to wait a few seconds for a popup, click a button, then unselect the last playlist and tick a new playlist. Just to add a f'ing video to a playlist.
Im surprised you manage to be a heavy Keep user — i had a few thousand notes, and then they rolled out some update that meant they would all be re-downloaded every time i opened the web client, which made it unusable for me. Switched to apple notes because why not and havent had any problems since.
Google Keep is at least now a core G Suite service covered by their terms of service, SLA, etc for G Suite customers. It also just got integrated into the new Gmail UX. So that's unlikely to vanish too quickly.
Youtube is even more fun if you don't want to make a channel. They've made the website "add to playlist" button redirect to the channel creation page. I can't even put things on "watch later", the one playlist youtube has deigned to allow me to have.
im using newpipe on android and adding the rss feeds to newsblur so I can watch on desktop. its actually really good since you get away from their suggestions side bar and autoplay (and the UI).
newsblur let's you organise things into subfolders too which is helpful
the other thing in going to start using is youtube-dl to download my watch later videos and then use something like emby or plex to watch them. maybe do the same with videos that I want to keep so I don't have to worry about then disappearing every second day
So if I’m reading you right, “YouTube is great, provided you work around their UI, feature set and arbitrary limitations by replacing it all with 3rd party software.” Yeah google’s really nailing it. /s
Well youtube has a lot of everyday person content that nobody else does. This is mostly inertia - they got big years ago, and it is hard to switch. There are other good alternatives, but none have the users or mind share.
Movies are better served elsewhere, but there is a lot of things that you just can't find elsewhere.
Personally I like the suggestions (everyone complains about clickbait and such, but I'm lucky that I never get those), but Newpipe is definitively a better app than the official.
My ‘watch later’ seems to have a problem catching videos. I add videos and they are gone from there. I created my own ‘Watch Now’ playlist, which consistently works.
This might be due to the fact that corporate shitheads decided to take down one of the videos you added.
I've seen such videos transform into [video removed] in custom playlists (which is infuriating to no end, you can't even know what the video was about to look it up somewhere else), maybe it causes videos to disappear from Watch Later entirely.
Right, for normal playlists YouTube leaves a placeholder saying that there was a deleted video. The frustrating thing about how they do it is that there’s no indication what the video was, unless you remember.
Does it handle Watch Later differently? I do know that it seemed to have odd or buggy behavior which is why I stopped using it.
> The add playlist button now defaults to your last playlist, which for me 75% of the time is not the playlist I want.
You can hold the button down ("long press") to get the playlist list instead of waiting for the popup to appear and pressing the button. It is of course still worse than it was before.
Problem is that it defaults to the last playlist I added to, making it unpredictable and inconsistent. It might make more sense if it always defaulted to "Watch Later" but still prompted to change it.
I only have around 5 playlists anyway (basically variants of "Watch Later" but sorted into vague categories).
One “issue” I have with Keep is there is no way to list notes or search notes without a label. And it’s from a search company. It must be hard for them to implement:-) or there is no more resources on Keep, waiting to be out like Inbox.
The way to use YouTube is as nothing more than a video hosting site, watching videos and managing playlists through other (offline) means. I wrote some shell scripts to do this years ago on my HTPC.
Tracking for everything.. with Android 6 and upwards you now have to turn on location in order to (get this!) find your Chromecast dongle when you set it up. Positioning, to find a wi-fi source inside your own place?
Fortunately I still have an old screen-broken Android 5 tablet to use for such things. After that everything works.
FWIW, at least the official story is that that is because doing a scan on Bluetooth or Wi-Fi is in fact enough to locate you regardless, so it now requires the permission to do so.
A scan on Bluetooth (although N/A for this situation) can't possibly give away any position. A scan of wifi might, if the device happens to pick up a wi-fi source that Google has already collected (by some means). Still not very relevant though - it would mean that location permission would be needed in order to use wi-fi at all, because how would it otherwise find the hotspot or access point you want to connect to.. other than having to enter the SSID manually every time. But we don't have to enable location tracking to do that.
To configure Chromecast though, 'google home' (which replaced the 'chromecast' application or whatever it was), takes you to Settings and unless you turn on location tracking it refuses to look for the dongle.
You now have to have that location tracking permission to scan wifi SSIDs, and it came about because spammy data stealing apps were using SSID maps to get rough location.
Not to say Google isn't evil because they certainly seem to be headed to hell while holding us in a hand basket, but this one is legit.
Yeah, I get that.. it's not unreasonable. However, why does Google Home force you to turn on location tracking in general, that's what I don't get.
It sounds like apps scanning for SSIDs could easily be handled by a specific permission for that. No need to enable location tracking (turning 'Location' "on" in Settings) for this. It doesn't make any sense (except for what it looks like: Google wants to get your location, by any means).
Was there internal uproar? Did they say this was the only "practical" option? I have missed all of this if so, I thought this is how Maps worked since this feature first popped up.
Google is a fascinating test case for Elizabeth Warren's plan to create board representation for workers. Googlers have a very distinct culture that would advocate for very different positions from the ones Google is making right now. If Google employees had 40% of the board, they'd be able to do a lot more to stop decisions like this one.
Disclaimer: I myself am an employee of Google, but my opinions and views do not represent those of Google in any way.
Just to be completely fair, there's a balance to be had. I think Googlers are a very passionate group about many issues. That doesn't mean they know what's best for the company or the world.
If Googlers lead Google's business decisions, I think it would be a worse place. Firstly, developers are often very blind to privacy issues left on their own. Well-intentioned developers can cause a lot of trouble, as you can see from countless startups. Secondly, I think the realities of running a business are much more difficult than people want to believe, and sometimes you make tough decisions nobody wants but are truly in the best interest of the company.
To be fair I still do not agree with everything I've heard Google doing in the news, but those are outliers. The narrative given by blogs and media sometimes (maybe even unintentionally) makes everything feel like a giant scheme, but I'd advise you to apply Occam's razor as much as possible. The people making the decision you don't like could legitimately just not understand what the "big deal" is. We don't always have the necessary context to really judge something, and our inclination when filling in gaps rarely likes to be kind. The Chrome login fiasco is a great example of good intentions that went over poorly with people.
I try to stay neutral as much as possible when looking at issues, be they from Google or other entities. People make mistakes and misjudgements all the time, and people assume malice far too often it feels.
I think, personally that Product Owners at google should be empassioned, benevolent dictators that dictate some usage in their applications. As it stands, so many applications and areas are either incomplete, confusing or unusable. Groups in particular is one of the worst things I've had to use... yet the only way to get an internal email list allowing external contact for GSuite. Really? I can do single address forwards from domains, but not group.
Not to mention the crapstorm happening with YouTube, censorship in docs, drive and who knows what else.
In the end, I'm not sure it won't collapse, leaving MS and Apple to reign the way things are going. It seems Google's leadership has taken a "show me the money" shift in focus.
There is only uproar for war contracts... turns out "Do No Evil" isn't as important as "get a paycheck that allows you to live in the most expensive real estate in the known universe"
edit: full disclosure, ex-Googler. I am biased. Met a lot of people who look the other way until even the other way is salty. "I build Google Forms, I do not wrong" ... It is easy to believe you are doing good for the world when you forget your product helps the company take over the world. Again, biased and salty myself
Lol you clearly have no idea what you're talking about. Googlers get into an uproar over _everything_. The flipside of which is that all of the issues that you're incensed about (like this one), you can pretty much guarantee that they're more incensed about. Not that leadership listens always or even often...
Most large companies have a "jump the shark" moment where business needs and biz dev take over the engineering/product side and starts running the show unilaterally. It becomes less of an equal affair and more dictating terms.
Microsoft's was in the 90s in the os/browser wars.
From the outside, it seems to have reached a tipping point in the past year that is now getting quite dramatic. A whole string of heavy-handed, anti-user, and privacy-hostile decisions. What just happened to the culture that would allow all this evil behavior? Or did we misunderstand it all along?
I think yes. Google has been considered "evil" by the tinfoil hat crowd for quite some time, and once again it has become apparent to the mainstream that they were right.
>Google has been considered "evil" by the tinfoil hat crowd for quite some time, and once again it has become apparent to the mainstream that they were right
it's almost as though the people with money benefit from marginalizing the people cynical enough to understand what they are doing.
You know, I used to think times like this when us conspiracy theorists could say "I told you so" would make people rethink some things, but that has proven to be false. I was ranting about NSA and other unconstitutional abuses before Snowden and was getting called "crazy", and then after Snowden the majority of comments around here became variations of "Well, are you surprised." and "If you have nothing to hide" and "Broken clocks are right twice a day"...
Google, like facebook, was from origins designed to end up this way. It was not some organic complication of motives due to massive growth.
From a mobile perspective, I used to be heavily invested in the Android ecosystem. Now I use an iPhone and and willingly hand over my Apple tax every few years and will continue to do so whilst I can afford it.
Google's direction is a pity really, as Apple needs a strong competitor in the mobile market to maintain innovation momentum.
Isn't Alphabet the clear "parent" of Google... I'm biased, but we are witnessing the beginning of a monopoly that wasn't imaginable pre-internet. Old rich white men are trembling in their shoes... The take-over game but played better, sexier, and immune. My G-ma loves the Google, so easy even the 90 year olds get it
I believe we are witnessing the result of a company offering not just a series of products but a whole lifestyle, and it is too hard for consumers to live without it. Best game plan you could ever imagine... Internet becomes connectivity, offer free search among connectivity, build products that promote connectivity, step 4: profit.
In a recent interaction with the Pixel support personel via the built-in chat, I was unabashedly lied to three times in a row, including direct contradictions of the previous support persons instructions.
When the support person didn't have a handy solution, they just started making up reasons why my issue wasn't supported, going so far as to tell me I was required to purchase non-existent, google-branded hardware in order to accomplish what the previous support person had already walked me through.
Unlock and commnd the google assistant via a bluetooth device. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn't, sometimes it would unlock but then be unable to respond to subsequent commands. Then every few days, the feature would disable itself and stop working entirely (via voice or bluetooth) and have to be set up again.
The first support person showed me how to clear the application cache, and then walked me through the process off testing the bluetooth. I was very impressed. I hadn't actually intended to request support - I was just using the device's help system.
Except - it happens again, two days later, and clearing the cache and setting up the voice assistant every couple of days isn't much of a solution. I didn't expect a fix - mainly wanted them to let them know the solution wasn't working.
The second support person had me walk through the basic diagnostics and then tried to give me reasons why what I was trying to do wasn't possible. First, it wasn't possible at all, then it became impossible to do with all my specific bluetooth devices and finally, it became impossible without using google bluetooth gear. (I misspoke previously - these actually do exist).
Pushy, inexperienced, untrained and unsupported. And very clearly miserable and under the gun.
It was discussed on HN a few days ago: the size of the company is inversely proportional to the quality of their support. After the company reaches a certain size, they can simply afford not to care. Also, in this case it makes more business sense for them. Therefore I prefer to deal with smaller companies.
Apple has absolutely fantastic support, and remain outrageously profitable regardless.
Years back I bought a Nexus and chose an engraving option. I got the phone and it wasn't engraved so I contacted Google mostly to make sure I wasn't going to be shipped multiple phones (after battling the various prevent you from contacting us bosses).
I mean, I bought the phone from them, from their site, with Google branding on it, paying Google, with a warranty theoretically provided by Google, etc. Eventually someone responded giving me the phone number for HTC. No, you contact HTC, Google.
That was the last voluntarily purchased Google device I bought. I did get a couple more Nexus phones for development purposes, but did so begrudgingly. The Pixel line of phones and tablets...not a chance in the world.
Wow, HTC. That must have been a while ago. Was it a Nexus One?
I think the relationship was similar for the LG and Huawei Nexuses, but Google is now the "manufacturer" for the Pixel line, so hopefully things have improved.
You say this, but I've had some great experiences with Microsoft support over the years, both on the hardware and software side. I hear good things about Apple's support too.
Agreed, even with a simple home license I've called Microsoft and been shocked at how competent they are. Pretty weird and complex issues too.
But doesn't Google in particular have a reputation for nonexistent or terrible support? It's not part of their culture, everything is a beta and it's no big deal if it doesn't work right?
An open phone cannot come fast enough. It may well be even buggier at first but if it's like my experience with Linux over the last 17 years it will only get steadily better since the developer's incentives are actually largely aligned with mine.
I must give Microsoft credit too actually. I've spoken with them 3 times over home licensing of windows. Each time they were very quick and thorough in sorting the issue.
In fact, during one of the last big windows 10 updates something failed for me in carrying the license over and they took time to investigate the incident in order to determine how to prevent it again for future updates.
the thing that surprised me was they _cared_ that something was wrong and were _interested_ in fixing to and preventing it happening again. Been a while since I dealt with a company that did that.
Actually, thinking about it I should probably switch to companies that do care about this stuff.
Apple support is spot on. While I'm disappointed by the decline in quality of their products (namely the macbook pro), when I had to return my MBP 2017 a year after I bought it, and 3 months after they replaced the faulty keyboard, they were very supportive and refunded me the full amount. They're also very easy to talk to and treat you with respect unlike Google support (from my experience).
Had an awesome experience with german Amazon support - he was very friendly and helpful, sent an e-mail afterwards where he explained how the problem occured in more detail and got in touch with their tech team, which fixed the problem in few hours and then send me a handwritten e-mail (not automated) apologizing for the problem.
Yeah, I read some posts from a former employee. The ad model was there from day 1 and people can't just act like Page and Brin are brilliant yet failed to see the potential for harm in their business model.
There's a difference between "serve ads next to web search results" and "harvest literally every data point we can befuddle or coerce people into giving up."
> The very fact that Google invented MapReduce, and Microsoft didn’t, says something about why Microsoft is still playing catch up trying to get basic search features to work, while Google has moved on to the next problem: building Skynet^H^H^H^H^H^H the world’s largest massively parallel supercomputer. I don’t think Microsoft completely understands just how far behind they are on that wave.
People were joking about Google ingesting all the data they could to build an AI, 12+ years ago.
Please, nobody who isn't a cryptographer (to be clear: I'm not one either) should be arbitrarily inventing schemes of combining cryptographic primitives and hoping they're secure in production use cases.
We'd often be wrong in such hopes, regardless of how good the underlying primitives are.
We should listen to the experts in that regard, and preferably use higher-level libraries written by the experts when performing common crypto operations. This stuff is easy to get wrong.
Additionally, NaCl/libsodium is actually designed as a misuse-resistant API to perform real-world tasks, unlike GPG, where the API is "call this binary and use its crappy out-of-band signaling mechanism to figure out if anything went wrong".
This is what bugs me most about GnuPG - there's no real API, just an executable program with sometimes unreliable output. I mean, there is the GPGME library which wraps the executable calls in a C API (plus few other language bindings on the side), but it doesn't handle all the features the executable offers, often leaving you with a mix of GPGME API calls and "manual" calls to the gpg executable.
I'd welcome some full-fledged libgpg that would reliably implement gpg the executable's functionality, similar to e.g. libcurl vs. the curl executable.
Everyone would welcome it, but no-one's putting their money behind it. I suspect one of the real reasons that Signal uses a proprietary protocol (or rather, one of the real reasons that Signal was able to attract funding and improvements to GPG have not) is that having a locked-in userbase makes it easier to persuade VCs that there's a potential profit to be had. Whereas improving GPG would benefit everyone, but there's a tragedy of the commons around it.
I'm glad it's a good library. I was responding especially to "Make an arbitrary scheme on top of" whatever underpinnings one might choose, good or bad. That's not something we amateurs should ad lib where security matters.
We will undoubtedly have to integrate and access libraries like NaCl. But we should do so in keeping with best practices recommended by cryptographers (e.g. through NaCl's documentation), not by layering an arbitrary scheme on top.
Every language that catches on in the market builds up "cruft" over time. Popularity has a down-side as features are tacked on to keep up with the e-joneses.
But a bigger problem is that Oracle is hell-bent on finding ways to sue profits out of ANY Java user, per (ongoing) API fiasco. Who wants to risk being a target of lawsuit greed? True, Microsoft could start doing the same with Dot-Net languages and API's, but so far they are (mostly) behaved. I'll side with the sleeping sharks over the circling sharks.
Either it uses the same API interfaces as Oracle's version, in which case it's a lawsuit risk, OR it has different API interfaces, making actual code incompatible with that written for the Oracle version: a de-facto fork.
> For a bad language it sure is taking a long time to die
Greenfield projects are not abundant within any organization, thus developers invest their lives extending the infrastucture. Consequently, older technologies tend to stay, particularly when they are proven and actually perform well.
And adding to that, just because some tech is new it doesn't mean it's any good. History is packed with the dead husks of many latest and greatest technologies that died off.
Sadly, the C64 is also quicker than Apple's iCloud website. Frequently, when I type a new note or a reminder, the lag between my pressing a key and character appearing on the screen is in several seconds. This is on a 4-core machine with 16 GB of RAM that's not doing anything else.
It really does perplex me that the iCloud website is as bad as it is. I'd almost think it was abandoned-ware except that Apple continues to update it. Their whole cloud offering (iTunes store, Apple Music, iCloud) needs a MASSIVE overhaul. Everything should be available via the web and on a modern accessible website.
I'd go as far as to say that they need a new point-person in charge of their Cloud Services because whoever is doing it now is completely out of touch. iTunes in particular is embarrassing, and I personally buy less stuff because I don't want to run it (instead use Vudu, Amazon Digital, etc).
iirc, icloud was written in sproutcore. version 2 of sproutcoure became ember which is now in version 3. there was no upgrade path from sproutcore 1 to ember, so likely its a case of needing a rewrite and that not being prioritized.
