Google Backs Down On Maps Redirect 240
Dupple writes "A few days ago Google blocked access to its maps on Windows Phone 8, claiming that it 'worked best' on WebKit-based browsers — effectively excluding WP8 users. This, despite Google Maps working fine on desktop versions of IE that use the same rendering engine and users being able to spoof the user agent string on their WP8 devices to gain access. Now it appears that Google has backed down and is now allowing WP8 users access."
Don't be evil (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Don't be evil (Score:4, Insightful)
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Google has yet to behave in the same manner Microsoft has for decades.
It is funny how the "Hey Google, stop being evil!" only applies to Google controlling how Microsoft uses its systems. If a Microsoft employee walked onto my property, it is a right to kick them off, not "being evil."
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft never claimed their motto was "Don't be evil". Google did. They are the ones who openly invited that evaluation, they are the ones that should be trying to live up to their own claim.
Re:Don't be evil (Score:4, Interesting)
It was Google's founders who framed the motto, and under their guide Google avoided acts that could be construed as evil. The founders were bought out, and now the "Business Folk" who run post IPO Google use the "Don't be evil" directive as a nice suggestion when its convenient, because profit always comes first, and second, in fact profit fills the top 10 priority space. If you have to kill a few babies to make that black ink flow, then so be it, this is America, right?
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It still applies. Just I think Google
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It still applies. Just I think Google has refined it to be "Don't be evil to our customers". I think Google even said that, pre-IPO even.
Hint:You're most likely not Google's customer.
For those confused as to whether or not you're a customer ask yourself one question "Do I pay Google?" If the answer is no, you're not a customer, you're a product that Google pimps out to the highest bidder.
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Ohhh, I don't know about all that. The DOJ spent - what? - nineteen months and several millions of dollars investigating Google. They couldn't find anything with which to beat Google down. I would guess that Google isn't doing a very good job of being evil. Note that they said "don't be evil", they did not say "let's be fucking saints".
Can Google screw up? Yes.
Has Google screwed up? Yes.
Has Google pissed me off? Yes.
Even so, Google is more good than bad. Microsoft can't say the same. The DOJ was ab
Re:Don't be evil (Score:5, Informative)
If they believed it wouldn't render well, then they're right to block access.
Except why would they believe that it didn't render well unless, you know, it actually didn't render well?
People seem to confuse this practice with something similar practiced by some websites in ancient times before Firefox became popular, when anything but Internet Explorer was blocked.
It looks to me like people are correctly equating the practice with a Microsoft service requiring that the user agent be Internet Explorer even when it works fine on different browsers.
It also looks to me like you are working hard trying to convolute the issue in order to make it seem like Google didn't just do what it did.
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Can we please have one discussion regarding Google without somebody chiming in with the "Don't Be Evil" thing?
no.
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Not evil according to Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
Remember Microsoft telling the world they had no obligation to support a competitor's product?
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I don't know that this is necessarily Evil. Has Google done this kind of thing to anyone else, big or small, or is it just Microsoft?
Microsoft pretty much defines this kind of behavior - embrace, extend, and exclude/extinguish. From where I'm sitting, someone finally has something Microsoft needs, or pretends they need, so Google is basically just giving them a taste of the same medicine they've been feeding the entire industry for 25 years now.
So, Microsoft - what's wrong with Bing Maps? Get over it and mo
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Re:Don't be evil (Score:4, Informative)
use kwin and try to change the level of focus stealing prevention (maybe only with a per window rule)
Re:Don't be evil (Score:4, Insightful)
They were pretty cool before the IPO, after that their morals have been in a slow downward spiral. Although I wouldn't consider this move evil, just petty and immature.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
But they weren't assholes to complain about propietary APIs in use by Microsoft. It's the right complaint to make.
My read on the article is that early versions of the Windows browser sucked and the "best thing to do for the user" was not to dump them into an app. that didn't work well. If that is their actual reason it's completely valid. The more ideal technical solution would be to give the user a choice and a "remember" checkbox and store a cookie for their preference. But the fact that they didn't g
Re:Don't be evil (Score:5, Interesting)
They want to remove the crap API code and the easiest way to start that was denying access when using Internet Explorer.
Except they didn't deny access when using IE. They denied access to anything with "Windows Phone" in its User-Agent string.
And what is the "crap API code" in question? Especially given that, once you spoof the UA string, maps work just fine in IE10 on WP8?
Re:Don't be evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't be evil (Score:4, Informative)
They haven't. There's just not the interest in browser vendors to go there.
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On the contrary, they prohibit all native code written by non-Microsoft developers.
Without a complete rewrite (you know, a completely new and incompatible browser code base which would have to be completely and independently maintained), you won't get another browser on the OS. So while what you say is technically true, it's like saying that Hitler wasn't a bad person because he was a Christian.
Re:Don't be evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft have denied access to anyone, period, writing native code for Windows Phone. It's perfectly possible for any of the major vendors to release a browser(even a pretty decent one) in managed code, but it would involve all of them creating and maintaining a parallel code base which none of them want to do. If you want to port webkit to a managed language supported by windows phone and build a browser around it, nothing I've seen in Microsoft's Terms of Use will stop you(unlike Apple which allowed native code but forbid browsers).
Re:Don't be evil (Score:5, Informative)
They also denied access to my Nokia N9 - definitely not a Windows phone.
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Yeah - Symbian and Bada also seem to be included. It's not just a block for WP. However, one thing that has been shown conclusively is that including "windows phone" in your UA string would result in a guaranteed redirect.
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Wait... they claimed that excluding people from using a service by using proprietry APIs was evil.
Now they claim that excluding people from using a service by using a redirect just because you bought someone else's phone is evil.
I don't see what's hypocritical here... If you exclude people from using a service for shitty reasons, it's evil, simple.
I don't know why /. does not understand Google. (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's because someone else can use google's APIs and bypass google adverts to server their own. Why do you think Apple preferred to release a broken maps application rather than continue to use google's? Because they wanted that ad revenue for themselves, and don't care about their customers. Google did not block browser access, win-phone could still using the service with their browsers, what they couldn't have was alternative win-fied applications.
I see your point on that. (Score:2)
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Why do people just make things up as you've done here?
Using the built in browser, browsing to maps.google.com redirected to just the generic search page. Google was refusing to serve up the webpage to windows phone users. This has nothing to do with APIs accessing google maps. They blocked the phones' browsers entirely.
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Why do people just make things up as you've done here?
Using the built in browser, browsing to maps.google.com redirected to just the generic search page. Google was refusing to serve up the webpage to windows phone users. This has nothing to do with APIs accessing google maps. They blocked the phones' browsers entirely.
To his defense, he just seems to be confusing together two separate recent episodes of Google blocking access to their service for Microsoft platforms.
One was WP8 phones being redirected away from mobile Google maps, just based on browser UA string (if WP8 users faked their UA, the service worked perfectly, so the mobile IE10 browser is fully capable of rendering the code). The other was that Microsoft is not getting the same rich API access to Youtube for WP8 Youtube app as Android and iOS Youtube apps
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Well - Google probably pays attention (Score:3, Informative)
That makes no sense. (Score:2, Insightful)
Android isn't about lockin, it is about lockout (Score:4, Insightful)
Google made android NOT to lock people into Android but to avoid being locked out of iOS and Windows Phone and Symbian and Blackberry. Okay, so the last three ain't a threat anymore (or in one case, ever) but we saw what Apple tried to pull, lock Google Maps out and force people to use Apple Maps. Which was an amazing success story for Apple... well... this time. But next time?
Google developed Chrome to push web browser development because they didn't want to wait for IE or Firefox to get off their lazy ass. Especially IE, they made a capable fast browser designed to deal with any futuristic Google wishes to develop and the rest of the browsers either had to catch up OR be replaced.
Google KNOWS that in order to sell petrol, you need to sell cars. Well okay, that in order to sell inkjet ink, you need to sell printers. Google Maps could never have run well enough to replace Tom Tom on IE6, so Google pushed IE6.
And Google knows that on tightly controlled devices like mobile phones were it used to be the norm that the telecoms decided what was and was not available, they could all to easily be replaced. All of their services. So they rolled their own phone just to make sure they couldn't be completely locked out. Google isn't intrested in selling browsers or mobile phones, it primary interest is making its services so widely available that all who want to use it, can use it and then see the ads, that Google serves and makes it money from.
Google has given everyone a fast car, so we will buy lots of petrol. Given everyone a printer so they can sell lots of ink. Make web services supported by ads capable of replacing dedication payed for applications, so Google can sell ad space rather then software.
In order to operate in the open market space it needs to hang up its ads, it has ended up building most of the market. Quite funny if you think about it, because ANY of the other players could have had Androids market share but none did.
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"but we saw what Apple tried to pull, lock Google Maps out and force people to use Apple Maps. "
Apple didn't "lock Google Maps out". Apple wrote original maps app and used Google's data. The contract ran out, Google submitted it's own app and Apple approved it,
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Google KNOWS that in order to sell petrol, you need to sell cars. Well okay, that in order to sell inkjet ink, you need to sell printers. Google Maps could never have run well enough to replace Tom Tom on IE6, so Google pushed IE6.
I don't buy it. If Google wants to sell petrol, why are they turning away cars?
Simple. They want people to use Google brand cars. If they were as altruistic and worried about vendor lock out like you said, why are they themselves locking other platforms out of their services? And if Apple was so keen on locking them out, why is there a Google Maps app on the store right now? Heck, before that came out, the mobile Google Maps website was still working totally unblocked on my iPhone.
This sounds less like Goog
More destruction of brand (Score:4, Interesting)
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It feels like Google is at that point that they're just changing things for the sake of changing them.
Backs Down? (Score:3, Funny)
Not So Fast... (Score:4, Interesting)
My Lumia 920 with WP8 still redirects maps.google.com to the Google homepage.
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Re:Not So Fast... (Score:5, Funny)
My Lumia 920 with WP8 still redirects maps.google.com to the Google homepage.
Dude... did you install the latest Service Pack which came out yesterday?
And did you reboot your phone after taking off the battery, removing your clothes and loudly proclaiming "I Love Microsoft Products"? Follow the above steps and if your phone still behaves oddly, chances are, the 128-bit registration key has already been registered by the only other user of Windows phones, so call support to get a different key.
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Nokia N9 with its WebKit based browser does the same. Seems to be a two part block, all windows phones and all Nokia phones regardless of rendering engine.
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Yes, I can confirm this as true now.
Whereas I can distintly recall an instance about 2-3 months ago when I accessed maps.google.com, (or was it maps.google.nl but nevermind because both fail now), and maps.google.com worked fine on my Nokia N9 built-in webkit browser, but the interface was un-usable actually. Switching to the built-in Nokia Maps application, (which I previously absently-mindly forgot about), worked wonders at the time when I needed it.
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There have also been reports of some Blackberry devices being redirected, and Samsung's Bada phones, too. It's not clear what the logic behind it all was (it's certainly not just "we only support WebKit", as Google claimed, though - and there are non-WebKit browsers that weren't blocked, like Firefox on Android).
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For some reason, my Debain desktop was doing the same thing last time I tried to get into Google Maps.
What's going on with Slashdot?!?! (Score:3, Informative)
The mobile version of google maps uses touch events not supported by IE10 mobile, it has nothing to do with the rendering engine!
So they will get google maps but not with the best experience.
Re:What's going on with Slashdot?!?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Bullcrap. It certainly works quite well. Certainly no reason whatsoever to redirect.
Video Proof:
http://wmpoweruser.com/video-proves-that-the-google-maps-mobile-web-app-is-perfectly-usable-on-windows-phone/ [wmpoweruser.com]
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Even if it were true, shutting out users with a blind redirect is still a dick move. Couldn't they just put up a notice, similar to what they do to peddle Chrome to the GMail users browsing with Firefox?
I love Android (Score:5, Interesting)
and I'm a huge Google Products fan boy.
That being said, this is stupid, and 'evil' (For their use of 'evil', not "just like the Nazi's" evil).
Intentionally blocking any browser is insane. They have tools already for saying "This version of this browser is known not to work well with this product", without needing to block the product entirely. It's nothing more than Google leveraging its position to block Windows Phone 8 - which is a shitty, cheap thing to do, and something they would have bitched like hell about if MS had done it back when they were the big dog.
It's something I really wouldn't have associated with Google, so clearly I need to re-evaluate my thoughts on them. I didn't see them as a Saint - in fact I viewed all transactions as "I pay for this product with my personally identifiable information so you can sell more ads". But that MO would require them to allow as many people to use their services as possible - not blocking people in some sort of petty attack.
You don't have to be a Windows Phone user to be offended by this.
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It was about (a) not wanting to maintain software on an unpopular platform that is causing lots of problems for developers
We're talking about a web app here, for Christ's sake. When you start talking about "software platforms" in that context, you're doing things wrong. Did you already forget the infamous "this website only works in Internet Explorer - click here to download" that peppered the web in late 90s and early 00s?
We've known for years now that the right way to handle platform capabilities on the web is to do feature detection on a case-by-case basis, and only refuse to run if some feature critical to you is not suppo
When an essential feature is absent (Score:2)
We've known for years now that the right way to handle platform capabilities on the web is to do feature detection on a case-by-case basis
Sure, feature detection is best when it works. But there are some cases where it doesn't solve everything.
JavaScript feature detection performed after the page has already loaded doesn't tell the server how much text will fit above the fold on the user agent's screen. Perhaps you want to send more detail (such as a large photo, a headline, and the first sentence of the article) on large screen browsers and less detail (such as a small photo and a headline) on browsers with much smaller screens. Just sett
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JavaScript feature detection performed after the page has already loaded doesn't tell the server how much text will fit above the fold on the user agent's screen. Perhaps you want to send more detail (such as a large photo, a headline, and the first sentence of the article) on large screen browsers and less detail (such as a small photo and a headline) on browsers with much smaller screens. Just setting the extra information to display: none in the CSS isn't enough, because the carrier still bills the user by the bit for downloading the markup for the elements that end up not displayed.
Use JS to measure the client area and make an Ajax request for the image once you know the size?
There was also a case where different browsers would implement APIs related to scroll and mouse position by returning the position relative to different things (the window, or the top of the document, or something else), and simple present/absent feature detection wasn't enough to distinguish among these differences.
Is it still the case today, or are we talking about browsers that were common circa 2005?
Finally, how should a web application gracefully degrade when feature detection discovers that an essential feature is not present? For example, in an application that uses WebGL, what should the application do if WebGL is not present?
Show an error message and refuse to run. The point is that it should show the message when the browser says that it can't do it, not when browser name is X.
Amount of text, prefixes, and script load fail (Score:2)
and the first sentence of the article
Use JS to measure the client area and make an Ajax request for the image once you know the size?
For one thing, it isn't just images; it's also the amount of text that you want to download and display, and that's part of the markup that the server has to finish sending before the JavaScript has a chance to make additional requests. It's also which web browser's prefixed CSS properties you want to download and use (-moz-this, -o-that, -webkit-this, -ms-that); doesn't adding more CSS after the page loads create a FOUC (flash of unstyled content)? For another, it fails if the script fails to load, whether
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For one thing, it isn't just images; it's also the amount of text that you want to download and display, and that's part of the markup that the server has to finish sending before the JavaScript has a chance to make additional requests.
I don't see how you can reasonably guess that from UA string, in any case - most platforms have several different sizes, and then there are also user preferences such as zoom etc. In any case, for vast majority of pages, it's simply not an issue - text is not so expensive that it's actually worth downloading it lazily. For the rare case where it's not so, you can always start with the most pessimistic assumption - worst case, you preload an extra dozen pages of text before you get a correct measurement.
It's also which web browser's prefixed CSS properties you want to download and use (-moz-this, -o-that, -webkit-this, -ms-that);
The
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Thanks for taking the time to respond - but I have got to question "(a) not wanting to maintain software on an unpopular platform that is causing lots of problems for developers", assuming what's said about the similarities between the Trident v6 for WP8 and for Windows desktop are correct.
I'm fairly sure Windows 7 & 8 users who use IE10 will be deemed popular enough to warrant support(?).
As for "(b) not wanting people to use unsupported Google products because they *will* conclude that Google products
Wow. The articles suck. (Score:4, Interesting)
Assume you are google. You obviously test your services for compatibility on some devices and you figure out that maps is basically unusable for a specific user group, which is less than 3.5 percent of all your users. They give negative feedback since they believe they device froze or something, and are as noisy as 20% percent of the other users. Now you decide to place some sign wich says:"sorry doesnt work right now." I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
There are enough sources of free and paid for electronic maps on mobile devices. Nokia offers maps, some navigation system providers have apps, and osm also exists. Yipp. I tried it. Its very well possible to live without google maps.
The best part is that the writer of the original article demand detailed infromation from google but whenever he talks about his own (seemingly contradicting) experiences, the article contains a lot of "i am virtually sure" phrases and 'it mast have been in that way' logic.
Re:Wow. The articles suck. (Score:4, Insightful)
Assume you are google. You obviously test your services for compatibility on some devices and you figure out that maps is basically unusable for a specific user group, which is less than 3.5 percent of all your users. They give negative feedback since they believe they device froze or something, and are as noisy as 20% percent of the other users. Now you decide to place some sign wich says:"sorry doesnt work right now." I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.
I think so too. Unfortunately, they didn't do that. They just redirect Windows Phone users to www.google.com with no explanation why.
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Couldn't they .......... [justfuckinggoogleit.com]?
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I am no fanboy. On the contrary: I just see google as what it is: a company which wants to earn money.
"Dont be evil" does not mean "Throw out your money to fixe problems for an absolute minority of users immediatly in an expensive way".
I hate the mentality that google has to give away free goodies to everybody *in the way everybody wants* and *immediatly now*.
It mainly means: dont fuck up your customers by locking them in and always tell explain what you do (which sometimes leaves something to be deserved,
flawed reasoning (Score:2)
Google's new motto: Only be a little bit evil. (Score:2, Insightful)
Google's new motto: Only be a little bit evil.
Maybe we are overlooking the real problem. (Score:3)
Google and Microsoft fighting over phone map apps. Apple and Google fighting over the same. The HTML5 video codec patent conflict between Apple-and-Microsoft and everyone else. Maybe the real problem is that we have these tech giants, and they try to do everything in every area vaguely electronic. They aren't trying to just make and sell(/license) the best products any more: They have each created their own self-contained ecosystem, and are doing all they can to make sure that their ecosystem thrives while not in any way encouraging those of their competitors.
Maybe this wouldn't happen if we actually had an operating system company, and a phone company, and a maps company, and a web browser company, and a video technology company, and a company store, and so on. Sure, it would mean more of a headache to get all this tech to play nice together - but we wouldn't end up in these ridiculous situations where your phone refuses to talk to your favorite mapping service because that service is run by a competitors of the company that programmed the phone.
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Maybe this wouldn't happen if we actually had an operating system company, and a phone company, and a maps company, and a web browser company, and a video technology company, and a company store, and so on.
You just described what the PC industry used to be. You know, the one with endless amounts of vendor crapware, mal-ware gallore, and $500 laptops that self-destructed in 6 months. There's no dispute that the overwhelming majority of OEMs have done a terrible job building products out of the endless pile of building blocks available.
Apple came along with their closed ecosystem and made countless billions. Closed ecosystems are what the market wants, because open ecosystems just don't work very well for th
Three words DO NOT TRACK (Score:2)
IE 10 has Do Not Track enabled by default, Google don't want do not track, but simultaneously don't want to look like they're violating it, so they blocked IE 10 on phones, not a shocker.
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That's pretty much what it boils down to.
On one hand there's the chance to let Microsoft swallow some of its own medicine (especially after MS has pissed off web developers for years) and on the other hand there's the data that Google could use to its advantage.
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Can anyone tell me if IE10 on Windows Phone 8 supports location via the browser?
If it can, surely Google win, MS win (by not having their phone blocked by arguably the market leader in consumer digital mapping) and the users of the phones win?
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Actually, yes. The HTML5 Geolocation interface is indeed supported by IE10.
W3C Candidate Recommendation (Score:3)
Its not W3C standard.
It's a candidate recommendation [w3.org], which is a lot more than can be said for any of the IE6-exclusive features.
Re:Perfect Example (Score:5, Informative)
This is a perfect example of why no company should have monopolistic power.
Yeah. Except... there is that little think called Bing Maps, which does more or less what Google Maps does and is even owned by the company who's mobile browser couldn't access Google Maps.
So, no monopoly here.
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Not sure rolfwind is saying Google is a monopoly. Just like Apple, Google is showing anti-competitive behaviour, that demonstrates they would do far worse if they actually did have a monopoly or significant majority.
Not that I'm in any way supporting Microsoft's browser. Those bastards held back web development for a good decade, so a little Schadenfreude is in order.
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I don't get why anti-competitive abuse shouldn't be decried if the company is a non monopoly. Otherwise you end up with a few actors controlling the whole market and raising the bar for entry and colluding to raise prices. For a big example, see the US wireless carrier market.
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Yeah, but what is anti-competitive behavior? If Bob's Diner offers a free order of cheese stix with a purchase of the Meatloaf Special, that's anti-competitive behavior (since they're selling the cheese stix below cost), but I don't think we want to ban that.
The reason a simple law takes 40 pages of legalese is because you want the law to stop people who damage the overall economy, not Bob's Diner. And that's why some anti-competitive behavior is only illegal when a company has monopoly power or is acting
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Not even RIM looks on MS's mobile offerings with jealousy.
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Please stop living in the past.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyclay/2012/12/21/windows-phone-now-third-most-popular-platform-in-u-s/ [forbes.com]
Re:Perfect Example (Score:5, Informative)
In the last 12 weeks, of the number of smartphones sold, 53% were Apple, 41.9% were Android, and 2.7% were Microsoft. This only accounts for the last 12 weeks. I have heard of some consolation prizes being unworthy of their title, but this one takes the cake. And the title totally misleading.
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On the surface, there are *minor* visual similarities. Having used both I'm fairly comfortable saying that RIM didn't draw inspiration from MS here. It actually is an evolution of what they had in their playbook OS - released almost 2 years ago now.
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...and apps on X have been doing it for decades. Still remember xeyes in the mid-90s on my Linux box. Written in 1988...
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Bollocks. I see at least 4 skeumorphic icons in the screenshot here:
http://cdn.slashgear.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Windows-Phone-Summit-2012-slashgear_s-Photos.jpg
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wtf are you talking about? The design of an icon referring to what it does is much different than designing something to be used the way the actual physical THING works.
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Windows hat upwards from 90% of the desktop market.
Google has, what, 50-70%, depending on country/region?
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Windows hat upwards from 90% of the desktop market. Google has, what, 50-70%, depending on country/region?
Depending on whose numbers you use, Google has 70-80% share in US (Comscore being the lowest, with just below 70%, NetApps and other measurement services pegging it higher), 80%-90% WW, and in Europe 90+% (as high as 95+% in many markets). And that is if you are measuring searches, their share is significantly higher on revenue, because they are the only actor in the market with enough critical mass in the ad auction system
Latest US ComScore: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2232359/Google-Takes-67-Se [searchenginewatch.com]
Re:Perfect Example (Score:4, Informative)
You're forgetting that "vendor lockin" thing with the OEM's. "If you want to sell Windows, then you can ONLY sell Windows OS's." Remember that? BECAUSE of that little bit of arm twisting, then no OEM could afford to be locked out of Windows, so they ALL agreed to those terms.
That was a very effective monopoly. Worldwide, Microsoft has owned more than 90% of all desktops for how long now? Definitely a monopoly.
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"If you want to sell Windows, then you can ONLY sell Windows OS's."
That is where Microsoft got itself on the wrong side of the law. Giving away a product others pay for (Web browser / Netscape), isn't the nicest thing to do, but people do that every day. People used to PAY for e-mail before Hotmail and Gmail came along. Now free e-mail is standard except for corporate and people who want real support.
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http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/10/23/13219/110 [kuro5hin.org]
You must get educated before you are capable of judging how evil either company might be.
And, don't miss the AARD code, either:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/11/05/how_ms_played_the_incompatibility/ [theregister.co.uk]
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They are not a search monopoly because there are dozens of other search providers (bing, ask, yahoo, duckduckgo, yandex. aol) and you can switch to any of them at a moments notice, its just that the rest a rubbish.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If your argument was valid, then Microsoft's lock-in of the desktop market at 90%+ was irrelevant as anyone could switch to Linux or Mac at the drop of a hat. That obviously wasn't happening as there are more factors in play than just having other options available.
The simple fact is, that the Windows phone browser worked just fine, and used the same engine as the desktop, which was not blocked. When you spoofed the user agent header, it also worked fine on the Windows Phone.
I suspect Google saw that they w
Re:Perfect Example (Score:4, Insightful)
You do realize it's not a matter of just using another search engine. If the market dominant search engine is also one of the best, switching to something that is sub-optimal isn't going to be a good choice for many. You are suggesting it's just a matter of picking another. There's a reason Google is the #1 search engine, and highly desirable for both end users and for businesses to be listed there.
You are ignoring that facet.
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If google is the best search then why would you want to switch to a different one?
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If the market dominant search engine is also one of the best, switching to something that is sub-optimal isn't going to be a good choice for many.
I suppose they should've thought of that before buying a Windows device then, hmm?
You know, Microsoft, the company which has been doing this with every single product they've made, ever.
(Apple has become very good about mimicking Microsoft in this regard in recent years, I might add.)
Re: (Score:2)
There ought to be a meeting between big browser makers to come up with a standard version of HTML that fixes this platform-specific web app mess. Maybe one of Google's employees can author it.
Re:Don't wory (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, as a Opera user I can use pretty much any website that works with Firefox or Chrome. As long as the designer of that page didn't artificially exclude Opera or I mask my browser as Firefox or IE.
The problem is not Opera but bullshit web designers.
Google offered Native Client to Mozilla (Score:2)
Google will soon be announcing Chrome's support for ActiveG plugins. This will make excluding Safari, Firefox and Internet Explorer even easier.
Google offered Native Client to Mozilla; Mozilla didn't want it [mozilla.org].
Re:Google's possible complaint... (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually when it comes to navigation, WP uses nokia maps as base. Those are ahead of google map by a very big margin in terms of accuracy, as they use NavTeq mapping data.
NavTeq collects mapping data from paid local agents and organisations, and has been doing so before Google came to existence.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
I don't know why people perpetuate this myth, there's actually nothing particularly good about NavTeq mapping data, I've found it to be quite bad, and much slower to update that Google maps.
As for local agents, well, with Google's ground truth project they've been getting more accurate depictions of more countries than absolutely anyone for a little while now. They've been mapping places NavTeq had never even been.
Further to this, Google is way ahead of Nokia in terms of gathering data from their street vie
Re: (Score:2)
That's why it would be better if more people / companies would get behind open street maps and create a definitive map data set that everyone can use.
Re: (Score:3)
Microsoft was already evil. Blocking Google from IE would have just been one more evil act floating in a sea of evil.
More like pissing away users (Score:2)
They just gave the stray users who've been using Google Maps on Windows Phone another reason to switch to Here Maps [here.com].
Re: (Score:2)