Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment • Hacker News Board

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#171

Post by sneak » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 11:36 PM UTC

spookthesunset wrote: post #95

OnlineGladiator wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Apple Watch came out under Cook. That is more than an “accessory.” It’s a new platform, new OS variant, etc. It’s dominating smart watches. The Apple Watch is literally designed to be an accessory to the iPhone - you can't use most of its features without an iPhone. I wanted one for my Android phone but tough shit for me. If you like it as a product that's fine, but it is absolutely an accessory to an iPhone be…

iPhones were originally an accessory to iTunes. What you complain about is all software. Software is changeable.

Not on these devices, it isn’t. Without Apple’s signing keys, they run whatever Apple gives you, until they are EOL’d and then they run nothing else, ever.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#172

Post by sneak » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 11:40 PM UTC

enitihas wrote: post #58

abalone wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> innovation has slowed to a crawl This is so typical of Apple criticism. They did do well with the iPhone and Mac that now any new innovations seem boring in comparison. It’s wrong. The Apple Watch came out under Cook. That is more than an “accessory.” It’s a new platform, new OS variant, etc. It’s dominating smart watches. The AirPods are pretty innovative in terms of the fine grained details that have made them su…

Correct. People think that stuff like iPhone can just be created, if there is enough will and innovation. The iPhone is the most successful consumer electronics product of all time, and might also be the most profitable product on an yearly average basis. Failure to recreate that is not bad. Expecting any company to keep churning out things like the iPhone would be too harsh.

Apple is Apple because every ten years or so they take an existing product category and make it worlds better than anyone has ever before. They’ve done this with workstations (iMac), laptops (iBook then PowerBook then unibody/retina), they’ve done this with phones, and they’ve done this with in-ear headphones.

They almost did it with wireless speakers (the HomePod is an absolute engineering marvel, entirely unparalleled as a speaker), but they left out bluetooth in a platform play for AirPlay on their own phones/tablets, and it basically flopped. It would have been an airpods-level success if it were a record player that could play everybody’s records.

People keep talking about how they might do it with cars, or televisions, or glasses, or whatever. But so far, as yet, that has failed to materialize.

Edit: I left out the watch, despite it being the best selling watch. It isn’t as better than a normal watch as an iPhone was better than a blackberry; it is merely sufficient: great, but certainly not insanely so. If it could support Google Assistant instead of Siri, and had better bluetooth device support, and didn’t require an iphone, it might be. But the watch presently really just falls short of the Apple level expectation for a product. To be fair, that level is literally “insane”.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#173

Post by zepto » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 11:40 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #171

spookthesunset wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhones were originally an accessory to iTunes. What you complain about is all software. Software is changeable.

Not on these devices, it isn’t. Without Apple’s signing keys, they run whatever Apple gives you, until they are EOL’d and then they run nothing else, ever.

Yes but that’s irrelevant to the point.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#174

Post by zepto » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 11:44 PM UTC

lioeters wrote: post #62

abalone wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> innovation has slowed to a crawl This is so typical of Apple criticism. They did do well with the iPhone and Mac that now any new innovations seem boring in comparison. It’s wrong. The Apple Watch came out under Cook. That is more than an “accessory.” It’s a new platform, new OS variant, etc. It’s dominating smart watches. The AirPods are pretty innovative in terms of the fine grained details that have made them su…

From a long-term user's perspective, that Apple magic is fading quickly to reveal the banality underneath. Same with Google. The elves have left Middle Earth.

That’s nothing to do with Apple. That’s just because you are now used to the technology and not so awed by it.

But that feeling is irrelevant to whether or not they are innovating or not.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#175

Post by zepto » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 11:44 PM UTC

wh1t3n01s3 wrote: post #46

abalone wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> innovation has slowed to a crawl This is so typical of Apple criticism. They did do well with the iPhone and Mac that now any new innovations seem boring in comparison. It’s wrong. The Apple Watch came out under Cook. That is more than an “accessory.” It’s a new platform, new OS variant, etc. It’s dominating smart watches. The AirPods are pretty innovative in terms of the fine grained details that have made them su…

All these products were previously imaginedand started by SJ. Cook is a marketer not a visionary or inventor of any sort.

No. The Apple Watch was started under Cook.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#176

Post by sneak » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 11:47 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #173

sneak wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not on these devices, it isn’t. Without Apple’s signing keys, they run whatever Apple gives you, until they are EOL’d and then they run nothing else, ever.

Yes but that’s irrelevant to the point.

I thought the point was that “the issues you are complaining about are just software, and software can be changed/updated”.

If Apple doesn’t make sufficient changes and upgrades, nobody else can - and the device is back to being an appliance that has the functionality that it has right now and nothing further, and it’s not “just a software upgrade away”.

There’s still no way to get the time display off of the face of my Apple Watch. You can customize everything except turning off the clock.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#177

Post by sowbug » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 11:47 PM UTC

colejohnson66 wrote: post #83

sowbug wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As topkai22 said, it's to make the author's comparison easy to understand. But this is a chance to mention that ~50 years ago the UK abandoned its old "billion" terminology, which used to be equivalent to a trillion elsewhere (10^12), and adopted the global definition of "billion" as 10^9. I think they called 10^9 a milliard, but I've never seen it in use. For a long time after the change, you'd see English written f…

Fun fact about long scale billion (short scale trillion): it stands for bi-million because it’s a million millions. Trillion is the same with a tri-million being a million billions.

That's cool to know. Vaguely related: I've been studying a little bit of Mandarin recently and have had trouble with their system of describing larger numbers that doesn't follow the Western groups-of-three system. For example, 万 means ten thousand, but it's actually "one of a thing described by a word representing 10^4," and you wouldn't say 十千 which literally translates to "ten of a thing described by a word representing 10^3." It's surprisingly hard to regurgitate the right labels when your brain is used to thinking in terms of 10^3, 10^6, 10^9, etc. They're all different, internally consistent systems, and as far as I can tell nothing makes one better than the rest -- except for one's own familiarity with it.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#178

Post by wlesieutre » Sat, Dec 07, 2019, 11:59 PM UTC

berberous wrote: post #123

rstupek wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now it requires an iphone. They've been slowly reducing the need to have one until pretty soon, maybe v5, won't require one

It’s at S5 already, which is actually v6 since there’s an S0. So maybe v7.

Sorta, since the S1 released alongside the S2 as a revised low end model.

Versioning wise it feels more like following up the v1 with v2 and a 1.1 revision.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#179

Post by skinnymuch » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 12:04 AM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #164

skinnymuch wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope no source. I’ve tried looking as well. I assume since it costs so much in infrastructure that Google lends for free to YouTube, and that they have never been able to announce nice numbers for YouTube, ever, that it likely doesn’t make a profit or break even. Especially after accounting for all the freebies Google provides YouTube.

I guess I just have a time believing it's in the red, considering the sheer quantity of advertising they show and the fact that video hosting itself isn't all that expensive (relative to the cost of showing an ad), and even cheaper given how cost-efficient Google's datacenters are. But also, given YouTube's astronomical growth over the past 15 years, I can also see it operating similar to Amazon -- not technically ma…

Yes I guess I was thinking if Youtube isn’t a part of Google officially as a company in a proposed split, they’d have to actually pay for the Google datacenter costs. Similar to how eBay left PayPal once they split. It wasn’t worth PayPal’s prices.

So I was assuming all this with the hypothetical inclusion of the actual cost of YouTube.

I agree with the Google servers and bandwidth being essentially free, YouTube likely breaks even at least.

Re: Google management shuffle points to retreat from Alphabet experiment

#180

Post by lioeters » Sun, Dec 08, 2019, 12:28 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #66

lioeters wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a long-term user's perspective, that Apple magic is fading quickly to reveal the banality underneath. Same with Google. The elves have left Middle Earth.

The Apple Watch is much more impressive technically than the iPad. The iPad was easy once you had the iPhone and once it was introduced, was easily copied hardware wise. The amount of technology in the Apple Watch still hasn’t been duplicated in the same small form factor.

I'm sure that's true, that they are continuing to innovate.

I'm not familiar with the Apple Watch (nor the iPhone much to be honest). I'm kind of an old-timer that fondly remembers the Apple II and the early Macintosh.

Should have added an emphasis that, _for me_, I feel that their magic is fading. Same with Google, in their early years I was amazed - now, not so much. I guess miracles don't happen so often, and I should respect their continued growth and renewal. (And there are still elves working there.)