Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Good bye, Google Maps… thanks for all the fish

plus.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 160 posts

Re: Good bye, Google Maps… thanks for all the fish

#21

Post by terinjokes »

jcampbell1 wrote: post #16

The maps do not show subway stop locations. That is not good when you are a NYC real estate company.

But they mention that in the text. Sure it's not something that happens now, but since now they generate the maps, they can add them or anything else they want to add to the maps.

Re: Good bye, Google Maps… thanks for all the fish

#23

Post by Xuzz »

cryptoz wrote: post #11
dpcan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also not on the topic of the article, but... I wish people would stop blogging on Google plus. Period. It's the worst reading experience ever on the iPhone - nearly impossible as the text blurs, and you have to drag the article around to see it all and then wait for the blur to go away.

Does the iPhone not open Google Plus posts in the Google Plus app? Or do you not have it installed? The reason your experience is awful is because Google doesn't care to make the G+ mobile web experience perfect since their app is the way to go. On Android, when I click one of these links it opens the app and the reading experience is very pleasant. Maybe I've just been spoiled, but I find the experience to be pretty…

Should you need a third party app installed for a good reading experience? I don't use Google+ and don't want the app on iOS, even if it was launched when I click a Google+ link (which, fwiw, you are correct: it currently does not).

(On the other hand, Tumblr looks great on mobile, and it doesn't need an app. Facebook, too, is at least readable on their mobile site.)

Re: Good bye, Google Maps… thanks for all the fish

#24

Post by eridius »

cryptoz wrote: post #11
dpcan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also not on the topic of the article, but... I wish people would stop blogging on Google plus. Period. It's the worst reading experience ever on the iPhone - nearly impossible as the text blurs, and you have to drag the article around to see it all and then wait for the blur to go away.

Does the iPhone not open Google Plus posts in the Google Plus app? Or do you not have it installed? The reason your experience is awful is because Google doesn't care to make the G+ mobile web experience perfect since their app is the way to go. On Android, when I click one of these links it opens the app and the reading experience is very pleasant. Maybe I've just been spoiled, but I find the experience to be pretty…

> I think the problem lies much more with you and your phone than it does with Google Plus as a writing platform.

The problem definitely lies with Google Plus as a web app. Whatever they're doing, it's just not a very good experience on a mobile device. Maybe on Android they redirect Google+ pages to their native app, but they don't even offer a way to do that for other platforms even if you have the native app installed (even a simple link on the page that opens it in the native app would be fine). It seems obvious that they're actively trying to promote their own platform over all other reading experiences, which is a radical departure from the ideals of the web that Google has historically cared about.

Re: Good bye, Google Maps… thanks for all the fish

#25

Post by MatthewPhillips »

eridius wrote: post #24
cryptoz wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does the iPhone not open Google Plus posts in the Google Plus app? Or do you not have it installed? The reason your experience is awful is because Google doesn't care to make the G+ mobile web experience perfect since their app is the way to go. On Android, when I click one of these links it opens the app and the reading experience is very pleasant. Maybe I've just been spoiled, but I find the experience to be pretty…

> I think the problem lies much more with you and your phone than it does with Google Plus as a writing platform. The problem definitely lies with Google Plus as a web app. Whatever they're doing, it's just not a very good experience on a mobile device. Maybe on Android they redirect Google+ pages to their native app, but they don't even offer a way to do that for other platforms even if you have the native app insta…

I don't think a conspiracy is obvious at all. I think this is just a common Google problem; when you hire A+ level talent they don't want to spend their time adjusting css for every platform. That's not an interesting problem to them; self-driving cars is interesting.

This is why I think every company should hire B and even a few C+ level talent. Someone has to do the boring details.

Re: Good bye, Google Maps… thanks for all the fish

#26

Post by PhrosTT »

dpcan wrote: post #10
kooshball wrote: post #7

I really wish there is a way to show more than just the domain name next to the title. >Good bye, Google Maps… thanks for all the fish (google.com) is simply misleading.

Also not on the topic of the article, but... I wish people would stop blogging on Google plus. Period. It's the worst reading experience ever on the iPhone - nearly impossible as the text blurs, and you have to drag the article around to see it all and then wait for the blur to go away.

I've repeatedly considered building a HN Google+ scraper that grabs the text from Google Plus stuff and throws it onto a more readable cache that won't be blocked by work filters as social networking.

However I'm a little worried about stealing what may be Google's content.

Re: Good bye, Google Maps… thanks for all the fish

#27

Post by Roboprog »

The take away I got is that Google maps is a very good way to implement a map tile on your pages if you are a startup, one less thing to worry about, but if you succeed, be prepared to "optimize" the cost of that portion later. The per-unit cost is a steep slope, once you start to get volume.

Fair enough. No way would I try to make my own map at the beginning of a project.

Re: Good bye, Google Maps… thanks for all the fish

#30

Post by mikecx »

Another option, though still expensive, is to use the Google Earth Enterprise tools. They basically let you build your own private Google Maps though this too runs into some problems.

1.) Imagery, 2.) Cost for GEE ($10k I think), and the cost of maintaining your own servers to host it on.

I think it's still cheaper than going over the 20,000 free, but not optimal either.

Post reply on HN