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

31–40 of 160 posts

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

#31

Post by sdelmont »

magicalist wrote: post #17
wildmXranat wrote: post #8

And about the price, what are the bills like now ?

I'd really like to know that too. It can't be too cheap to serve that many views reliably and quickly. OTOH, they are just NYC and they were already doing some things (like geocoding) themselves, while the google maps price included features they would never use (even implicitly, eg the cost of acquiring street data in other countries has to be figured into google's cost structure).

we expect it will be under $1,000 per month... depending on traffic, since it's mostly connected to bandwidth serving the tiles.

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

#32

Post by FireBeyond »

Xuzz wrote: post #23
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…

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.)

Does anyone actually use Tumblr for original content, or for that matter, text? 99% or more of the Tumblrs I've seen are just people recirculating other Tumblr photos.

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

#33

Post by chc »

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…

Let me get this straight: You think it's more reasonable for Apple to have to build in special support so requests for webpages on plus.google.com go to the G+ app instead of Safari than for Google to just make their site work on mobile platforms like everybody else on the planet?

You are, as the kids say, straight trippin'.

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

#34

Post by meepmorp »

forgotusername wrote: post #14
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.

Protip: hovering over the link will display the full URL in the status bar. You should really spend more than a few milliseconds before deciding to get excited about something. The Public Suffix List (publicsuffix.org) might be useful for this, although I doubt plus.google.com is listed in there (no same-origin security considerations). It's still the only systematic approach I know of that even remotely addresses th…

> Protip: hovering over the link will display the full URL in the status bar. You should really spend more than a few milliseconds before deciding to get excited about something.

You're assuming he's using a device with a mouse. And why not add a simple feature that makes usability better on all platforms? Special case google plus here, just because this is such a common complaint. I've wanted it for a while, too.

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

#35

Post by ubercore »

zackola wrote: post #28
jcampbell1 wrote: post #16

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

Rest assured that we will be adding the subway stops and various other awesome related data sets shortly.

Not to sound like a downer, because I really appreciate open source mapping, but that's the part where I think the costs, long term, will swing back.

Google maps is deceptively simple, in that the javascript library and tiling is a relatively solved problem. Google has the best datasets, and the best large-data know-how in the business, so outsourcing things like an up-to-date transit location and route database is built into that seemingly large cost.

What if you want to offer transit directions from your location to a rental?

Again, sorry if this sounds like I'm poo-poo'ing your effort; that's not my intention. I think there's another side to this story, though.

EDIT: Forgot to mention my own personal white whale. Google's geocoder is far from perfect, but it's the best I've seen. I worked for years with them, and none of the open source geocoders (or expensive ESRI products) could deal with addresses like Google's. Geocoding is like web WYSIWYG editors; they all suck, but some suck less than others. And everyone thinks they can do it better.

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

#36

Post by omfg »

recoiledsnake wrote: post #3

Charging is good since it keeps the product around, but Google's prices seem ramp up suddenly from free to way too high suddenly. First Appspot and now this, looks like their pricing is too out of line for small to medium companies. They need a flatter pricing curve.

I don't think they really care. In the current landscape, Google Maps is a competitive advantage for them and the less people using it the better. They leverage it across the Android ecosystem, their new social network, etc.. and it creates more work for their competitors to play catch up.

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

#37

Post by jlarocco »

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…

Oh come on. It's a textual web page. There's no good excuse why it shouldn't be reasonably usable in any web browser made in the last 10 years.

"It's your fault for not using the Google Plus App to view the page" is tantamount to saying, "It's your fault for not using IE6 to view the page."

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

#38

Post by nerdo »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #25
eridius wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Isn't this the plot of Brave New World?

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

#39

Post by jQueryIsAwesome »

ubercore wrote: post #35
zackola wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rest assured that we will be adding the subway stops and various other awesome related data sets shortly.

Not to sound like a downer, because I really appreciate open source mapping, but that's the part where I think the costs, long term, will swing back. Google maps is deceptively simple, in that the javascript library and tiling is a relatively solved problem. Google has the best datasets, and the best large-data know-how in the business, so outsourcing things like an up-to-date transit location and route database is b…

They should merge efforts with other companies who also need alternatives to Google Map and create their own always-updated map navigator.

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

#40

Post by soc88 »

ubercore wrote: post #35
zackola wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rest assured that we will be adding the subway stops and various other awesome related data sets shortly.

Not to sound like a downer, because I really appreciate open source mapping, but that's the part where I think the costs, long term, will swing back. Google maps is deceptively simple, in that the javascript library and tiling is a relatively solved problem. Google has the best datasets, and the best large-data know-how in the business, so outsourcing things like an up-to-date transit location and route database is b…

I wonder in which part of the world you are living. OSM has in most parts of the world outpaced even the best, commercial map providers...
Post reply on HN