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

71–80 of 160 posts

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

#71

Post by jasonkester »

brudgers wrote: post #61
chc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

Reasonable or not, that is the expectation Apple has encouraged iPhone users to hold - every website should have its own app in a way reminiscent of AOL keywords.

Expectation for who? It has never occurred to me to install an app to view a single website. Maybe this is something you do, and therefore think that other people also do.

But you're mistaken. I browse the web using a web browser. Even on my iPhone.

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

#72

Post by meepmorp »

forgotusername wrote: post #66
meepmorp wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

You can also trigger the status bar prompt via the tab key, link search, and probably assistive technologies have their own approach. I'm amazed that offering up a potential general solution that already exists, or suggesting someone measures their response before jumping at headlines, would result in downvotes here.

> I'm amazed that offering up a potential general solution that already exists, or suggesting someone measures their response before jumping at headlines, would result in downvotes here.

I think it's tone and missing the point. Starting a response with protip is a bit condescending, and the point isn't actually about not being able to use the UI to get the desired information, but about how the usability would be improved (for some users at least) by changing how information is presented.

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

#73

Post by redthrowaway »

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.

Why not just tap "reader"? This post is perfectly pleasant to read on my 3gs in reader mode.

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

#74

Post by JohnnyBrown »

chc wrote: post #33
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…

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'.

I've never developed for iOS, but on my iPhone when I go to okcupid.com it somehow 'redirects' to the okcupid app on my phone. So it seems there is some capability for this built in that website developers can take advantage of.

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

#75

Post by tmcw »

terinjokes wrote: post #5

Moving the map around causes it to go black here in Chrome 18. But other than that (with might be Chrome's fought), I think the maps look pretty nice.

Sounds like you're on the current nightly. The bug was introduced this morning by Chrome, and affects a large class of webkit-transform CSS. Like other Chrome bugs, I expect it to soon be replaced by a new bug.

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

#76

Post by smackfu »

chc wrote: post #33
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…

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'.

Mobile Safari does support apps registering custom URL handlers, so google could rewrite the links as gplus:// and they could open in the G+ app. Unfortunately I don't think this behaves nicely if you don't have the content handling app installed since it just errors.

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

#77

Post by chc »

JohnnyBrown wrote: post #74
chc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

I've never developed for iOS, but on my iPhone when I go to okcupid.com it somehow 'redirects' to the okcupid app on my phone. So it seems there is some capability for this built in that website developers can take advantage of.

There is: Apps can register to handle certain URL schemes, so all you need to do is put in a redirect to (for example) "okcupid://profile/109" and, since Safari doesn't handle URLs with the okcupid scheme, the OKCupid app will be asked to open the URL instead. But again, this would require the plus.google.com team to actually implement it.

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

#78

Post by damncabbage »

JohnnyBrown wrote: post #74
chc wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

I've never developed for iOS, but on my iPhone when I go to okcupid.com it somehow 'redirects' to the okcupid app on my phone. So it seems there is some capability for this built in that website developers can take advantage of.

iOS apps can register foobar:// hooks. If a site redirects to a URI with a custom protocol, it'll wake up the app that's tied to it.

(I'm not sure how they're detecting whether that hook is registered or not, though.)

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

#79

Post by Drbble »

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.

Maybe Google needs some A-level product managers.

Anyway, building a G+ app doesn't exactly require an extra 30 points of IQ and 5 years of school than making a web page display readable.

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

#80

Post by shazow »

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.

Could you post or email me a screenshot of this? I don't have my iPhone handy to reproduce it but I'll point the right people to this if I can explain it well enough. My handle at google.com.
Post reply on HN