251–260 of 369 posts
The company is ran and managed by lunatics, and you don't want anything made by a lunatic running inside your computer.
once upon a time google was unable to create a (1) chat app now they follow the same playbook for gemini/gemini cli/antigravity/ antigravity cli/ai studio/ the new ai studio/gemini app/firebase ai did i forget anything? probably i build my career on the google eco system, i cant wait for this kingdom to fall
It could be 15 years before Google's AI strategy fully stabilizes, but there is precedent.
Google made its lack of interest in Antigravity IDE obvious from very early. Updates were few and far between and app-breaking bugs stuck around, despite tons of reports. Google's lack of focus is astounding. They sprinkle random products here and there and seem to then tepidly pick the product surface that is doing least bad and then tepidly focus on that. Compare that to every other AI lab, large and small that kno…
I really appreciate and acknowledge Google's innovations since their inception.
However I am also puzzled and stunned by their bogus product decisions. As far as I can say, and this is my personal opinion, Google has a lack of what I call portfolio management. Really. At the highest level there is no clear decision about product development as well as marketing.
Or, in other words: There is an overarching strategy, but under this there are many principalities that autonomously decide about their product portfolio.
This is by design. These principalities work independently of each other. They have partly conflicting products, no real corporate design so every product looks totally different, from old school and minimalistic Google Search look till AI and crypto bro inspired designs.
I don't want to go into details, but I was stunned the last time I got told by a high ranking Google exec, that they now do portfolio management and also consolidate the icons of the mobile apps, which means that they share the same look and feel and color scheme.
This gave us the red, blue, white buttons roughly 1-2 years ago, which didn't make any sense if you consider the individual app icon tied to its app, which partly didn't allow for the meaning of the app behind it.
That's why suddenly to us users a product gets killed, because of budget constraints or local decision making processes. An exec is running an experiment, so to say.
Paradoxically it isn't necessarily about earning money with these products, since Google is still extremely profitable which allows for all these "expensive" experiments.
My take is, that the exec responsible for the product doesn't hit the boss's KPIs with the new product, which of course aren't disclosed to the public, but amount to partly a very significantly high incentive aka pay check. We talk about millions, not a couple of bucks. Incentive works. Extremely well.
So yes, there is only Google, but if you consider the mental model of having several independently operating business units working together like independent companies in a holding and the holding usually doesn't care about your product as long as some boundaries aren't crossed and it hits the target KPIs, Google is fine with all its products.
I talked to many folks about this, and why are they not joining forces or aligning certain products to improve these significantly - it won't fly.
A senior developer from one of the US top banks once told me: "Why align or reuse code? We earn so much money, there is no need to minimize costs or even think about it, because that would only be waste of time. Instead we create product after product."
Don't judge different companies by the sorry state we are used to. ;)
Every time I update my JetBrains IDEs, they obliterate my lovely, tool packed UI and replace it with what looks like a minimalistic iPad app. I have to reenable a “Classic UI” plugin to fix it. This is annoying enough, but if they did something like the OP’s experience they’d lose a paying customer of 14 years overnight. IDEs aren’t social media apps- they’re tools. Familiarity is not just important, it is VITAL.
Designers gotta eat
Its extremely funny seeing developers jumping on the AI train rediscovering in real-time why open source was invented. Not having control over the software running on your PC/devices, and being beholden to big business interests, is literally the reason why the entire FOSS scene exists. Developers have learnt the very VERY hard way to not rely on proprietary tooling I don't know anyone who looked at antigravity and t…
I was surprised to see that the new Antigravity does not integrate at all into Google's existing Material design system. Is the implication that Material is not for power users or developers? It's built as a universal solution. https://antigravity.google/assets/image/blog/agy2-layout.jpg
We don't know if this is Material 4.0, just Google's proprietary design, or really anything.
Reminds me of the "dead dove do not eat" scene from arrested development. The surprising thing is not that Google is doing this, but that people are surprised by it.
I was surprised to see that the new Antigravity does not integrate at all into Google's existing Material design system. Is the implication that Material is not for power users or developers? It's built as a universal solution. https://antigravity.google/assets/image/blog/agy2-layout.jpg
Google is talking up a new "Neural AI" design language that seems to just be for their in-house Gemini-related apps. Possibly what the new Antigrav is using? We don't know if this is Material 4.0, just Google's proprietary design, or really anything.
https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/products/gemini-app/ne...
A bit off-topic, but I (as a non-native reader) find the "anti" in the name off-putting. Has it a special meaning beyond the (meta)physics or is Google just bad with naming?