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Google is getting better at what Apple does best faster than Apple

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Re: Google is getting better at what Apple does best faster than Apple

#31

Post by ishansharma »

taligent wrote: post #16
pinaceae wrote: post #4

the big question is though, can Google also be awesome in Services going forward? i am loyal user of chrome, gmail, search, youtube, maps, picasa - in this order. none of which is younger than what, 5 years? innovation in those items? gmail got a new UI, but else? where are the BETA products? used to be the awesomeness of Google. ever since Page took over, they've been killing the small, useful things. ok, they want…

Don't forget that they acquired YouTube, Maps, Picasa, Android and Chrome is a wrapper around WebKit.

But they did good job with them. YouTube, Maps and Android are on top in terms of market share and Chrome is on its way.

However, I feel that there is a big problem with Google: Customer Care.

Re: Google is getting better at what Apple does best faster than Apple

#32

Post by onemorepassword »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #5

From the original quote [1], what Apple does is "design" while what Google does is "web services". Design is more fragmented than web services and thus easier to break into. If Google + design -> Cupertino while Apple has only to master "web services" the war has already been won. Given how premature that seems, I'd say the core competences identified and thus the analogy as a whole appear to be stacked. [1] http://p…

If design is so much easier, then why have all hardware manufacturers failed so miserably to match Apple over the past two decades?

Anything from phones, mp3 players, monitors, tablets, laptops etcetera, they all look cheap, plastic and designed without love and attention to detail. And yes, that includes Google's Nexus range, which aren't ugly but won't win any awards either. It should be possible, look at B&O or Loewe in TV and audio for instance, albeit that they sell at a premium way higher then Apple's. And by the look of it, it's not others they haven't been trying to imitate Apple (hence the lawsuits).

As far as I can tell, getting design right is very, very hard, and takes a broad commitment to excellence most companies are lacking.

And if one company has very conspicuously ignored design and the basic notion of delighting their users with products that aren't just functionally great but make people fall in love with them, it has been Google.

The design of the latest Chromebook is a huge leap, surpassing manufacturers that have attempted to match Apple for years, and comes completely out of left field from a company has so far shown little sign if even having any feeling for design.

Re: Google is getting better at what Apple does best faster than Apple

#33

Post by 7952 »

Apple sell hardware and Google sell ads, everything else is just semantics. They may be competitive in certain areas but they are making money in completely divergent ways. Companies like Google and Amazon are able to use the Chinese electronics contractors to get products to market without the huge amounts on R&D that Apple had to invest. That is only a threat to Apple if they are unable to make innovative new hardware that can't be replicated quickly.

Re: Google is getting better at what Apple does best faster than Apple

#34

Post by rethaw »

patrickaljord wrote: post #10
taligent wrote: post #6

The premise is pretty stupid. Firstly Apple does do services. They run the world's biggest media store, the world's biggest syncing platform and a semi popular email service. Sure they aren't perfect but they can be considered successes for the most part. And the point about hardware is completely misguided. Apple's true strength has never been their ability to build a well designed machine. It is the fact that they…

So Google just released a laptop that is actually better than an MBA and you think Apple shouldn't take Google seriously? Good thing you're not running Apple.

>actually better than an MBA

Okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. The Chromebook does have a nice screen, but...

- The Chromebook is almost half a pound heavier that the Air.

- It only has USB 2.0, not 3.0 like the Air.

- It has just a 32GB SSD, the Air has 128GB/256GB/512GB.

- It has just 5 hours of battery, compared to 7 hours with the Air.

- It only has Bluetooth 3.0, not 4.0 like the Air.

- It still starts at $100 more expensive that the Air.

Re: Google is getting better at what Apple does best faster than Apple

#35

Post by taligent »

graetzer wrote: post #27
taligent wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget that they acquired YouTube, Maps, Picasa, Android and Chrome is a wrapper around WebKit.

Chrome is not just a wrapper. WebKit requires you to implement networking, graphics rendering, font rendering etc. There are huge differences between the different WebKit based browsers

Sure but you can just defer to the OS for the bulk of those services e.g. CoreGraphics, DirectWrite etc.

Re: Google is getting better at what Apple does best faster than Apple

#36

Post by OGinparadise »

pinaceae wrote: post #4

the big question is though, can Google also be awesome in Services going forward? i am loyal user of chrome, gmail, search, youtube, maps, picasa - in this order. none of which is younger than what, 5 years? innovation in those items? gmail got a new UI, but else? where are the BETA products? used to be the awesomeness of Google. ever since Page took over, they've been killing the small, useful things. ok, they want…

Google doesn't need to innovate, they can do a so-so clone, post it on top of search and 1 billion people will see it a month. And boy do they see it, over and over and over again. Now even Chrome has ads, in addition to the suite of Google services.

Re: Google is getting better at what Apple does best faster than Apple

#37

Post by jacquesm »

ishansharma wrote: post #25

Google is definitely getting better. Their search infrastructure gives them a huge advantage over Apple. I have used Google Now on my friend's Android and it is much better than Siri. I remember someone linking to a video of Google Now (maybe it was Gruber)and commenting, "How fast should Siri be? - This fast!" Google can put a voice over their search interface and boom, they have a Siri alternative that works on any…

> Just imagine asking your Chromebook to create a new appointment, that would be a nice feature. Or just asking Chrome to do it.

> The only problem with Google is that they do not have any customer care!

> you have no human to talk to!

I think you just solved google's main problem at some point in the future.

Re: Google is getting better at what Apple does best faster than Apple

#38

Post by patrickaljord »

taligent wrote: post #21
patrickaljord wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You just said "nobody will or should take them seriously" and now you're saying Apple should take them seriously. Google shipped tons of products properly, if you're talking about nexus devices, they don't even advertise those much, they're more of a testbed for what's coming.

No. Apple should take every competitor seriously no matter how insignificant. The rest of us however shouldn't. And we are talking about hardware here. They have consistent failures in shipping hardware.

I'm the happy owner of a galaxy nexus and nexus 4. Pretty awesome shipped hardware.

Re: Google is getting better at what Apple does best faster than Apple

#39

Post by ishansharma »

kayoone wrote: post #30
bitL wrote: post #13

I am not really happy that Google is cloning all successful approaches from various companies with slight modifications to suit their own purposes. First Facebook, now Apple. Where is that amazing, creative, innovative company I once admired? It's like Microsoft all over again.

I am not really happy that Microsoft always is the example of a boring company while they have clearly been more innovative and bold than Apple in recent years. They built alot of cool tech in their labs and also release products that arent another iteration of older products to play it safe, eg. Surface, Windows 8, Metro, Kinect

Credit to them for these products but they still lack something. I don't know what exactly but we are talking about a company that innovated and still wasn't able to move a lot of units around! Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 have been so so, Surface RT did not sell well compared to competition.

Re: Google is getting better at what Apple does best faster than Apple

#40

Post by jacquesm »

7952 wrote: post #33

Apple sell hardware and Google sell ads, everything else is just semantics. They may be competitive in certain areas but they are making money in completely divergent ways. Companies like Google and Amazon are able to use the Chinese electronics contractors to get products to market without the huge amounts on R&D that Apple had to invest. That is only a threat to Apple if they are unable to make innovative new hardw…

> without the huge amounts on R&D that Apple had to invest.

Which amounts are those?

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