Google is getting better at what Apple does best faster than Apple • Hacker News Board

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

#61

Post by nirvana » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:26 PM UTC

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…

Your link to patrik gibson's twitter shows how silly the original hypothesis is.

For instance, Apple's stores are still powered by WebObjects because WebObject is still one of the best web frameworks in the world.

Do people say that Amazon is "bad at the web" because obidos and gurupa were designed in the 1990s? They're worse than WebObjects by a wide margin. How about all the companies whose web services are from the 1990s?

Including google!

The rest of his examples are cheap shots or simply based on ignorance.

For instance, Game Center having trouble under heavy load is an exceptional event not a daily occurence, and lets not forget the weeks of cummulative time that google has had gmail down because of issues over the years, and all the mail people have lost and the fact that google will just blackhole people's accounts for no reasons and then when it happens you have no way to get your data back.

The rest of it is misunderstanding or misrepresentation.

In other words, this is just more propaganda in the endless google good, apple bad, ideological war that was started to try and cover the fact that android is a blatant ripoff of iOS.

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

#62

Post by 7952 » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:27 PM UTC

jacquesm wrote: post #40

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?

I could look for links that prove my point but whats the point? That information is naturally opaque. I believe that R&D costs are likely to be lower because I see such a huge number of new devices coming from companies without the clout of Google or Android. If Google are spending amounts equivalent to Apple on the pixel they are doing something wrong.

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

#63

Post by nirvana » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:32 PM UTC

jmduke wrote: post #60

nirvana wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is iTunes match a "scam"? It accepts my music downloaded from the pirate bay as proof of purchase then gives me access to it on all my devices. The hugest advantage is not having to manage all of that music on all the machines in our house. We just have one backup somewhere in case we need it, and then everyone syncs with iTunes Match just the music they want on their personal device.

'Scam' was a bad choice of words, but its ridiculously buggy (it accepts your music downloaded from TPB, but will only take half of an album which I legally bought and ripped to disk) and iOS playback is horrendous (both on and off WiFi.)

Interesting. I'm using ~24,800 of my 25,000 available tracks. About %90 of that is actually CDs that I ripped (I'm not really much of a pirate). I had a problem where it wouldn't accept one of them at all, and I ended up pirating that one to get it to work. The rest I was able to import ok, so my CD collection going back to the 1980s when I first started buying them I was able to import.

I have no trouble with playback on iOS. But I don't tend to stream, I tend to sync the songs I want to the device and then play them.

The one time I did have problems with iTunes match was a period where we rented a house in rural mexico. We were using some sort of fly-by-nite mexican ISP, and iTunes match had a lot of difficulty. It was really inconsistent and it sounds like this is what you experienced.

I suspect the issue there is that certain ports were being blocked, or that the ISP couldn't keep a consistent connection (Though loading web pages was fine, longer streaming connections like watching video were not.) I think iTunes match is probably sensitive to needing specific ports open and isn't great at falling back when they are blocked, or isn't great at handling frequent interruptions in the net connection (even if they are short.)

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

#64

Post by nirvana » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:34 PM UTC

onemorepassword wrote: post #32

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 Lo…

It's also a pretty blatant copy of the Macbook. Given the history you outline (which I agree with) I think the huge leap for the pixel came from Apple. Just like the huge leap from a blackberry clone to an iPhone clone that android took over the course of 2007-2008.

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

#65

Post by nirvana » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:41 PM UTC

7952 wrote: post #62

jacquesm wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without the huge amounts on R&D that Apple had to invest. Which amounts are those?

I could look for links that prove my point but whats the point? That information is naturally opaque. I believe that R&D costs are likely to be lower because I see such a huge number of new devices coming from companies without the clout of Google or Android. If Google are spending amounts equivalent to Apple on the pixel they are doing something wrong.

Apple is vastly more efficient at R&D than google is, in part because Apple's products are so profitable, that it's R&D as a proportion of sales is "small".

Meanwhile, Apple is investing $10B this year in CapEx, and while a couple billion of that are for server farms, the new HQ and store upgrades, many billions are going into the equipment and tooling necessary to make Apple products.

People seem to think you just call fox con and say "I want 100 million mobile phones by monday!"

Apple's "R&D" includes the investment in being able to scale a manufacturing business to the point where it can sell twice as many devices as the previous year, for several years running.

This is under appreciated by people who look at no-sales devices like the google Nexus and claim that google is in the lead by some arbitrary criteria.

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

#66

Post by nirvana » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:44 PM UTC

patrickaljord wrote: post #43

rethaw wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 start…

Funny to read someone defending Apple based on hardware specs when Apple lovers told us for years that Apple killed specs because no one care about them and that hardware should be judged on its beauty and slickness and the UX of its software which is where the Pixel does indeed shine. As for the 32 GB, the Pixel comes with 1TB of google drive and a "save to Google drive" option.

Forget specs, lets talk about software: The MacBook air is a real computer. You can compile your code on it. IT has an operating system. You can play games.

The pixel is just a web browser.

The correct thing to make the comparison to is the iPad, but even the iPad is more functional, since it can run apps that aren't browsers.

From a usability viewpoint, the pixel is kinda laughable... it's so arbitrarily limited, it isn't even really usable unless you're on a network.

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

#67

Post by nirvana » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:47 PM UTC

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.

IT's not even as good as the iPad, which unlike the pixel, can run more than just a web browser.

The iPad costs about 1/3 the price, and it does more and is better made.

Comparing this to the MBA is like comparing a feature phone to a netbook.

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

#68

Post by nirvana » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:49 PM UTC

patrickaljord wrote: post #38

taligent wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sure there's a couple hundred thousand other people like you.

That's not what taligent is talking about.

Apple ships tens of millions of devices in a quarter.

Google's never had a hardware hit, not even close.

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

#69

Post by nirvana » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:53 PM UTC

kayoone wrote: post #47

ishansharma wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

their main problem is being late to the party imo. Windows 8, Phone 8 and the Surface Pro are pretty excellent. We are seeing the first generation of proper laptop/tablet hybrids that could really change the way we see computing. Those products might not come from MS directly, eg. Thinkpad Helix, but they enabled it and i think its awesome to be able to choose from hundreds of different devices.

Innovation is not just about being different, its about being different successfully.

I give credit to MSFT for ... finally, after 2 decades... trying to innovate. I don't think they will be successful with these products, but possibly they can iterate on them until they are successful.

This is a lot more than google has done, and you're right, people should make the comparison to 1990s Microsoft which used FUD to kill innovation in the industry.

Fortunately, Balmer seems to have killed that ability in 2007 when he said there was no chance the iPhone would be successful.

Maybe MSFT has turned a corner. And unlike google and everyone else, they actually have a license from Apple to use multi-touch, etc, so they're actually legitimate competitors.

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

#70

Post by nirvana » Sat, Mar 02, 2013, 3:56 PM UTC

mailarchis wrote: post #14

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.

Well you are not taking into consideration google glass and self driving cars.

Google glass is just a bluetooth headset with a display and camera, combined with a SIRI like service.

People seem to think it's a competitor to the iPhone, but it's an ACCESSORY that needs and iPhone to connect to the network.

Worse, it has no technology (other than miniturization) that hasn't been done many times before-- I first saw a "glass" type system in the 1980s.... and that one actually had a computer on board!