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Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will

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Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will

#21

Post by barista »

CurtHagenlocher wrote: post #17

On the one hand, this isn't really any different than Microsoft not supporting Office on Chromium. On the other hand, isn't the whole point of web standards to avoid situations like this? I suspect we'll just get confirmation of something we really already know: standards are really important only when you're not the market leader.

> On the one hand, this isn't really any different than Microsoft not supporting Office on Chromium.

How's that the same? Web is a agreed upon standard. An OS is not.

Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will

#24

Post by magic_haze »

jmillikin wrote: post #14
chewxy wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I think the title is just PR BS from Google. You can use WP8 browser to access maps.google.co.uk and it works perfectly fine [0] [0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z8vfzurnKw

That's a video of the desktop UI, not the mobile UI. Users are complaining that they can't access the mobile UI.

Actually, I'm on wp8 and I can access neither. Maps.google.com just redirects me to the mobile version of google.com

Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will

#25

Post by barista »

malachismith wrote: post #23

IE across ALL mobile devices currently represents less than 2% market share according to NetMarketShare. In other words, less than the Blackberry browser. Would you optimize YOUR product for that?

Who said anything about optimizing here? Supporting and optimizing are two separate things.

Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will

#26

Post by CurtHagenlocher »

barista wrote: post #21
CurtHagenlocher wrote: post #17

On the one hand, this isn't really any different than Microsoft not supporting Office on Chromium. On the other hand, isn't the whole point of web standards to avoid situations like this? I suspect we'll just get confirmation of something we really already know: standards are really important only when you're not the market leader.

> On the one hand, this isn't really any different than Microsoft not supporting Office on Chromium. How's that the same? Web is a agreed upon standard. An OS is not.

It's the same in the sense that a company with a product isn't necessarily obligated to support all potential platforms for that product. But maybe a better comparison would be to point out that web access for Exchange was not officially supported on Chrome for many years.

EDIT: To put a slightly different spin on it, it's easy to try to turn this into a moral issue rather than a business decision -- particularly with Google's foolishly-publicized "don't be evil" motto. But supporting multiple platforms requires additional resources, and companies have to make the business decision whether or not to provide them.

Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will

#27

Post by 46Bit »

MatthewPhillips wrote: post #16

Google is taking the bizarre position that only iOS and Android exist on mobile (and only the official browsers of those platforms). I don't ever remember Google Maps being blocked in Konqueror or IceCat, so I'm not sure why they are using this tactic on mobile. More importantly, a lot of good-citizen webdevs work at Google like Paul Irish, must be rather awkward for those types.

I can't help but wonder if Google are trying to ensure they stay as the major non-Apple player. For all the popularity of Android, it is a far less interesting offering for a long-term iPhone user than Windows Phone.

Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will

#28

Post by paganel »

at-fates-hands wrote: post #19
barista wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason its not supported is not because of technological limitations. It's just anti competitive practices from Google.

I'd say its just the opposite. It's anti-competitive practices from MS. They're trying to build their own walled in hardware/software garden. It would make more sense to me if MS was blocking Google stuff, not the other way around. They probably figure if they let Google in on some things, then they open the door to supporting all of Google's apps like gmail, chrome, calendar, google docs, etc. Which goes against the…

> It's anti-competitive practices from MS.

I down-voted you because in this particular case this is not true, I'd say the opposite happens.

Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will

#29

Post by chewxy »

vibrunazo wrote: post #10
chewxy wrote: post #5

And yet... you can use it to visit maps.google.co.uk [0]. Stop making excuses for Google. This is ridiculous ffs. [0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z8vfzurnKw

I cannot test it myself. But there are many people in the comments saying it doesn't work on co.uk either. Maybe it was only working when the uk version was outdated.

I tried it with a user agent string modifier (went to maps.google.com.au) a few hours ago, and it worked. I tried it again, redirects me to the main search site.

Well played, Google

Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will

#30

Post by chewxy »

CurtHagenlocher wrote: post #26
barista wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the one hand, this isn't really any different than Microsoft not supporting Office on Chromium. How's that the same? Web is a agreed upon standard. An OS is not.

It's the same in the sense that a company with a product isn't necessarily obligated to support all potential platforms for that product. But maybe a better comparison would be to point out that web access for Exchange was not officially supported on Chrome for many years. EDIT: To put a slightly different spin on it, it's easy to try to turn this into a moral issue rather than a business decision -- particularly wit…

No, it's not the same. It's one thing to say a product isn't obligated to support all potential platforms, it's another to actively disallow other platforms.

If you watch this video (or time travel back to about 4 hours ago and use a useragent string modifier) [0], you'll note that using a Lumia 920's user agent string [1] will redirect you to a desktop version of the site.

But now if you try it, the URL will redirect to the main search page.

[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Z8vfzurnKw

[1] Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 10.0; Windows Phone 8.0; Trident/6.0; IEMobile/10.0; ARM; Touch; NOKIA; Lumia 920)

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