241–250 of 442 posts
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Mapbox responded to Google raising prices by raising their prices. Is it likely that Azure and Amazon would do similar if they raised prices on GCP?
Google was the dominant provider of maps I'm guessing by a large margin. GCP is not the dominant provider of cloud services (they're third or distant third).
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Mapbox responded to Google raising prices by raising their prices. Is it likely that Azure and Amazon would do similar if they raised prices on GCP?
Google was the dominant provider of maps I'm guessing by a large margin. GCP is not the dominant provider of cloud services (they're third or distant third).
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I see it as then wanting to do it right through curation. Contrast that with Google where they just throw ML at everything.
That seems to be their approach to a lot of things. Often though this “curation” is never rolled out to a wider audience. Take for example on site servicing. Apple have never offered that and instead you’re encouraged to visit your local Apple Store. Except that Apple Stores are still not present out side of certain blessed locations. If you don’t live somewhere Apple thinks is trendy enough for an Apple Store you’re…
Apple has offered on-site servicing as standard under AppleCare for many many years.
Meta: could someone explain/clarify the sentence "Back in 2012, I had not yet been born (I am, in fact, only six years old)." please? I highly doubt a 6-years-old wrote this article, so is it a joke? Or is it alluding to some mapping alternative being 6 years old?
The joke, such as it is, is clarified by what follows:
Back in 2012, I had not yet been born (I am, in fact, only six years old). But I am a student of history.
How does that clarify - because the student of history thing indicates now he will need to give us some background of things that happened a long time ago. Of course it didn't happen a long time ago, only 6 years ago, but there is the concept of internet time going faster than normal time. In fact it seems a really long time ago to anyone paying attention that Cook had to apologize - oh remember when that happened.
So he makes a joke that gives us a light feel and that also points out in a roundabout way hey it feels a long time ago but was only 6 years but bringing it up seems like ancient history without having to directly reference the hoary old trope that internet time is happening so fast that 6 years feels like ancient history man!
Anyway, often people writing things, especially if they have a deadline by which they wish to be finished, and especially in our modern era when there is not enough editing (remember editors, boy internet time really wiped out that species!) end up writing things that are allowed to remain in the article even if they are significantly less successful than other things.
I worked at a company that heavily used the maps API in 2018. The 1,400% price hike really was an eye opener. It wasn't just the money involved, which was large, but the fact that it came so suddenly and with so much magnitude. Google's choice to bump these prices made me realize that they could do the same thing with their compute cloud pricing or other APIs, again with little notice. That, in turn, led to the reali…
Google's fundamental relationship with users is statistical, and I think it shows. They're very good at optimizing metrics; their search, for example has remained the leader 20+ years on. In that world, if you lose a few users or give a bad experience, well, there are plenty more where those came from, and the ones who leave will often come back. I think they mistakenly bring that attitude to their consumer businesse…
At Google's scale they are optimized and oriented for the consumer market with their horrendous pricing strategies, poor customer service, negligent backward compatibility and pseudo-monopolistic products and offerings.
As a consumer, I can live with the lack of trust. From a business perspective I cannot live with that.
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Since they added biking directions in the city I live, I've managed to switch to Apple Maps full-time! Just recently completed a cross country drive with only Apple maps - works really well. Of course now I've locked myself even further into the Apple's ecosystem, but at least my maps are smooth and minimal for now...
Apple’s approach to cycling directions is second rate IMHO. It’s only available in certain media city locations. If you stray out of those areas you’re out of luck. Basically Apple seem more interested in rolling this out as a tick box item for journalists than helping me get to work. This tells me that Apple is not serious about its Maps app.
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I wanted Apple Maps to succeed so I’ve been using it from day one. It’s gotten much, much better. That said, if I’m going on a long trip where a non-optimal route is a big deal, I’ll double check with google maps and often (but not always) find a better route.
I also _want_ to like Apple Maps. But I always need to double check business hours using Google.
I really want to use Apple Maps full time on my iPhone, just because of how much clutter Google Maps has accumulated on the screen. If anything tells me Google is losing the ability to innovate it's the newly added pill buttons for pre-set searches and branded POIs on the map. I remember when this was added to MapQuest circa 2010, and was the transition from trying to have an excellent mapping experience to just addi…
Apple Maps UI: A big map, with a search bar at the bottom. Simple and nothing but the essentials.
Google Maps UI: A page full of ads, a map full of ads and ads masquerading as recommendations. Plus five tab bar buttons at the bottom to not accomplish very much.
I've switched to Apple Maps simply because of its better UX and how much easier the app is to use. As far as I can tell, their mapping and navigational data in Canada is every bit as good as Google's. The only thing keeping Google Maps on my phone is their superior reviews. Once Apple replaces Yelp reviews, I'll jettison the Google Maps app into the sun.
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GMail is there mostly as a legacy of a time when Google had legit competition from portal sites like Yahoo and MSN. E-mail was an important part of that portal and GMail was a way to siphon some users.
You can make up as many fictional backstories as you want, but gmail was launched because signed-in users enjoy vastly better search quality and prior to gmail there was no reason to associate your identity with Google.
Email search wasn't the draw initially, and wasn't even all that much better; there was serious controversy over search, years later, as it was tied to ads that reflected the content of private communications.
Hotmail, Yahoo et al had reasonably good search for the time, but stiflingly little free space. Google offered far more free space with IMAP and POP3 access.