Live data from Hacker News

Google Ending Support for Jamboard

workspaceupdates.googleblog.com

241–250 of 289 posts

Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard

#241
post #127

It's about time we had legislation (at least in the EU) that mandated an option to be able to use physical products in an offline mode. Features that require a connection to the Internet should only be an augmentation at most and not the core without which the product cannot work.

That would basically ban normal cell phones. You can't do calls without access to the network. Honestly, people buying these products should be smarter. They bought an expensive chalkboard that they knew depends on someone else's computers (unless they didn't even bother to look into how the products work), without any guaranteed server support period anywhere to be found. Anyone who cares about their purchases sudde…

> That would basically ban normal cell phones. You can't do calls without access to the network.

I get your point but making calls is no longer the principal reason to own a smartphone. I have made no calls in the last two months and have received just one. But I have spent hours on Skype via WiFi, recorded tens of hours of video and taken hundreds of photographs, as well as read lots of books, sent and received money for goods that I have used the phone to list for sale online. Not to mention email and dozens of other applications.

Almost none of my use needed the cellular network.

Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard

#242
post #149

It's crazy to me that people keep willingly buying hardware that requires a service to work. You have a high up-front cost, yet you're at someone else's mercy. That's the worst of buying and renting combined. Obviously it isn't very profitable to keep supporting a product you've already sold at the moment, so something must be done to make it more attractive. At the very least there should be a support commitment whi…

I work in IoT and my single goal working in the industry is to do as much as I can (which will likely still be small) to make devices that are entirely separable from the cloud by enabling the use of different services and by being local-fist. Imagine if private organizations built their own road network and then sold you a car that can only be driven on that road. Once that company goes out of business, the road van…

Thank you for doing that. I've made it a rule that any smart home device I get must but usable when the internet is off. I got burned a few years ago when my fiber line was cut and I was without internet for five days, so I couldn't turn on some of my lights or control the temp on the thermostat.

Vowed to make sure that never happens again. All my smart switches now have local control.

The internet should add functionality, but not gate it.

Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard

#243

How people continue to trust buying anything from Google is just beyond me. I am glad that they are doing something for schools, but this is just ridiculous. Shutting down a free service that you didn't have to buy into, fine whatever. It still sucks but at least you didn't invest in a platform. But if you are going to make a physical device you cannot treat it like you treat everything else.

what product or service has lasted indefinitely? Google will compensate those who adopted it, life goes on.

Sonos does a pretty good job still supporting there old hardware. The ZP100 came out 20 years ago and works pretty well today

Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard

#244
post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm working on a IoT startup and we'd prefer to rent you the equipment as part of the service. That way there is no confusion. Having customers buy equipment they really don't own seems ridiculous to me.

How does that help someone who has built your product into their working procedures? When you decide to stop doing it they are in an even worse situation than the Jamboard users because presumably you will repossess the hardware.

Not really, though. In both cases the customer won't have a working device. Just in this case it's obvious while in the other it's less so.

Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard

#245
post #188
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Responding to some of the comments saying that jamboard had a good run and people shouldn't be outraged that google made a decision in their own interest... Everybody remembers the old saying, "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM". Well, there should be a reciprocal saying: "Anybody who ever buys google should be fired". If the lesson here is "caveat emptor", then the real lesson is this: don't buy google.

I worked for a sorta "satellite" IBM company. There was always a path or solution of some sort in the IBM world. Expensive as hell yeah but there was a path. And if you wanted to do something slightly weird or that IBM just didn't want to do... there were these satellite companies that IBM was happy to work with us to cover other solutions. IBM never cut us off, was happy to certify stuff to work with them and so on.…

> There seemed to be a general understanding of "people are running their business off of this stuff so we need to make it work".

I think this is the part that Microsoft gets, at a deep level, and Google doesn't (or, more likely, doesn't care)

Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard

#246

It's crazy to me that people keep willingly buying hardware that requires a service to work. You have a high up-front cost, yet you're at someone else's mercy. That's the worst of buying and renting combined. Obviously it isn't very profitable to keep supporting a product you've already sold at the moment, so something must be done to make it more attractive. At the very least there should be a support commitment whi…

Sadly, many schools making these purchases are painfully uninformed about tech, hence why we see so many consumer-hostile edtech subscriptions succeed. They definitely would benefit from some EoL transparency

Just show them some California -cool videos that Google “gets them” and Pichar talking some generic BS that they care about Education. That will work 8/10 times.

Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard

#247
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still. Our company only bought it half a year ago, at least 3 of them. So no, we won’t get to enjoy it for 8 years… Edit: nvm, my CISO just confirmed me that this apparently “only” affects first generation users. We have the newer Board 65 types that will continue to be supported for the things we use it.

My last company bought a bunch of these just before the pandemic to help facilitate working with remote offices. All the big conference rooms had one. Nobody wanted to use them, and they went completely unused to my knowledge.

This product seems like the kind of thing a company would buy, it would be tried out in a few meetings, then everyone would go back to driving the meeting room's mounted TV with a laptop.

Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard

#248

How people continue to trust buying anything from Google is just beyond me. I am glad that they are doing something for schools, but this is just ridiculous. Shutting down a free service that you didn't have to buy into, fine whatever. It still sucks but at least you didn't invest in a platform. But if you are going to make a physical device you cannot treat it like you treat everything else.

It's absurd given how much money Google makes. They can easily afford to support these products but they refuse to.

This company needs better management. It seems like its being run entirely by MBAs with zero vision or guts.

Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard

#249
post #176

We have a few of these in our office. The experience is decent, but, man, I really miss chalkboards. I just don't find whiteboards, physical or virtual, as compelling. I actually make some use of the Jamboard app in meetings occasionally, but usually I'm at a desk with my feet up, using a tablet to draw while everyone else is remote. Not only has Jamboard never been a first-class citizen, no whiteboard is a first-cla…

> If I'm ever in charge, I'm buying chalkboards. You gotta be sure to get the super special chalk mathematicians are hoarding, too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhNUjg9X4g8

Hagoromo ended up not going out of business, so there's no longer any worries about finding Hagoromo chalk. It's worth the cost.

Re: Google Ending Support for Jamboard

#250
post #188
post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Responding to some of the comments saying that jamboard had a good run and people shouldn't be outraged that google made a decision in their own interest... Everybody remembers the old saying, "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM". Well, there should be a reciprocal saying: "Anybody who ever buys google should be fired". If the lesson here is "caveat emptor", then the real lesson is this: don't buy google.

I worked for a sorta "satellite" IBM company. There was always a path or solution of some sort in the IBM world. Expensive as hell yeah but there was a path. And if you wanted to do something slightly weird or that IBM just didn't want to do... there were these satellite companies that IBM was happy to work with us to cover other solutions. IBM never cut us off, was happy to certify stuff to work with them and so on.…

Right. I think it all comes down to the fact that with Google, maybe 2/3rds of any product is software running on servers they control. You can never see that software, let alone modify it. Even the decision to keep running that software on Google’s hardware is totally out of your hands - Google could turn it off literally any day, for any reason.

This is the downside of relying on someone else’s cloud software: ultimately if it’s not your code and not your computer, its fate is out of your hands. I think its healthy that our industry is finally coming to understand that.

Post reply on HN