The limits of Google’s openness • Hacker News Board

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#31

Post by simonsarris » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 8:48 PM UTC

A summary for those not following along at home:

The Youtube app for Android is developed by Google

The Youtube app for iOS is developed by Google

The Youtube app for Windows Phone is developed by Microsoft, with some reverse engineering, at first not serving ads on purpose.

It is easy to argue that a Youtube app for Windows Phone would be nice for WP users. It is also easy to argue that MSFT writing such an app would be a tad antagonistic, seeing as the first version released contained no ads. One might suspect Microsoft wanted a PR fight more than they wanted a Youtube app, or that they wanted both.

Alas, we can read for clues.

The title of the article is: "The limits of Google’s openness"

But the tags are: "marketplace, Windows Phone"

It's not an article about Google now, is it?

~~~

The article doesn't help WP users. Instead they get no Youtube app while watching a hissy fit occur if they google (ha) to find out why the app is gone.

I like both these companies, but for however-much of a PR stunt this is, Microsoft does not come out looking good.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#32

Post by ihsw » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 8:48 PM UTC

broodbucket wrote: post #11

This is just like Google blocking Maps on Windows Phone; there's a video where someone changed the agent from "Windows Phone 8" to "Windows Phne 8" and suddenly maps.google.com actually worked. I'm not a Microsoft fan, but I do rather like my Windows Phone, and I wish they would stop squabbling so I can have a YouTube app and change the search engine from Bing.

From what I recall, the issue was with users having "phone" in their user agent rather than "Windows Phone 8."

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#33

Post by dictum » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 8:48 PM UTC

devx wrote: post #5

It seems Google will allow them to build an HTML5 app, even though Microsoft has repeatedly breached their TOS multiple times (like allowing users to download the videos). If Microsoft's WP8 platform is so behind the times, it can't even make an HTML5 web-app possible, that's really Microsoft's problem. If I'm not mistaken all the other "native" Youtube apps on other platforms are Google's own apps, and it's also the…

There's no problem with banning products that use your service but violate your Terms of Service; it just doesn't jibe with what is usually understood by "open". "We're open"/"we encourage openness"/"our platform is open" implies acceptance, transparency, a warm welcome, permissiveness even.

It kind of makes "open" another doublespeak term: we're Open, but terms and conditions apply...

Of course we can have debates on the semantics of the word "open": should it be assumed to mean tolerance?

Semantics aside, Google's "open" is marketing artifice, akin to Apple's many pompous adjectives for mundane or even inferior things ("beautiful", "revolutionary", "insanely great" etc.) or Microsoft's old message of empowerment ("where do you want to go today?") to sell an unremarkable but popular OS and productivity suite.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#34

Post by dhawalhs » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 8:48 PM UTC

taylodl wrote: post #18

Karma is finally biting Microsoft in the ass. Who else remembers the refrain "it ain't done 'til Lotus won't run!" from Microsoft's earlier years? Having said that, I would expect the "do no evil" company - directly referring to not being like Microsoft - to do the right thing, if, in fact Microsoft is being fully forthcoming in stating they have complied with all of Google's objections. In the end, both companies ha…

I had no idea what you meant by "it ain't done 'til Lotus won't run!", so I googled it. This is the first link that showed up:

http://slashdot.org/story/05/08/02/2219208/the-dos-aint-done...

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#35

Post by barista » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 8:49 PM UTC

jmillikin wrote: post #23

It's my understanding that YouTube officially supports access via either a Flash applet or the HTML5 tag. Windows Phone doesn't support Flash[1], so the only option for writing a mobile app using the official API is to use HTML5. It's not obvious why using the HTML5 API is "impossible". Windows bundles a -capable browser; assuming IE's capable of playing either H.264 or WebM, it should be relatively easy to build a Y…

The experience you can provide with an HTML5 app are many times subpar as compared to a native app. Note how facebook abandoned their HTML5 app and went native.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#36

Post by Kylekramer » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 8:50 PM UTC

This has always been somewhat true, but this is a definitive sign open has lost all meaning. Now it means you have to allow third parties to use your resources to do what they like?

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#37

Post by quasque » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 8:50 PM UTC

Rather hypocritical of Microsoft to complain. They're doing the same kind of thing to Google Mail users [1,2].

[1] http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!msg/gmail/ILHhp40ze4...

[2] http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windowslive/forum/mail-em...

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#38

Post by sp332 » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 8:50 PM UTC

jmillikin wrote: post #23

It's my understanding that YouTube officially supports access via either a Flash applet or the HTML5 tag. Windows Phone doesn't support Flash[1], so the only option for writing a mobile app using the official API is to use HTML5. It's not obvious why using the HTML5 API is "impossible". Windows bundles a -capable browser; assuming IE's capable of playing either H.264 or WebM, it should be relatively easy to build a Y…

The Youtube website works fine in the browser. The point is to make a native app that launches instantly without taking up my mobile bandwidth, looks good with the rest of the OS, allows uploads with WP8's lack of file manager, can show me notifications, and so on.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#39

Post by rsynnott » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 8:50 PM UTC

jmillikin wrote: post #23

It's my understanding that YouTube officially supports access via either a Flash applet or the HTML5 tag. Windows Phone doesn't support Flash[1], so the only option for writing a mobile app using the official API is to use HTML5. It's not obvious why using the HTML5 API is "impossible". Windows bundles a -capable browser; assuming IE's capable of playing either H.264 or WebM, it should be relatively easy to build a Y…

As far as I know this is exactly how the popular third-party iOS Youtube client Jasmine works. It used to be better than it is, but a couple of versions ago the developer mentioned that he was changing the means of showing the video to comply with Google's requirements, and it became a (relatively well-concealed) embedded HTML5 video pane.

Re: The limits of Google’s openness

#40

Post by barista » Thu, Aug 15, 2013, 8:50 PM UTC

simonsarris wrote: post #31

A summary for those not following along at home: The Youtube app for Android is developed by Google The Youtube app for iOS is developed by Google The Youtube app for Windows Phone is developed by Microsoft, with some reverse engineering, at first not serving ads on purpose. It is easy to argue that a Youtube app for Windows Phone would be nice for WP users. It is also easy to argue that MSFT writing such an app woul…

>The Youtube app for iOS is developed by Google

Except that the original iOS app was developed by Apple and Google had no issues with that