I imagine there's a good market for a meta-mapping app that lets the user easily switch their views from various mapping services and providers. It would essentially be a webview that kept each map open on a different tab but with a smarter custom ui and animations for switching.
Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will
51–60 of 75 posts
Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
The reason its not supported is not because of technological limitations. It's just anti competitive practices from Google.
There is nothing 'Anti-Competitive' about not providing your free service to customers of your competitor. If people want Google services they can choose Android. It's worth remembering that Android was developed in the first place to be an Open alternative to prevent Windows phone from taking off. Why would they go to all the trouble of developing Android only to prop up Microsoft.
Of course it's anti-competitive! They took something that was working on a competitor's phone platform and intentionally caused it to stop working. It's probably not illegal, but if it's designed to harm a competitor it is by definition anti-competitive.
Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 redirec…
Why should Google provide their service for free to their competitor's customers?
They have no obligation to do so. But then why not be honest about refusing service to users of a competing platform, rather than claiming that it's about the technical capabilities of the browser? This is something that was working on WP devices until today and has been intentionally disabled.
Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, they do now; it's a pretty sensible business decision given Chrome's market share. But there was some period of time after it came out -- I can't recall how long -- when Chrome was officially not supported by OWA (Outlook Web Access). I work at Microsoft (but not on any product related to these) and I'm quite certain that this was the case.
The reason chrome was not supported earlier is probably because OWA possibly used some arcane and non-standard IE features that were lacking in chrome. Also AFAIK it never blocked the OWA outright (by redirecting to some other url instead)
My specific recollection is this:
On Ubuntu at home, I used Chrome for most things. But I specifically installed Firefox to be able to use the "better" version of OWA. OWA would still work on Chrome, but it would automatically downgrade to the less-capable version.
Presumably, Chrome and Firefox were similar enough that the same code should have worked with both.
Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will
#55UPDATE: A Microsoft spokesperson has responded to Google saying that:
"Internet Explorer in Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 use the same rendering engine."
It appears that http://maps.google.com worked fine on Windows Phone until Google started blocking it. In fact it is still working on the Lumia 920 if I go to http://maps.google.co.uk as it looks like they forgot to redirect that one. Are there differences between how it works on Windows Phone and on webkit based mobile browsers? To say that "Since Internet Explorer is not a WebKit browser, Windows Phone devices are not able to access Google Maps for the mobile web" is simply not true. Internet Explorer on the desktop is not a WebKit browser and it works fine with Google maps.
It seems as though the reason that Windows Phone can't access Google Maps is that Google decided (for reasons they would need to explain) to start blocking Windows Phone users.
Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
When Firefox, Chrome, or Safari add new features, it's with an eye toward getting those features into the appropriate standard. The goal is to have as few proprietary features as possible. Historically, IE's new features have been developed for IE and Windows only. Then when competition had been sufficiently smothered, development on IE was simply halted.
I'm all for innovation, but don't pretend that this is some altruistic plan by Google and Apple to move the web forward. It's about the same thing it was for Microsoft, keeping users tied to THEIR browser. Let's take Google Chrome's NaCl. It's eerily reminiscent of ActiveX is it not? Sure, Google open sourced it, but Mozilla and others have repeatedly criticized it. The web is not about sandboxing native code and cre…
> I'm all for innovation, but don't pretend that this is
> some altruistic plan by Google and Apple to move the web
> forward. It's about the same thing it was for Microsoft,
> keeping users tied to THEIR browser.
> Let's take Google Chrome's NaCl. It's eerily
> reminiscent of ActiveX is it not? Sure, Google open
> sourced it, but Mozilla and others have repeatedly
> criticized it. The web is not about sandboxing native
> code and creating some kind of Frankenstein platform
> within a platform where one can execute "native" code
> in a web browser. I mean, it's friggin' stupid. But
> it's OK because Google open sourced it and proposed it
> as a standard, right?
Also, NaCl is more of a prototype than a marketed product. Its obvious potential security issues prevent a more widespread adoption, and criticism from Mozilla (et al) are generally more on the technical aspects. The underlying goal of being able to safely execute native code is extremely important to the continued development of browsers as general-purpose operating systems (a goal I personally disagree with, but whatever). Someone needs to figure it out, and having an early first step proposed as an open spec is a good start.
> Or how bout Dart? Let me rush out and build my next
> application in Dart, because it's going to be
> standardized right? I mean, Google open sourced it so
> everyone could implement it!
> There are some good things (WebM, SPDY) that have come
> out of Google, but those were incremental improvements
> and they allowed for graceful degradation or were
> alternatives to existing things.
Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will
#57Don't be evil, Google. Please remember it.
Google have provided a free, open source alternative to Windows Phone. There is nothing 'evil' about them not supporting other platforms.
Of course it's evil. Redirecting a user is hostile in nature and was surely done to piss off microsoft. What wouldn't be evil is putting a banner stating that the browser is not supported.
I get that google needs to make money, I'm fine with it, but don't for one minute think they are the good guys anymore. They are as evil as any other public company. Sad but true.
Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I wonder the same thing. It seems like Google is trying to make Windows attempt to enter the market as painful, and played out, as possible. (I'm talking about Windows Phone 8, obviously they've been players for a while).
And this just days after FTC cleared them if any misbehavior. Bravo!
Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will
#59Re: Google Maps never supported IE on Windows Phone 8, and likely never will
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is nothing 'Anti-Competitive' about not providing your free service to customers of your competitor. If people want Google services they can choose Android. It's worth remembering that Android was developed in the first place to be an Open alternative to prevent Windows phone from taking off. Why would they go to all the trouble of developing Android only to prop up Microsoft.
Of course it's anti-competitive! They took something that was working on a competitor's phone platform and intentionally caused it to stop working. It's probably not illegal , but if it's designed to harm a competitor it is by definition anti-competitive.
Not adding value to your competitor's products for free is simply competitive and part of normal business. "Anti-competitive" is a different thing and means using market power to suppress competition, whereas this move is about intensifying it.