Why not offer a link to the Gapps download with instructions for installing them like CyanogenMod does? It wouldn't be that hard to streamline this for novices on first booting their phone and therefore bypass Google's bureaucracy.
”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”
51–60 of 95 posts
Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
This was my reaction to the article as well. I'm still baffled why they don't take some of those billions and invest in a top notch customer service team. I'm pretty sure it would increase their bottom line about ten fold in less than three years.
Google loves things that scale, and customer support doesn't scale that well I guess. Alternatively, couldn't they start a pay-per-minute service? I recently had an issue with GMail where I was receiving someone else's mail. After about a week I had enough data to source his phone number and contact him to rectify it. But I never had the chance to report the issue. Wouldn't have minded paying a few dollars to have th…
Once you've lost someone's good will, it's very difficult to get it back. Google terrible, impersonal customer service is almost calculated to piss people off. Either they've calculated that they'll still make money when everyone hates them, or their business strategy is quite short sighted.
Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”
#53Android is more and more like the mobile equivalent of desktop Windows. Now they have the huge pirate market in China too. When this happened to Microsoft, certain strategy-oriented parts of the company were happy to see Windows spread everywhere as quickly as possible and deal with piracy later, whereas others were more concerned with the bottom line and how to extract revenue immediately. Google will have to deal w…
My peeve is that even when Windows came with all the bloatware crap that was bundled by OEMs there was a way to uninstall it. On Android you have all these apps (Facebook and the like) that you often can't uninstall without rooting the device. I guess that's just some of the poison that comes with it being open: carriers can do even worse than with Windows.
Microsoft used to strictly control the look and feel of the desktop, so OEMs were not permitted to add a new desktop or uninstallable software. The equivalent of TouchWiz wouldn't have been possible on Windows.
References:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/11/11/no_surrender_gates_d...
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/06/22/phoenix_readies_plan...
Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
Its worst than that. A least with Windows on PC clones, you have control over the hardware and can update to your hearts content. Android makers often change the interface and can interfere with you from getting updates.
That's probably something that the PC clone vendors of the early Windows era (1990-95) would have loved to do, but they just didn't have the software competence. Developing a new shell for Windows was technically possible, but must have seemed like an outlandish prospect to companies like Compaq or Dell. ("Where are we going to hire a bunch of C developers who know GUIs and can do a better job at this than Microsoft?…
Isn't Microsoft also more restrictive when it comes to what parts of Windows OEMs are allowed to customize?
It's one thing to swap out PROGMAN.EXE, as HP did with NewWave. But you're not allowed to interfere with the ability to run Windows Update.
Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nobody at Google returns any calls from anybody, it's a core part of their DNA.
If only there were a term for being so impressed with yourselves that you felt you could just ignore the little people. Maybe "focused on Q1 revenue goals"? Seems long, though. I'd be happy if I could get it down to three syllables.
'pig headed'. 'god complex'. I know the right term exists, still fishing for it.
Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”
#56this "Google offers the Android codebase for free download, but this is only part of the software needed to make a phone viable" is simply false. You have everything needed for a "phone" and even for a "smartphone", you simply miss google services that might (West in particular) or might not (East in particular) be perceived as a must have by consumer. See for example all the android-based phone that ship with altern…
Nobody, not even Oppo with their CyanogenMod-based Android, is selling an Android product in developed-world markets without Google Play and the rest of Google's app suite. The real alternative is expensive: Build your own ecosystem, as Amazon has.
Sure - the 'smaller-brand' ICS tablet I have got its apps from the Amazon App Store almost exclusively, with a few sideloads for good measure. Figured out how to get Play services on to it, and have the best _and_ worst of two worlds :)
("Figured out how to" is its own death-knell, I know, in some circles. Not that clueless.)
Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”
#57Android is more and more like the mobile equivalent of desktop Windows. Now they have the huge pirate market in China too. When this happened to Microsoft, certain strategy-oriented parts of the company were happy to see Windows spread everywhere as quickly as possible and deal with piracy later, whereas others were more concerned with the bottom line and how to extract revenue immediately. Google will have to deal w…
My peeve is that even when Windows came with all the bloatware crap that was bundled by OEMs there was a way to uninstall it. On Android you have all these apps (Facebook and the like) that you often can't uninstall without rooting the device. I guess that's just some of the poison that comes with it being open: carriers can do even worse than with Windows.
[deleted]
Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”
#58Earlier quoted context omitted.
My peeve is that even when Windows came with all the bloatware crap that was bundled by OEMs there was a way to uninstall it. On Android you have all these apps (Facebook and the like) that you often can't uninstall without rooting the device. I guess that's just some of the poison that comes with it being open: carriers can do even worse than with Windows.
Microsoft used to strictly control the look and feel of the desktop, so OEMs were not permitted to add a new desktop or uninstallable software. The equivalent of TouchWiz wouldn't have been possible on Windows. References: http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/11/11/no_surrender_gates_d... http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/06/22/phoenix_readies_plan...
> Microsoft used to strictly control the look and feel of the desktop, so OEMs were not permitted to add a new desktop or uninstallable software.
That ended after the antitrust case. As part of the settlement, Microsoft was required to allow OEMs to preload anything they wanted on PCs. It doesn't matter if it's bloatware or a new shell -- Microsoft can't say no to any of it.
For example, Lenovo is now preloading Pokki on many of its Windows 8 PCs.
While the antitrust settlement was binding only on Microsoft, other OS vendors will now look at the Microsoft example to see what restrictions they're allowed to get away with.
Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
If only there were a term for being so impressed with yourselves that you felt you could just ignore the little people. Maybe "focused on Q1 revenue goals"? Seems long, though. I'd be happy if I could get it down to three syllables.
"Search... what else?"
Divas?
Re: ”No one at Google is Returning Our Calls”
#60That was unexpected. Why would Google be so ignorant of Android China? China seems like such an obvious part of the mobile big picture that I can only assume "big" things. In no particular order: • Google's decision to leave China [1] • Political interference to protect a Chinese mobile OS [2] • Some sort of license restriction that doesn't effect Google services over the web but kicks in for mobile (completely a wil…
Other ideas (all pure speculation): * A desire to protect Google's relationship with the big-name phone manufacturers: maybe the big players have hinted that Google getting too helpful to the small Chinese firms would tend to cool them on Android * Concern that the Chinese manufacturers might accept Google's technical help, then refuse to implement all of the G-suite or otherwise violate the terms of the certificatio…
* A perennial inability to support paying customers.
Don't attribute to malice what is adequately explained by stupidity.