I sense legal problem in Google's future.

[pantsaregood]

http://blog.tomverhoeff.nl/2013/01/05/breaking-down-the-google-maps-windows-phone-issue/

Now, I don't really know why you'd use such a web app (that isn't an insult to Google Maps, I mean I literally don't know what the use of it is), but this is an overt attempt to make Windows Phone look bad. This is absolutely anti-competitive. Hopefully Microsoft stops taking this sort of thing sitting down.

 

[gorcorps]

While I think it's bullshit what Google is attempting to do, I'm not sure why you think it's illegal. Google can control their products how they want and if they really want to screw windows phone users over that's up to them. Those users will move on to something else.

 

[crisscross]

This is not the first. They also blocked access to the Youtube API. While I don't think Google's decision to discontinue active sync is anti competitive. I do think blocking web apps and access to youtube API are both anti-competitive. I wonder how the FTC gave Google a clean chit.

This is also a severe indictment of Microsoft, they have gone soft and no longer seem to have the hunger or passion to fight. They are constantly playing catch up in ideas and execution and seem to lack a vision on where they want to be. What a fall from the company Bill Gates built.

How that buffoon Steve Ballmer continues to be the CEO is beyond me.

 

[ponyo]

"Don’t be evil. We believe strongly that in the long term, we will be better served — as shareholders and in all other ways — by a company that does good things for the world even if we forgo some short term gains." - Google S-1 2004 IPO

 

[you2]

I feel google is as wrong as ms was when they did the same sort of thing. It is (imho) anti-competitive and I certainly do not respect them for doing it (to put it mildly) which is kind of sad given that I'm an andriod/linux user who rarely uses windows (outside of gaming). Having said this I have no clue on the legality. I do however (in case this wasn't clear) give google a very big thumb down for the action.

Having said this does my opinion caring weight? Naw and Google probably doesn't give a rat ass.

 

[lopri]

Google should be under higher level of scrutiny. What's been known so far isn't exactly anti-competitive, but the company is getting dangerously big. There is nothing inherently wrong with being big, but the amount of information that Google collects can definitely be used against individuals and consumers when the time comes.

Having said that, I laugh at Microsoft's (and its shills) recent cries calling out Google for ignoring MS' stuff. I mean, seriously, Microsoft? How about making your products usable on your own platform? (e.g. recent experience of my own)

Where is the Office for Android? Has anyone taken a look at its Outlook app?

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.outlook.Z7&feature=nav_result#?t=W251bGwsMSwyLDNd

 

[lopri]

BTW - When I went to Windows Store in Windows 8 a couple of months ago, the No.1 free app in the chart was some sort of YouTube video downloader. I do not know if that's still the case, but it was hilarious for obvious reasons.

 

[pantsaregood]

Microsoft has been actively developing for Android, and I do believe Office is coming. Even if it wasn't, there would be no anti-competitive issue.

The problem here is that Google is actively attempting to artificially handicap Microsoft's product. They follow this by providing excuses which simply aren't true.

This is somewhat analogous to Microsoft not creating a version of Office for Android and then preventing any program capable of opening Word documents from being produced on the platform.

 

[Graze]

Lots of nonsense about Google blocking maps and a browser that has potential compatibility issues being anti competitive. LOL at you "lawyers".

A warning about these issues would have been better, yes.

Google is playing dirty like Microsoft has been doing with them. Maybe not as directly but trying to go after them as bullshit grass roots movements and sneaky shit.

o a severe indictment of Microsoft, they have gone soft and no longer seem to have the hunger or passion to fight. They are constantly playing catch up in ideas and execution and seem to lack a vision on where they want to be. What a fall from the company Bill Gates built.

How that buffoon Steve Ballmer continues to be the CEO is beyond me.

Best thing anyone has said yet in this thread. Maybe if Microsoft focused on innovating instead of wasting it's time trying to go after Google and getting it prosecuted then maybe it would have a product that masses wanted to use instead of have to use.

Ballmer is simply one of the worst CEO's in a tech company




No profanity allowed in the tech forums


esquared
Anandtech Forum Director

 

[pantsaregood]

The potential compatibility issues are an outright lie that isn't realistic in any capacity. The Trident engine employed in WP7.x and WP8 is identical to the one used desktop variants of IE. The only difference is in the browser identification string. Unless Google throws this same warning up in IE9/IE10 in Windows, it has absolutely no validity.

 

[3chordcharlie]

Not providing equivalent app to android/iOS is one thing. Preventing MS from doing the heavy lifting for themselves by not allowing access to generally available resources is another.

Google has also entirely dropped development and support for BBOS (map app is ancient, most others dropped altogether), and declined to expend the trivial effort to port maps to Playbook (One employee could accomplish this before their morning coffee break).

The more anti-competitive Google becomes the more I am certain my next mobile device will be from either RIM or MS. If I have to use BING maps or pay for a GPS suite, I will. I suspect I'm in the minority, and that this kind of BS works as intended for the most part.

 

[Graze]

The potential compatibility issues are an outright lie that isn't realistic in any capacity. The Trident engine employed in WP7.x and WP8 is identical to the one used desktop variants of IE. The only difference is in the browser identification string. Unless Google throws this same warning up in IE9/IE10 in Windows, it has absolutely no validity.

Yeah but is the version of maps that runs on the desktop browser the same as the mobile maps?

 

[Graze]

The more anti-competitive Google becomes the more I am certain my next mobile device will be from either RIM or MS. If I have to use BING maps or pay for a GPS suite, I will. I suspect I'm in the minority, and that this kind of BS works as intended for the most part.

I am sorry you are a complete idiot if you are willing to do this and even pay money based on this. Neither company really gives much of a shit about you yet here you are willing to do this for them.
People really are sheep!




No name calling or personal attacks allowed


esquared
Anandtech Forum Directo

 

[Mopetar]

The YouTube API thing isn't really an issue. Google charges for API use and MS doesn't want to pay. It's as simple as that. You could conceivably argue that it creates some unfairness, but I don't see why Google should be required to offer unfettered access to anyone.

The part about the maps kind of confounds me. Here's what Google has had to say:

The mobile web version of Google Maps is optimized for WebKit browsers such as Chrome and Safari. However, since Internet Explorer is not a WebKit browser, Windows Phone devices are not able to access Google Maps for the mobile web.

As long as Trident (i.e. IE) complies with the necessary standards, there's no reason to actively block them. Also, at what point do optimizations turn into writing non-standard code and bring us back to the days when everyone had to use non-standardized HTML and CSS so that it would work in IE. If Google wants to optimize for WebKit, I don't think anyone would have a problem with that, or if the standards-compliant code that they write causes IE to crash, it's certainly not Google's problem, so why intentionally block IE?

I doubt that much will come out of this though. If I were them I'd just display a warning message and let it break horribly on Windows Phone if that's what's going to happen.

 

[lopri]

Also, the BS-ness of this browser allegation is so transparent and hypocritical. If the issue is Webkit, shouldn't the problem go away by allowing Webkit-based browsers to be available on Windows Phone 8? Such as Chrome, Firefox, Dolphin, etc. Are they available on WP8? Does MS allow ANY other browser than IE on WP8?

The hypocrisy shown in this allegation is stunning.

 

[3chordcharlie]

I am sorry you are a complete idiot if you are willing to do this and even pay money based on this. Neither company really gives much of a shit about you yet here you are willing to do this for them.
People really are sheep!

It's only money. It's not even a lot of money. There are all kinds of reasons it can make sense to spend money on things that *can* be had for 'free'. (E.g. 'If you're not the customer, you're the product.')

Also, I wouldn't be doing it for them.

I really don't like iOS, and I really really don't like Apple (iTunes, cables, the recent 'maps' thing, obvious planned obsolescence) . I have always relied on Google services; I even find the ads useful every once in a while. However, I will refuse to buy from Google if they insist on this heavy-handed BS.

That leaves RIM and MS, and that pretty much covers it for mobile options ATM.

 

[pantsaregood]

The issue is not Webkit. IE has been very standards-compliant since IE9.

It wasn't possible to implement non-Trident based engines in WP7.x because of a lack of native code. As far as I know, that shouldn't be a problem now. UCBrowser doesn't use Trident, I'm fairly certain.

Also, the issue with the YouTube API isn't one of money, as far as I'm aware. From what I recall, Microsoft has been willing to pay and developed a rich YouTube app, but Google has no intention of letting them go forward with it.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Microsoft has been actively developing for Android, and I do believe Office is coming. Even if it wasn't, there would be no anti-competitive issue.

Microsoft has done everything they can to ignore Androids existence and the few apps they have put out for it are garbage, they don't even attempt to follow the Android design guidelines and are among the worst Android apps I have used. Take OneNote for example, it's basically only useful as a viewer and even then there are no options to adjust font size and it's built in scaling makes stuff virtually unreadable on tablets.

 

[pantsaregood]

Google's development on Windows Phone (and everything other than iOS and Android at this point) extends no further than a search app that is less functional than the website.

That's fine, though. Yes, official YouTube clients, Google Talk, and Google Maps apps would be great. The issue is that a standards-compliant browser is being denied access to a page because of the user agent string.

Also, while Microsoft has definitely tried to ignore Android, take a look at this:
http://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Microsoft+Corporation
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/store/publishers?publisherId=Google+Inc.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

Google's development on Windows Phone (and everything other than iOS and Android at this point) extends no further than a search app that is less functional than the website.

That's fine, though. Yes, official YouTube clients, Google Talk, and Google Maps apps would be great. The issue is that a standards-compliant browser is being denied access to a page because of the user agent string.

Also, while Microsoft has definitely tried to ignore Android, take a look at this:
http://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Microsoft+Corporation
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/store/publishers?publisherId=Google+Inc.

The differnce between Microsoft'ss support for Android and Google's support for Windows Phone is Android has the majority of the smartphone market while Windows Phones marketshare is still little more than a rounding error.

 

[WelshBloke]

Does apple put any effort into developing for Android or Windows Phone?
Does Microsoft put any effort into developing for iOS or Android?
Does Google put any effort into developing for Windows Phone or iOS?

I think you'll find the amount of effort people put in depends on the market share of the product being developed for (apart from Apple, can't see them developing for anyone else).

Windows Phone has, what, about 3% of the market. It's unreasonable to expect Google to support stuff for that small a market. Particularly for a rival.

 

[pantsaregood]

No one expects Google to develop. The point here is that Google is actively blocking access from a standards-compliant browser.

 

[WelshBloke]

No one expects Google to develop. The point here is that Google is actively blocking access from a standards-compliant browser.

Its only supported on webkit browsers.

Edit: And why would you want Gmaps through a browser on Win8 phones? Dont they come with bing or Nokia maps as an app?

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

The issue is not Webkit. IE has been very standards-compliant since IE9.

It wasn't possible to implement non-Trident based engines in WP7.x because of a lack of native code. As far as I know, that shouldn't be a problem now. UCBrowser doesn't use Trident, I'm fairly certain.

Also, the issue with the YouTube API isn't one of money, as far as I'm aware. From what I recall, Microsoft has been willing to pay and developed a rich YouTube app, but Google has no intention of letting them go forward with it.

So they're compliant because you say so? The quick searching online seems to indicate that they are NOT webkit compliant and considering the fallout for the stuff not working well will sit on google's shoulders I'm not seeing the need for outrage although I'd be open to it after being given more information.

 

[WelshBloke]

Google's development on Windows Phone (and everything other than iOS and Android at this point) extends no further than a search app that is less functional than the website.

That's fine, though. Yes, official YouTube clients, Google Talk, and Google Maps apps would be great. The issue is that a standards-compliant browser is being denied access to a page because of the user agent string.

Also, while Microsoft has definitely tried to ignore Android, take a look at this:
http://play.google.com/store/apps/developer?id=Microsoft+Corporation
http://www.windowsphone.com/en-US/store/publishers?publisherId=Google+Inc.

Missed this earlier but doesnt the bolded show that Google would develop for windowsphone if they had some market share? Lets be honest iOS+Android is pretty much the entire mobile OS space at the moment.

Also your link leads to a page not found error for me.