lawdawg

Anyone who thinks that Amazon won't have to implement similar anti-copyright protection is delusional.

This is because Google has started optimizing for the 99% use case, which most HN'ers usually don't fall under. They originally optimized for what most Googlers like (who are generally the 1%) and have since learned that you can't run a business just pleasing the elite and whiny ones.

It's amazing that on a place like HN it seems like most people just don't get this.

The vast majority of communication happens on products that: 1. Don't even have a desktop component 2. Have no "status" indication (oh noes!!!) 3. Are completely closed ecosystems

And yet you never see posts about how WhatsApp, iMessage, SnapChat, etc are horrible because of the above reasons.

We need a country breakdown considering this launch included China (unlike previous launches). That said, I'm assuming 30-40% in China and the rest elsewhere still puts it as a great launch.

Which is a UX problem, not a "Google attempting to drive me into yet another unwanted "social" network". You don't think it's in Google's best interest that channels create Google+ Pages rather than individual Google+ profiles?

Get over it people, Google+ is the new account system for all Google products. If you don't like Google having a single account/profile system, or the fact that Google+ profiles include a "social" network product, then you best look for alternatives ASAP.

are you actually hitting the "No" button, and providing a reason, or are you just closing the dialog?

Nothing, absolutely nothing, will change until developers stop chasing a big payday, and follow their principles instead. Unfortunately, principles don't feed your family or put a roof over their head.

It's always easy to spout how we need to push forward open standards, but what we've seen instead is developers falling over themselves to develop for Apple and Facebook. The very people who are needed to push forward the open web are the very same people who spend their time and energy expanding the every growing empire of closed ecosystems.

Great news for both Google Maps and Waze. From my understanding, Waze negotiated a 3 year period where they would be allowed to continue independently, but I imagine there will be quite a bit of data sharing between the two (Waze can now use Google's maps and POI data, and Google can use Waze's data to improve its realtime directions)

No reason, but PRISM as explained in #1 doesn't seem like that big of a deal, or at least, not that much more shocking then what we already knew.

Bravo Edward, and yet very little is said about PRISM at all. When will we finally get to the bottom of what PRISM actually is? When will the public get access to the entire set of slides? How much exactly did Edward know about PRISM, or did he just stumble onto these slides and assume the worst?

So many questions, so few answers. Hopefully the coming weeks sheds more light onto this.

And if they didn't say that, everyone on HN would be whining about why they didn't deny "direct access" when that was the headline accusation.

Can't win with you guys.

Isn't this pretty much exactly what Google got in trouble for with the Buzz launch?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Buzz#Legal_issues

Do you have a better solution for unifying identity across Google accounts? If your opinion is that separate products should have separate accounts and credentials then we will just have to agree to disagree. I can understand why that would be someone's preference, but I can't understand why someone would bash a company that has the desire to utilize a single profile/account for all of their products.

What exactly are these "Plus hassles" you refer to?

It astonishes me that people don't have an issue with this:

> I need a Google account to interact with most of Google's services these days.

but seem to have major issues with this:

> I need a Google+ account to interact with most of Google's services these days.

Why do people have such a hard time accepting that Google+ accounts are a natural progression of Google's account management (and eventually will replace the old, fragmented Google, Youtube, whatever account system)? Sure, it has a companion social networking site, and requires a real name (or what that looks like one), but that requirement could have been applied to regular Google accounts as well and I highly doubt we would still see the amount of complaining we see today about Google+ accounts.

Voice search is a natural extension (and time will tell if its an ideal one), but I think the thing that is most interesting with all of this is the steps these companies are making in natural language processing.

Seriously, name me one successful company that doesn't have a host of failures and cancelled products attached to their name.

I much prefer Google launch a ton of products and only focuses on the one's that "stick" because I know they will generally create an incredibly good product once they are fully invested in it (see Android, Chrome, GMail, Docs, Analytics, etc).

nothing stopping them from doing so.

Google's complaint isn't that "nobody" is using WP, so stop bringing out that strawman to make yourself sound smart.

Google's argument is simply that Microsoft, a company that should know better, is intentionally breaking the Youtube ToS. The lack of native app is because Google has determined that WP users can "live with" watching videos in the browser for the time being.

@CloudNine WP users can access YouTube videos, the only difference is whether its through an official app or their web browser. So yes, it does matter a lot to them that these eyes are no longer seeing ads that they previously would have.

Google has obviously determined that WPs tiny marketshare isn't enough to justify creating a native app when the browser will work decently enough. Thinking otherwise is just ... idiotic.

Yes, Google is making a big deal out of this when apps like MetroTube already do the same thing. The difference here is its Microsoft, a huge company who has gone out of its way to sling shit on Google, instead of 2 dudes from NZ.

Save your breath, CloudNine is one of those Microsoft zealots as well.

> Google is doing this to hurt the adoption of Windows Phone.

If you really believe that, I have a bridge to sell ... after I stop laughing.

Same reason the vast majority of devs do not make a WP app, or release a crappy version 2 years later.

Pricing is $9.99/month or $7.99/month if you sign up soon (I think he said in the first 30 days).

Glad to see this coming to iOS, the more users, the more feedback Google will get on how to improve the service for everyone.

Hope Apple can try their hand at creating some cross platform applications as well.

it's definitely not small or easy to miss. The whole "instant upload" part is an entire screen outlining what it is with a clear opt-out.

What color do you suggest without making the text of the ad illegible? Perhaps a bright red border around the ads?

Pretty much everything you listed has been a problem with those products from the beginning. My point is, Google hasn't ruined everything like the OP wants to claim, and there's no massive backlash, even for Google+. It's really a shame that even on a site like HN, a completely exaggerated and emotionally driven response that only has a shred of truth can get so many upvotes.