Google Category Archives
the user experience seems not to wow you
1 December 2013 | Apple, Economics, Google | No Comments
вот несколько цифр для любителей порассуждать о засилии мобильных устройств под управлением Android:
IBM says it tracked “millions of transactions and terabytes of data from approximately 800 U.S. retail websites” on Thanksgiving and Black Friday.
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iOS traffic reached 28.2 percent of all online traffic, compared to 11.4 percent for Android. iOS sales reached 18.1 percent of all online sales, compared to 3.5 percent for Android.
это и есть реальность.
например
19 November 2013 | Google, Privacy, Security, Software | 1 Comment
каждый день, каждую минуту:
Google is beta-testing a program that uses smartphone location data to determine when consumers visit stores, according to agency executives briefed on the program by Google employees. Google then connects these store visits to Google searches conducted on smartphones in an attempt to prove that its mobile ads do, in fact, work.
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It is easiest for Google to conduct this passive location tracking on Android users, since Google has embedded location tracking into the software.
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But Google can also constantly track the location of iPhone users by way of Google apps for iOS. <...> Google’s namesake iOS app — commonly referred to as Google mobile search — continues collecting a user’s location information when it runs in the background.
как было когда-то сказано:
The problem here isn’t how Google (or Facebook or anyone else) handles our privacy; the problem is that Google shouldn’t be managing our privacy. And Google (and others) need to stop demanding otherwise.
инженеры
4 November 2013 | Design, Google, Software | No Comments
задолго до перехода с iOS 6 на iOS 7 Apple, как и полагается, опубликовала iOS 7 UI Transition Guide, где, в том числе, детально описывалось, какие изменения и как именно надо реализовать в интерфейсе обновляющихся програм. не остался в стороне от этих перемен, само собой, и Google: все иконки соответствующих приложений были действительно изменены, убрана вышедшая из моды глубина, сделана (вопреки минувшему разнобою) попытка визуально объединить сервисы в единный пакет, и многое другое.
но даже в этом случае дизайнеры от Google умудрились нарисовать свои пиктограммы вопреки всем рекоммендациям и — дальше больше — придерживаясь разных шаблонов.
иными словами, все снова, как всегда.
on eagles
3 September 2013 | Apple, Google, Hardware, Microsoft | No Comments
впрочем (oh, dear me), есть и сомневающиеся:
Microsoft makes a mobile OS, that the market doesn’t seem to want. Nokia smartphones sales make drying paint seem like a John Woo thriller. It doesn’t matter from which angle you look, the combination of these two companies into a single entity doesn’t add up.
нюанс, однако, в том, что не все так просто:
In the Q2 2012 Windows Phone was the fourth most used OS in Latin America. Fast forward one year and it’s climbed to the number two position, with strong performance in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. In Colombia it holds a 25.6% share of the market. This data comes from the Mobile Phone Tracker report from the IDC for the second quarter of 2013.
биполярное мышление, win-or-loose стратегии — все это исключительно далеко от реалий окружающего нас мира. важно, наоборот, увидеть свою нишу — и победить там (благо, что и возможности для роста еще остались). глобальное же противостояние все равно не выиграть никому.
mergers and acquisitions
3 September 2013 | Economics, Google, Hardware, Jurisprudence, Microsoft | No Comments
итак, давно ожидаемое случилось, Microsoft купил мобильный бизнес Nokia. как говорится, “if this isn’t commitment [to smartphones] not sure what is?” более того, проклинаемый годами Стивен Элоп[1] теперь, похоже, будет одним из основных претендетов на кресло Баллмера.
но вот, что так же бросается в глаза:
The deal structure is the opposite of the Google-Motorola deal: Google acquired Motorola, according to what it told the world at the time, primarily for its patent portfolio and was just required to take over the product business as well because Motorola’s then-CEO told Google that, stripped of its patents, the device business wouldn’t be able to defend itself against patent-wielding rivals. Google grossly overpaid for Motorola’s patents. It currently has only one enforceable patent injunction in place against Apple (in Germany) and none against Microsoft, and the one against Apple will be history long before the end of the year. By contrast, Microsoft merely licenses Nokia’s patents, but the remaining Nokia company, which will keep the HERE mapping and location software (of which Microsoft is expected to become a top three customer) and the NSN infrastructure business, will still own them.
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8,500 design patents are indeed acquired, but not Nokia’s utility (technical) patents. Design patents are typically not licensed to third parties.
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The fact that Microsoft would pay EUR 1.65 billion (almost $2.2 billion at the current exchange rate) for a 10-year license (including the option for a future extension) is a boost for Nokia’s patent monetization aspirations. And Nokia’s patent monetization — which I’ve been watching (particularly the related litigations) for some time now — will obviously continue. Other prospective licensees will deal with a company that is financially strengthened by this deal and can point to yet another “blue chip” licensee that has recognized the value of Nokia’s portfolio.
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могу лишь догадываться, что фанаты Nokia думают о нем сегодня. ↩
no legitimate expectation of privacy
16 August 2013 | Google, Internet, Privacy, Security | 1 Comment
тем временем в судебном ходатайстве Google нашли чудесный пассаж:
Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient’s assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their communications are processed by the recipient’s ECS [electronic communication service] provider in the course of delivery. Indeed, “a person has no legitimate expectation of privacy in information he voluntarily turns over to third parties.”
все так и есть, конечно. то есть, можно долго рассуждать о некой предполагаемой честности, надеяться и ожидать порядочности, но когда сервису достается такой объем данных, то удержаться, я верю, становится просто невозможно.
мне долгое время нравилась старая мысль о том, что упавший с дерева лист проще всего спрятать в лесу — как-то так я и подходил к своей почте в Google-неводе. да и шифрование, понятное дело, никто не отменял. но в конце концов, нам остается только задать себе один простой вопрос: сколько еще мы готовы терпеть? и не пора ли искать собственные[1] решения?
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провайдеры которых тоже, разумеется, будут так или иначе находиться под государственным присмотром. ↩
неизбежный урон
15 August 2013 | Apple, Google, Hardware, Software | No Comments
опять, да, да, о фрагментации, — оттого что это не просто телефоны или планшеты, а самый натуральный бизнес.
вот один аспект, например:
Fragmentation continues to crop up on Android in weird ways for devs but now is going to the next level—affecting the ecosystem. Tomorrow Apple is no longer just about integrated hardware / software, it’s about an entire integrated ecosystem. The software is built in advance while hardware is designed and spec’ed, developers have your APIs and it all just works together in tandem. To some extent Google can do this with products it controls and distributes like Glass and Chromecast (via OTA updates), but fragmentation will start to hurt Android more and more in smartphone web services which it doesn’t develop.
а вот другой:
It’s not even funny how bad fragmentation will hurt Android and Google in location based sharing and payments apps, short range sharing, and the type of things developers build on top of iBeacon (e.g. payments). Fragmentation doesn’t matter as much when you are the only one person affected, people deal with it. But when your Android phone won’t communicate with others or at POS terminals (tablets / iPads) it will be tough to rationalize. Bluetooth LE in Android is happening now, but fragmentation is a deal killer for devs, and this ensures that state of the art apps around local discovery / wireless will rarely support Android[1]. It’s already happening — Tile has raised about $3M from 50K backers and there will be no Android support (these are tagging devices running Bluetooth LE that help you find lost keys etc).
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пир духа, натурально:
For some reason fragmentation always elicits the “too many screen sizes” example—but issues such as those can be overcome with responsive design. The real trouble comes in different ways – e.g. a friend I know has been seeing a lifecycle bug crash the keyboards on ALL Samsung phones. It’s not an Android version issue, it crashes the app across revs; it’s something non-standard Samsung is doing to Android itself. These are the types of problems that slow down developers and cause them to reevaluate Android support next time.
дележ добычи
15 August 2013 | Apple, Google, Software, The Great Game | No Comments
так же, с бюджетным iPhone 5C пересекается еще и другой сюжет:
As much as Apple will benefit from getting new customers with an entry level iPhone that benefits their ecosystem so will Google. We know Google makes more on iOS than Android and interestingly an entry level iPhone will likely help Google’s bottom line as well. When you dig through the numbers on how profitable iOS is to Google’s search revenue, Google may be the biggest cheer leader for a lower-cost iPhone.
что, интересно, думают в Apple по этому поводу? и какой поисковик будет установлен в этот раз?
it’s quirky and it’s different
10 August 2013 | Google, Lifeform | 1 Comment
ну да, мы часто задумываемся, что же такое суть компания Google, в чем ее исключительные признаки — и вот, например, отличное исследование, взгляд со стороны:
On top of this quick-turn bias there’s the cultural training of Google’s senior management. Most big companies end up being run by professional managers who came up through business school or finance, where they get trained in the rhythms and personality of traditional big business. They learn a shared vocabulary and set of values that are very familiar and comfortable to investors. By contrast, Google is completely controlled by engineering PhDs. They speak the language of science rather than business, and they’re contemptuous of the vague directional platitudes and reassuring noises made by modern finance and marketing.
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One key element of the engineering mindset is the use of scientific method: you encourage a Darwinian marketplace of ideas, you test those ideas through controlled experiments, and you make decisions based on experimental data.
действительно, если принять это наблюдение, то многое становится очевидным — скажем, почему с такой легкостью убили Reader:
When an experiment is completed, you either choose to follow up on it, or you terminate it and move on to something else. A scientist doesn’t get emotional about this; it’s the way the system works, and everyone knows that it’s all for the best.
и правда, к чему переживания? к чему задумываться об определенной успешности? это просто эксперимент, не больше. и он выполнил свою цель. аналогично, кстати, и с покупкой Motorola Mobility — в известном смысле, это тоже эксперимент, и кого заботят потраченные миллионы?
The second unusual aspect of Google is its ownership structure. Never forget: Google is not really a public company. Sure, it has stock and all the other attributes of a normal public company, but 56.7% of Google’s voting shares are held by cofounders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. As long as they remain friends, they can do whatever they want with the company, and they cannot be fired.
сегодня им около 40, а значит еще минимум 35 лет продуктивной работы во главе компании. кто знает, может к тому времени и правда случится обещанная сингулярность? что ж, у AI тогда и в самом деле оказалась бы исключительно богатая выборка данных, лучший источник для познания мира.
очень хорошая статья, да: о странностях, о слабостях[1] и о будущих инвестициях.
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например:
Google is much less effective when its original goal in a market changes. Because of its quick-reaction nature, Google frequently launches projects that seem very important at the time, but later turn out to be not so critical after all. The market evolves, priorities change, maybe a competitor becomes less prominent. When that happens, the Google projects are in danger of cancellation, and nobody likes working on a canceled project. So the teams frequently start iterating on their goals the same way they would on their features. Usually they end up chasing the latest trendy issue in search of a revenue stream and continued existence.
That’s usually the road to hell. Once a project starts changing goals, it’s almost impossible to diagnose the cause of any problems it has with market acceptance.
или так:
Google’s strength in science and quick response makes it very fast at incrementally improving the performance and reliability of its products. But that same process makes it almost impossible for Google to lead in features or product ideas that can’t be proved or verified through research. That’s why Google struggles in user experience, creating new product categories, and fitting its products to the latent needs of users: all of those are intuition-led activities in which it’s very hard to prove ahead of time what’s right or wrong. Even if there are people within Google who have extraordinary taste and vision, it’s very hard for them to drive action because their ideas can’t pass the science-style review process that Google uses for decision-making.
пропорция
31 July 2013 | Google, Hardware, Software | 2 Comments
еще о фрагментации — на этот раз от разработчиков BBC iPlayer:
Today we have an Android development team that is almost 3 times the size of the iOS team.
ну да, ну да:
Distinct Android devices seen this year: 11,8683,997
Devices surveyed for this report: 682,000
Samsung’s share of those devices: 47.5%
Android versions still in use: 8
Android users on Jelly Bean: 37.9%
к слову, там же, в отчете, есть чудесные графики, просто изумительные — очень рекоммендую посмотреть.
или вот еще аналогичный пример, но под другим углом:
In one illustrative example of Apple’s dominance, Electronic Arts’ The Simpsons: Tapped Out earned $4.8 million combined in the month of April. Of that revenue, 79 percent came from the iOS App Store, while the remaining 21 percent was a result of gamers on Android.
и не забудьте разделить, как минимум, на три, ага.
кто вообще создает программное обеспечение для Android? зачем? чтобы превратить свою жизнь в ад?