Now Google is blocking Windows Phones from accessing maps.Google.com

http://wmpoweruser.com/now-google-is-blocking-windows-phones-from-accessing-maps-google-com/

by unwiredben • 14 years ago

121 106 14 years ago

I'd be curious to see what happens if you change your user-agent header...

rbanffy• 14 years ago

When you change it to something else (I did to Android 2.3, WebOS) it worked. When accessing with a WP7 user agent string ("Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows Phone OS 7.5; Trident/5.0; IEMobile/9.0; SAMSUNG; SGH-i917)" I was redirected to www.google.com.

Looks like an innocent mistake, however. Or they decided they wouldn't support IEMobile 9.

jongalloway2• 14 years ago

Wait, how does that look like an innocent mistake? It used to work, they changed some code, and now they're blocking users with a specific useragent.

ZeroGravitas• 14 years ago

I remember when it was Opera that people cared so little about that they regularly banned it, purely by accident. Not a good place for Windows Phone to be.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/msn/

sergiotapia• 14 years ago

"Not a client side problem. I just ran it through a network capture. (see here[1] )

Google is 302 redirecting anything with a WinPhone user agent to the main page. This may be a bug rather than an intentional thing, but it's Google's bug to be sure." Source: http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/15yx0a/after_mic...

[1] http://i.imgur.com/Hfum6.jpg

---

And update here:

http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/4/3836510/windows-phone-8-use...

Seems this is 100% intentional from Google. What the fuck? I was completely blindsided by this, I couldn't imagine a huge company like Google doing this at this scale.

ams61102• 14 years ago

Well... it's their service. And you're not paying for it. Seems to me they can offer it any way they want.

I don't know if it's a good move on their part, that's a different question.

danilocampos• 14 years ago

> Well... it's their service. And you're not paying for it. Seems to me they can offer it any way they want.

It doesn't so much work that way for Google in 2013. They must be above reproach. Using their dominant leverage in one business to fiddle with competition in another would invite much unwanted government scrutiny – however chuckle-worthy the irony might be, with Microsoft now the aggrieved party.

azharcs• 14 years ago

This is exactly the reasoning that pisses me off. If MS pulled the same shit, we would be out with pitchforks ready to bury them. Have some consistency. Any corporation using their monopoly product to provide a bad experience for competitive products is evil.

JosephHatfield• 14 years ago

I think it's important not to use this sort of response to excuse the behavior of companies who don't respect their customers. Google is making money from this traffic. Plenty of companies offer a free service and treat their customers very well.

YeahKIA• 14 years ago

And it was cleared by FTC of any misbehavior!

jacquesm6• 14 years ago

They may very well not be so lucky the next time around, and they have the EU commission to be wary off as well.

lazyjones• 14 years ago

> Seems this is 100% intentional from Google. What the fuck? I was completely blindsided by this, I couldn't imagine a huge company like Google doing this at this scale.

The funny thing about this is that Microsoft used to employ such methods to harm the competition, or so it was claimed (regarding WordPerfect etc.).

It's also mildly amusing that a lot of people still believe the "Don't Be Evil" credo Google used to have.

nnnnni• 14 years ago

MS blocked Firefox from Hotmail for a while back in ~2001. Changing the useragent to IE would make it work.

shrikant• 14 years ago

Not sure why there's so much noise around this. I have an old Nokia N8, and maps.google.com doesn't work (and has never worked) on either the Webkit-based stock browser or Opera Mobile.

There is however a native Google Maps app which works just fine.

sbuk6• 14 years ago

"... (and has never worked) on either the Webkit-based stock browser"

Interesting, given Google's statement regarding why maps cannot be used.

guard-of-terra3• 14 years ago

"This development shouldn't come as any type of shock, however, since Google Maps relies on WebKit on mobile devices"

This is ridiculous. User agent checking / "This site is best viewed with" in my 2013, by Google. What happened to their "Don't be a monkey armed with a hand grenade" motto?

(I understand that might be loose journalism)

wlesieutre• 14 years ago

Microsoft predicted this to an extent, just a few months back: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/11/micros...

belgianguy• 14 years ago

Try going to http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com with a non-IE browser and be amazed.

recoiledsnake4• 14 years ago

I tried in Opera and IE10, and in both got the message to open Control Panel and access Windows Update.

Anyway yours is a very bad example since Windows Update needs an ActiveX component to update the OS itself, which is not amenable to web standards, unlike a mapping service.

nthitz2• 14 years ago

Is it just me or has the other hacker news submission on this story with much more discussion disappeared?

jamesgagan• 14 years ago

if you mean this one, it's just moved down: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5010891

nthitz2• 14 years ago

Indeed that's the one. Given its current points and submission time I really don't understand the HN sorting algo sometimes.

brudgers• 14 years ago

I'm not saying this isn't new, but I've had a WP7 phone since June 2011; I've never been able to access a Google map on it.

lawdawg2• 14 years ago

same

dannyr• 14 years ago

Well, if what you're saying is true, I guess tech blogs and Hacker News are just freaking out over nothing.

If it's indeed old, the timing is suspect since Google just avoided sanctions from the FTC. MS lobbied hard to get Google penalized.

majormajor• 14 years ago

Huh. The ad-supported third-party gMaps app still works on my WP7.5 Lumia. Not sure what I'd gain by using it in the browser.

lawdawg2• 14 years ago

You don't get to whine about it when something you never use stops working.

jsilence• 14 years ago

Maybe Microsoft should put some funding into OpenStreetmap.

allerratio• 14 years ago

They already support OSM. You can trace their aerial photos from bing which is the best material you are allowed to trace in many regions.

See wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bing

manojlds• 14 years ago

There is no need for Google maps or anything else as there is Nokia maps / Here maps

SeppoErviala• 14 years ago

I haven't tested WP8 devices but the default browser on WP7.5 didn't support pinch gestures so google just displayed a page saying "Your device is not supported".

petrel• 14 years ago

Again a open case of abusing Monopoly. Google keep forcing the users as it want and everyone says, its a free service and can be bent as Google want. It forces to use Google Plus for may services, forces to log in to Google to install chrome extensions.

dansul• 14 years ago

>forces to log in to Google to install chrome extensions

Is there a legitimate reason for this?

jxi2• 14 years ago

Yes, some extensions use identity API's.

glogla2• 14 years ago

It's more that you can install "extensions" just fine, but need to be logged in to get "web apps". In reality, both are Chrome ran code, but there's the distinction there. You can however install basic extensions like adblock or ghostery without logging into Chrome.

(It won't help you on the anonymity standpoint of course, because every Chrome has unique id that's recorded when you log into any google service)

It's the "we require login to access any google docs documents if you use chrome, but don't need it if you use other browser" that's more annoying than web apps in my opinions.

jxi2• 14 years ago

I would hardly call blocking an unsupported mobile OS from loading a website monopolistic. It's like blocking OSX apps from running on Windows even though it might kind of "work". It would tarnish Google's reputation if people tried to use it and see how broken it is/will become since nobody is developing for it. It's a much better solution to just block it outright.

taligent5• 14 years ago

Actually no. The smart solution is to try and support it perhaps with a degraded experience.

Or perhaps Google is planning a future rebranding to Android Maps.

guard-of-terra3• 14 years ago

"It's like blocking OSX apps from running on Windows"

No it's not. You don't understand how the Web works. Please delete your comment and then, optionally, your account.

warfangle• 14 years ago

If people want to use WP8, they can use bing maps.

gillianseed• 14 years ago

It's certainly an interesting development, Microsoft has been gunning for Google by any means, fair or foul: http://readwrite.com/2013/01/03/googles-ftc-settlement-is-an...

Now it seems Google is doing pay-back by crippling Microsoft's Phone efforts by not offering their services on them. I can't feel sorry for Microsoft in the least, it seems like finally they are subjected to 'what you reap is what you sow'.

jgroome• 14 years ago

I feel like it's the customers who are being punished, not so much Microsoft.

glogla2• 14 years ago

Yes, but it's Microsoft customers who implicitly agree with Microsoft policies like pressuring OEMs to not sell computers without Windows Tax, or the whole Secure Boot debacle.

sbuk6• 14 years ago

Google's statement:

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.

Microsoft's response:

Internet Explorer in Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 use the same rendering engine.

ch0wn• 14 years ago

Google, however, doesn't provide the same version of Google Maps for desktop and mobile.

sbuk6• 14 years ago

So instead of not providing any service, why not offer the desktop service with caveats, or stop just supporting one rendering engine.

taligent5• 14 years ago

So I take it Mobile Firefox and Opera will not be supported either ?

guard-of-terra3• 14 years ago

They seem to not understand the word "optimized". On that they base their attempts to harm, hurt and destroy the Web.

It's time to mourn the Google we looked up to. It no longer exists. What we have now is Microsoft and another Microsoft.

marshray• 14 years ago

So in other words, maps.google.com is not a website, it's a hostname that serves data over HTTP to some limited set of proprietary applications.

Are they really trying to screw up interoperability on the web like some two-bit banking website in 1999 that only worked with Internet Explorer?

Does Google not understand that they have more to lose than anyone if retaliatory User-agent sniffing screws up the open web?

compilercreator• 14 years ago

Relatedly, see also the Youtube access blocking on Windows Phone http://www.wpcentral.com/youtube-access-and-windows-phone-mi...

outside1234• 14 years ago

And it begins. It's clear to me that Google is the next Microsoft now -- cue chokeholds on competitors, starting with maps on iOS and WP.

emehrkay• 14 years ago

I guess we're forgetting how expensive it is to officially support IE. When Windows phone first launched it came with some sort of IE6/7 combo and was, of course, another nightmare from Microsoft for web developers.

If it were up to me, I wouldnt have my developers waste the effort on a browser/device that doesnt matter. However, I have not targeted the newest version of mobile IE, it is on my list, I have read that it is magnitudes better than what they originally shipped.

zimbatm• 14 years ago

Where's the proof that this is some sort of "retaliation" ? As far as we know it could be an update to GWT that introduces the change.

recoiledsnake4• 14 years ago

I agree there's no proof of retaliation and the article is going a little overboard with jumping to conclusions but why would an update to GWT cause a site to redirect user strings with "Windows Phone" in them to google.com ?

Anyway Google has come out with a statement saying that only webkit is supported on mobile for maps.

Now Google is blocking Windows Phones from accessing maps.Google.com

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