Google Blindness

http://www.marco.org/2013/08/13/google-blindness

by mh_ • 13 years ago

90 110 13 years ago

Fuzzwah2• 13 years ago

So you've got to choose one and he's chosen apple. The previous article chose google.

I've chosen google but what would make an interesting article for me is one which explained whether iOS or android was better if / when I want to cut myself off from either apple or google's online services and replace them with self hosted email / calendar / etc.

veemjeem• 13 years ago

I think one of the core differences according to his article is that the "data" for google calendar/contacts/etc are only stored on the cloud. You don't have physical copies of these on your desktop. Apple's products have historically been on the desktop so your calendar & contacts would mostly reside on your home computer and the only thing you would lack is the cloud syncing if apple were to go kaput.

bdcravens3• 13 years ago

Yes, the data is on your computer. I use Google for calendar, email, and contacts. Guess what? That data is also on my desktop if cloud syncing goes kaput. If you only use your phone and your cloud service of choice (whether Google or iCloud), then yes, you're in a world of hurt, but the scenario you described is pretty common amongst Google users as well.

madoublet• 13 years ago

I would argue that you do not have to choose one. In fact, it is probably better if you don't.

Fuzzwah2• 13 years ago

My 1st line was a poorly worded TL;DR of the article. I agree with your point.

greedo2• 13 years ago

And that's the point Marco makes; that relying solely on one vendor (Apple/Google/Facebook/Twitter/MS) is foolish.

sveme• 13 years ago

That's not what the article says. Rather, keep away from ecosystems at all. If a company tries to bind you to its ecosystem, stay away, as you are bound to be the one suffering from it in the long run.

It's a shame that the internet seems to be on day four of groundhog day, seeing the same story played out over and over.

1. a dominating ecosystem or a couple of ecosystems exist (e.g., AOL in the early days) 2. increased lock-in makes people yearn for alternatives 3. open alternatives spring up, gain momentum and overcome the dominating ecosystem 4. the previous alternative is now successful and starts to diversify its offerings 5. with increasing adoption and an increased market share, the company tries to connect services, for the convenience of its users (that's what they say) or for increased lock-in (that's what they don't say) 6. over time, now this former upstart becomes the dominant ecosystem, increasingly removing the openness from its services and connecting its offerings so that you don't have to leave them ever (we are back at 1.) 7. users start to feel the pain of being locked-in and yearn for open alternatives...

The only way to break this cycle is by actively pursuing alternatives, by diversifying its providers and by making a conscious decision to forgo immediate convenience gains by using the same provider for different services.

npsimons2• 13 years ago

An answer in one link: http://www.dataliberation.org/

DannoHung• 13 years ago

Considering the shitfits people were going into over Reader being eliminated, you'd think people would be a little more cautious about giving Google the keys to the kingdom on things as crucial as calendaring, contacts, and mail. Which is why the original article was a pretty good summation for me of why I'm not going to go Android any time soon, personally.

toomuchtodo• 13 years ago

None of the services you listed at Google are going to cause me problems to pull my data out if I need to move somewhere else on short notice.

Kylekramer• 13 years ago

I think the Reader shutdown is actually an example of why I am fine going into the Google ecosystem. Marco talks a lot about lockdown, but I haven't experienced it. Reader's shutdown was pretty abrupt, but I am happily using The Old Reader (minus the shutdown scare and less than stellar uptime) the same way I used Google Reader. Sure, I'd prefer Reader to still be around, but overall the transition was easy and pain free. I trust if the same thing were to happen to Gmail, Calendar, or Contacts I would have the same experience. And meanwhile, being in the Google ecosystem while it still runs makes my day to day life much better.

The only product that would concern me is Voice, and even then I believe a suitable replacement would pop up and Google would provide a relatively easy transition.

jljljl• 13 years ago

It was so, so easy to move on from Reader, which is why I think the shutdown was not such a big deal.

Google gave months of advance warning, and made it easy to export your feeds and data in a cross platform, open format. The fact that their API was open for other clients to use meant there was already an (admittedly limited) ecosystem of feed-reader UI apps that could pick up where they left off, such as Feedly and TheOldReader.

You lost a good product when Reader shut down, but you didn't lose the kingdom by any means

anxious3• 13 years ago

Seems the author is suffering from fanboyism induced blindness. The main points made about Android that make it great have little to do with Google: the ability to set default apps, intent sharing between apps, notifications, customised launchers, etc. Also in the referenced post the Android user describes rolling his own solutions with Bittorrent Sync: http://paulstamatiou.com/android-is-better

Somehow OP glossed all over that and shifted the discussion to a troll baiting exercise. The truth is that whether you're wed to Google's services or to Apple's you're make certain tradeoffs, but one key difference remains is that you can be a Google user on the iPhone which puts them ahead in my opinion.

Also I don't buy the disingenuous argument that since Apple is less adequate at services they are somehow better at privacy - more data makes better apps.

bdcravens3• 13 years ago

Keep in mind that many iOS users are as tied to the Google ecosystem. My email, calendar, and contacts are all Google-synced. Most decent calendar apps tend to use Google as well; ditto for mail apps like Mailbox. Many of the Google apps (like Maps) make it too easy to login, which the features it adds.

ajross• 13 years ago

Exactly. I think there's a good article to be written about cloud-lock-in and its effect on mobile OS choice. But this isn't it. This is just Marco "whining respectfully" about why his opinion is different because he objects "to a huge, creepy advertising company having that much access to me and my data". Paul's original article, frankly, was just clear advocacy of the form "I tried this and liked it and you should too!", and I can't see how Marco adds anything that wasn't clear from the original.

Really, yawn. I'm personally very much in the Android camp (though not a big cloud user -- I like the photo backups and bookmark synching, but don't use gmail or Google Now much at all), and found Paul's "Android is better" to be a refreshing confirmation that as the market matures and stabilizes iOS users are finally looking at alternatives. But clearly not all of them agree; I don't think I needed to read Marco's blog post to know that.

jonknee• 13 years ago

Apple's policy of only supporting iOS definitely makes Google's popularity on iOS interesting. If the APIs open up a bit more it will be even more interesting--I would love to be able and never see Safari again.

product50• 13 years ago

Again these are his personal views as well (similar to Paul's). I think if you take a cross section of all the smartphone users though, there will be a lot many who use Google's services vs. Apple's. So not sure what Marco would suggest to those - should they give Android a try based on Paul's article then? Though I am an Android user, I think this debate is broader than whether you use Google services or not.

hawleyal• 13 years ago

Same coin, different side.

casca3• 13 years ago

We're currently in the stage of the Internet where we can choose our feudal masters[1]. Want Google? Fine. Prefer Apple. No problem. Microsoft? Why not. For me, the issue is that people are becoming more entrenched as time progresses. The cost of preparing to switch can be relatively low - pay $8/year for your own domain and it's possible to keep using the same systems you choose today.

Yet if the technological elite (as represented by HN) is unwilling to do this, what chance do the rest have? [2]

[1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2012/12/feudal_sec.ht...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5537383

bdcravens3• 13 years ago

Indeed. If Google and Dropbox stopped working, a ton of apps on my phone would be broken or significantly impaired.

josh26002• 13 years ago

Your comment could have a few names changed and apply equally well to the Lycos and Yahoo web portals of the early Internet.

The Tech elite have the same chance as the rest of us. We're all humans, vulnerable to loneliness, envy and every other mortal sin. The pain of switching is not technical, but social and political.

It is a deeply political and social decision to disconnect from our social fabric and not one that even the most ostracized members of society make in haste. I just think you're ignoring the real costs in favor of the monetary concerns.

casca3• 13 years ago

Very much agreed. My point is more that the cost to prepare to switch is very low. We have a high degree of certainty that email will be used for the foreseeable future so why not make the addressing movable?

How can we make the preparation for flexibility become a pure technical problem and not a social one?

acqq5• 13 years ago

Exactly. Every time I hear some company telling they've just decided that they don't need their own e-mail servers and that they do everything through GMail, I worry a little more.

Disclaimer: I use Google's services myself. I can't imagine who doesn't. But somewhere in the back of my mind, I think about it sometimes...

Spearchucker• 13 years ago

I don't use anything from Google or Apple. I have a Windows Phone, host my own mail in Luxemburg, and don't use any cloud storage. I can't imagine why anyone would use Google.

dictum3• 13 years ago

The cost of preparing to switch can be relatively low - pay $8/year for your own domain and it's possible to keep using the same systems you choose today.

Domains are not the only thing you need to take into account. There is hosting, deployment, and keeping things up to date and secure.

Take email for example. Google no longer offer free Google Apps accounts, so you have to spend at least $50/year for a single user to use Google Apps Mail with your domain while you prepare to switch to your own server.

To run your own server, you may wish to use a VPS. You can find a cheap provider on LowEndBox, but for additional safety and reliability, you decide to sign up for a DigitalOcean VPS for $5/month.

Then you have to install it, keep it updated, etc.

It's not expensive, but it's not $8/year, and it's not as easy as just having a Gmail account.

This is just email; other services introduce other complications. I really don't want to spread FUD, and I wish more people would break away from the Apple/Google/Microsoft cage.

casca3• 13 years ago

I'm not advocating that people move now. The value of Gmail definitely outweighs current costs for many people so it makes sense to keep using it. But to buy a domain and forward email to a Gmail address does not require a VPS or maintaining it.

Other services may be harder to migrate, but they usually don't have the same cost of notification. If I change where my calendar is hosted, I don't need to inform all my contacts.

danielweber• 13 years ago

What are my rights if I have a Digital Ocean box and they decide I suck (the same way Apple or Google might)?

jxdxbx2• 13 years ago

With Hover at least you get a free forward-only email address with your domain, and with Gmail, you can send email "from" any address you have control over, without needing an apps account. So, with Gmail, and with the various first-party Gmail apps, it's a cinch to use your own domain for email without switching providers.

You can do this with Gmail over IMAP as well, though I just use the first-party apps on my devices for the most part. But for the record, if you set up a "Gmail" account on an iOS device this doesn't work; you have to set it up as IMAP and monkey with the settings a bit.

seiji3• 13 years ago

A lot of people are Children of The Church of Google. They're happy with a 100% data tithing to Google. That's Google's entire business: get data from users then make money from it for the furtherment of Google itself, not the users.

A lot of people are Children of The Church of Apple. They're happy with letting Apple carry buckets of data across devices, but the buckets of data remain in the person's control. That's Apple's entire business model: help people do what they need to do and don't encroach into lives needlessly.

jfb• 13 years ago

I don't like Google, and don't use their services, but it's in no way that straightforward. Pretty much the entirety of the marginal utility of Google's technology relies on the data their users share with them. It's a symbiotic relationship, not a purely parasitic one.

seiji3• 13 years ago

You give them data, they get billions of dollars. But hey, you can get your voicemails transcribed for free from their neglected voip service and, like, email for free. email for free with circles. So, it's a wash?

Oletros4• 13 years ago

I didn't knew that Apple has closed iAds

antitrust• 13 years ago

I object to a huge, creepy advertising company having that much access to me and my data, I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright foolish to tie that much of your data and functionality into proprietary services run by one company in one account...

He makes a good point.

Absolute power gets abused absolutely.

Unless the person to whom the power is handed is some kind of Zen master, it's likely they'll use that power for personal agenda.

The groups they like will become elites. The ones they don't will get lined up against walls and shot.

That's just how it is.

Even though Google says, "Don't be evil," they aren't Zen masters.

CodeCube• 13 years ago

"... they aren't Zen masters"

Well, not all of them, at least :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8fcqrNO7so

NotOscarWilde• 13 years ago

He doesn't sound like a Zen master to me either. I know it's probably hard to distinguish between Buddhist sects but "success and happiness" (the subtitle of the book that is promoted in the video) are not terms Zen Buddhism deals with usually.

Normal Buddhism does deal with these extensively, Four Noble Truths are all about suffering. But Zen Buddhism tends to dismiss these concepts as unimportant. They may be true, they may not be true, but while you're looking for happiness and success, Zen offers nothing.

Mindfulness meditation is rather cool, as is general Buddhism. I'm just trying to distinguish a bit here.

eltondegeneres• 13 years ago

Calling someone "blind" for being obtuse or oblivious doesn't really seem like the best word choice.

varelse• 13 years ago

GMail and Google Maps were my go to apps on Android for years (since 2009 in fact). They both suck now. Combine that with the brick-like interactivity of my less than 2 year-old Galaxy Nexus and I'm abandoning Android for iOS as soon as my contract expires despite the fact I actually prefer a lot of Android's look and feel.

To be fair, my Nexus 7 hasn't quite given up the ghost yet, but now that its successor has been released, I'm counting the days until it too becomes as responsive as Karen Ann Quinlan.

And that's a shame because Android's interface has really come a long way in that time. Paul Stamatiou's article showcases some really cool design advances that have happened since Android 4.0.

For me it all comes down to Google seeming to not care one bit about anything except the latest and greatest devices. Yes I know that Android 4.3 is supposed to address that - good luck shipping that one out to all the major carriers.

In closing, the same brickification that hit my Galaxy Nexus this year happened to my original droid in 2011 - fool me once shame on you, fool me twice...

firekesti• 13 years ago

You can put the factory image for 4.3 on your own Galaxy Nexus – I was having the same problems, running LagFix every night, and 4.3 cleared 100% of that away. The same problem (same cause, same fix) exists on the Nexus 7. Good luck!

smokinjoe• 13 years ago

Apple has the same issues where they slowly taper off the iOS versions that an aging iPhone can run.

What about the updated GMail and GMaps don't you like? The user experience has been beefed up significantly - going between user accounts and organizing mail in GMail has never been easier. The Google Maps interface is really pleasant to use and doesn't clutter up the screen when all you want to do is view the area.

Obviously those are two quick personal observations, but I'm very curious as to what recent features may have introduced friction to long-time users.

raphaelsaunier• 13 years ago

Could you elaborate on the 'brickification' of your Galaxy Nexus? I've owned a Galaxy Nexus pretty much since it came out and, I have to say, it is as good as the day it came out.

Also – and I don't mean to sound like a fanboy – I personally think that Google Maps and Gmail even better than they were two years ago. At which point did they start to suck in your opinion?

null_ptr• 13 years ago

I have a Galaxy Nexus with 4.3, and it's been getting progressively laggier with each update. Changing screen orientation, doing text input or moving the cursor inside a body of text, and opening the running apps list are all mildly frustrating.

It's as close to a stock install as you can get, too. It's so disappointing to see perfectly good hardware be so incompetently misused. This phone should fly. So I wonder if this is on purpose to force people to buy new hardware every few years, or if the people working on Android are either understaffed or just not very good developers.

workbench5• 13 years ago

not very good developers

Probably this judging by how many years the UI ignored the GPU on that platform.

acqq5• 13 years ago

One point I'd like to see discussed is written by Bruce Schneier, it made me look at the subject a bit differently than before:

If the National Security Agency required us to notify it whenever we made a new friend, the nation would rebel. Yet we notify Facebook. If the Federal Bureau of Investigation demanded copies of all our conversations and correspondence, it would be laughed at. Yet we provide copies of our e-mail to Google, Microsoft or whoever our mail host is; we provide copies of our text messages to Verizon, AT&T and Sprint; and we provide copies of other conversations to Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or whatever other site is hosting them.

The primary business model of the Internet is built on mass surveillance

http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2013/08/the_publicpriv...

Google's primary business is surveillance of their users. Selling the results to their customers, advertisers.

jmduke2• 13 years ago

I get clear utility out of letting Facebook know who my friends are.

I see no clear utility out of letting the NSA know who my friends are.

acqq5• 13 years ago

The Government would say: NSA protects you from the terrorists, there's your clear utility. But there are enough other threads to discuss NSA.

I'm interested in Google here. What are our limits feeding it? Are we really aware of what we are doing, in the name of convenience?

seiji3• 13 years ago

You get utility in exchange for giving them utility^2.

Is it worth giving someone $100 if they turn around and turn it into $10,000 when you get nothing in return? (Note: we're not designed to think on such expansive macro-connected scales, so nobody (except weirdos) cares to stop enabling such broken behaviors.)

anxious3• 13 years ago

I'll avoid making a comment of how NSA talk is hijacking every thread, but I'll attempt to correct your misgivings:

Google's primary business is advertising, meaning that like the publishers of yore they sell "space", now with the advent of technology that "space" gets populated with what the algos determine to be the best suitable ad according to data about the would be viewer of said ad. They don't 'sell their users to advertisers', they offer them a dashboard with which they supply the content of the advertisement, choose the interests they want to target, and measure the effectiveness of it all. Advertisers do not get exposed to user data - they deal with abstractions.

acqq5• 13 years ago

The point is, Google isn't just "selling space." They collect the data about you, admitting themselves that they prefer to never delete anything. The key word is "targeting," remember? In process, they still know more about you than your mother or partner. Somewhere in their guts, there is a collection of data about you, the depth of it not even imaginable before.

How we got here: Moxie Marlinspike, 2010:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG0KrT6pBPk

exacube• 13 years ago

As jmduke said, i feel it's pretty silly to compare Facebook to the NSA, when they operate in completely different contexts: the NSA doesn't ask for your permission for the data, while you and your friends are giving Facebook the data. People are angry because the NSA is collecting data on us without consent.

while i see the argument for "facebook is using the data in a way that we haven't given our consent for," i think it's a lot less severe issue because a) Facebook openly admits how it's using it, which makes the company honest (unlike the NSA) b) Ensures us that no human other than the ones you authorize will ever see said data. (unlike the NSA)

we can be angry because the NSA abused our trust, while Facebook has yet to break it. it's also very tiring to hear people and see them live defensively and not use facebook or google in case they might break your trust, its starting to border paranoia.

dkuntz2• 13 years ago

Facebook doesn't ask for your permission... Didn't you see the article on their "shadow profiles" a couple days ago?

They also aren't honest with how they use that data either, and they definitely don't "ensure us that no human other than the ones you authorized will ever see said data", there have been several huge incidents about that, including one involving Zuckerberg's sister. They continually break our trust, it's not paranoia, look this stuff up, or pay attention to terminology news..,

jmduke2• 13 years ago

So I think there are two points that Paul makes: hardware and services.

On the hardware front: I don't really buy the notion that Android hardware is up to par with Apple. I realize this is an inherently subjective argument: I've played with my friends' Android phones and I just don't like the way they look or feel compared to the iPhone.

On the services front: I think the argument that "Google is an advertising company and that makes them an inherently worse ecosystem" is weak, but I absolutely agree that we're past the point of "this is the best solution for everyone."

Personally -- I don't use any Apple services besides, well, the App Store, despite relying on them 100% for the hardware side (iPad + MBA + iPhone). And I don't use Google to the extent Paul does: I use GMail, Search, and Chrome.

This has the advantage of portability: I don't have to tie myself to a given ecosystem because I'm stuck there. I tie myself to whatever makes my life the easiest.

greedo2• 13 years ago

It'd be interesting to conduct a blind test, where all the logos/branding were removed from the devices.

67726e• 13 years ago

I don't know about you, but the device itself is branding. If I pick up an iPhone, I know pretty much immediately that I'm holding an iPhone based on the layout of the buttons, especially the "God" button. Similarly I would never mistake my Nexus 4 for an iPhone 5.

jjindev• 13 years ago

It would be interesting to live in a world where you couldn't show off your logo at ... I was about to say "Starbucks" but I should say ... the coffee shop.

This isn't to indict any particular brand, but when a brand is strong enough consumers of that brand use it to self-brand themselves. They wear the halo effect. And as I read Paul's essay I get some undercurrent that he's "hey, it's ok" to self-brand differently.

jinzo• 13 years ago

On the hardware front: I don't really buy the notion that Android hardware is up to par with Apple. I realize this is an inherently subjective argument: I've played with my friends' Android phones and I just don't like the way they look or feel compared to the iPhone.

It's not totally related to this discussion, and I'm not picking on you - but I had to mention this: I have a friend that bought himself a MacBook Pro (for around 2200€) and then went on to observe how this laptop is far better than any previous he owned, and how it's better than what his colleagues ad friends own. I agreed with him, and then told him that most of them paid way less than 1000€ for their laptop, and probably noone paid even close to what he paid (alas. there are not a lot of MacBooks around here), ofcourse a MacBook is way better than a 600€ HP laptop.

People forget that, most of the Android devices (analog to laptops) are actually cheaper than a iPhone.

r00fus• 13 years ago

Is it cheap if you replace it regularly?

The Core2Duo Macbook I bought in 2006 is almost as useful (albeit with an SSD now) as it was when I got it. It runs the latest OS and has decent enough graphics.

Most Windows systems just don't age as well (exception being perhaps an Thinkpad, but then again, that's cost equivalent to a mac anyway).

For phones, the argument is skewed by mobile operators as that service cost over a 2 year period greatly exceeds the cost of the phone itself.

donniezazen• 13 years ago

    The better question the Android community should be asking itself is why it hasn't attracted or developed great writers and evangelists as well as Apple has.

Android has much more global impact than iPhone will ever have [1]. A huge chunk of people in developing countries earn less-per-month than the cost of an iPhone. So who cares if some yeppie evangelist is not using it.

    People are going to be coming online for the first time. There’s this vibrant community of young app developers growing in Kenya and Nigeria. - Jimmy Wales.

Macro goes on at length on privacy without realizing that there is no way to tell if iPhone is not sending each bit of data back to government or any other organization for that matter. Open Source nature of Android, AOSP, makes it the most viable option in today's surveillance state.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2012/12/10/50-android-smartphones-are-...

patrix99• 13 years ago

Think Marco was talking about privacy in terms of using your data to sell to advertisers. In today's surveillance state, if it exists to the extent we think it does, whatever you do that remains constant so can't be used in comparison.

bluthru• 13 years ago

We're still doing this in 2013?

yevy• 13 years ago

I would wager that the reason Marco (and many other mobile entrepreneurs) gravitate to iOS boils down to one line in his post that he doesn't feel the need to defend:

"We can make a living developing for it."

Android has (roughly) 4X market share but just 1/3 of the revenue compared to iOS. When the per user revenue gap closes, Marco's preference may change.

krazyfrog• 13 years ago

He already has a version of Instapaper for Android, so he clearly has no problem making money off the platform, whatever little it may be in comparison to iOS.

workbench5• 13 years ago

He's also gone into great detail on his blog about how unsuccessful that has been and if he worked on the port himself (outside company volunteered to work on it) he wouldn't have been able to go fulltime like iOS allowed.

danso• 13 years ago

I don't get the point or impetus for the OP. Is it supposed to be a warning that one should never put all of their information-eggs in one basket? Or that Google is going to be the worser basket of the two?

The latter question of course is just a fanboy debate, and the former question elicits a "no-duh". But to boil it down to just Google vs. Apple misses the bigger picture: to spread our eggs across different baskets raises new issues of security and convenience, which are always going to be tradeoffs.

For example, if you're paranoid that either Apple or Google is going to shut off access to your contacts and calendar, is the solution to spread your information across both?

If so, how do you keep the two in sync (let's assume that at some point in the future, there was no first party support of syncing services)? Or let's say you want to use another calendar/contacts app completely. Then you rely on a third-party service, which raises the issue of 1. How long will that service stay in business? 2. Can you trust it with your data? 3. Do you have to learn another interface?

With the adoption of either iOS/Android, I think customers have shown that they do not want to live a splintered digital life. They want a future posited by sci-fi shows, where "things just work." It's not Apple vs Google, it's convenience vs. personal responsibility/maintenance.

johnward• 13 years ago

Can someone explain to me why Marco Arment's opinion is so important? I mean it even seems like he doesn't understand why. What makes him so popular?

bane4• 13 years ago

He consistently writes positively about and supports Apple and consistently poo poos Android. It doesn't hurt that many sites that favor Android in such a consistent and highly biased way are instakilled when submitted here.

He's not quite the shill that Gruber is, but it all adds up that he's popular on HN.

clarky07• 13 years ago

Speaking of instakilled, this went from #1 to #41 in a matter of minutes.

daurnimator• 13 years ago

Why has it been painted as a dichotomy of Apple vs Google?

In my experience, you want apple software/service, you have to go apple hardware; and essentially vice-versa. (Correct me if I'm wrong!)

But if you go with Android (or other OSes) you can choose whatever "cloud" services you want. Just cause Paul used Google with his android phone doesn't mean you have to.

runjake• 13 years ago

Marco's article is so poorly-written, so poorly thought-out, I don't know where to begin. It's really more an article about hating Google as a whole.

Google blindness? Or blind hatred for Apple's competitors?

Some gems, though:

  I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace
  services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright 
  foolish to tie that much of your data and functionality into 
  proprietary services run by one company in one account that 
  sometimes gets disabled permanently with no warning, no 
  recourse, and no support.

And Apple's services aren't less proprietary? Apple doesn't tie everything to one Apple ID? Google has pretty poor support, but I've never heard of anyone having their account (unreasonably) permanently disabled.

The Google search he links to is some useless Google search on "google account locked". Here's the equivalent Apple ID search:

https://www.google.com/search?q=apple+account+locked 26.7 million results.

Here's another:

https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=apple+i... Over 29 million results.

I could go on a side-discussion about the number of Google users vs Apple users and then compare percentages and Google results and point out that there seem to be more issues with Apple IDs than Google IDs per capita, but why bother?

What does it mean? People using both ecosystems get their accounts locked up for some reason or another.

  If Apple somehow irrevocably locks out my Apple ID, which
  I’ve never heard of happening, it would be inconvenient.
  My contacts and calendar would temporarily stop syncing 
  during the 20 minutes it would take to create a new 
  account and point my devices to it. The biggest problem 
  would be losing my app and media purchases, although I 
  wouldn’t lose any local copies of anything*

I've never heard of someone having their Google account irrevocably locked out, either.

  and there’s a phone number I can call to convince a human 
  to give me a transfer or credit.

Yeah, there's a number you can call for the Play Store for this purpose as well. I wish it were at the bottom of every page, but it's buried underneath a Help menu. That said, Apple's support is truly industry-leading and far better than what Google's got going. It's still not as bad or hopeless as Marco attempts to portray, though.

  It’s important to maintain diversity of services.

And you can do this with Android. You don't need to use any Google services. Sure it'll badger you at first, but no more than an Apple iOS device will.

In fact, I'd say that Android is better at maintaining diversity of services. You can install an account for a wide variety of providers in the Settings app, whereas Apple forces you to stick with whatever they choose for you (Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo, etc). Occasionally, they might remove a provider for you.

  It’s foolish for people on either side to ignore the 
  other or the middle, because despite what it sometimes
  looks like to geeks like us, we’re not everyone. Not 
  even close. Even within our world, we can’t agree on 
  much.

Is this self-deprecation on Marco's part?

  like Paul says he does

This snippet appears repeatedly in Marco's article and strikes me as a passive-aggressive snub. The leading Apple pundits (Gruber, Marco, Dalrymple) are getting more and more hateful towards Apple's competitors and I think this betrays an underlying belief that Apple's glory days are (sadly) waning. It screams desperation. Maybe this Ellison guy is right.

I'm not a particularly big fan of Google or Apple or Microsoft, and I despise Facebook. But I still use all of their tech daily, but I'm sure as hell not going to cheer lead for any of them.

Edit: Fixed broken copy-pasted links, thanks anonymoushn.

anonymoushn• 13 years ago

Both of your links are for the same search terms (google account locked), and they return 67 or 89 million results here.

Oletros4• 13 years ago

"The leading Apple pundits (Gruber, Marco, Dalrymple) are getting more and more hateful towards Apple's competitors"

Exactly this, they are more defensive each month it pass

bane4• 13 years ago

They're finally running out of places to move their goal posts to.

vondur• 13 years ago

I don't see anything wrong with the writing or thought process behind it. He's listing points on why he does not want to depend on Google's services. They may not mean anything to you. I have so much of my daily online activities wrapped up with a Google account, that I sometimes worry about if I lost access to them. Finding alternatives it possible, but not nearly as tidy as using Google apps.

bane4• 13 years ago

Marco is not quite the shill for Apple the Gruber is, but he's pretty close to it.

I've noticed a significant decrease in Daring Fireball posts hitting the front page in recent months, is Gruber now the new Apple shill^H^H^H^H^Hevangelist we have to deal with on HN now?

The only interesting point he makes here is that users shouldn't monoculture their services -- which I think is a good point. Then he proceeds to undermine his own argument.

I bet there are millions of Android users who'd love to use iTunes on their latest Android phone, or some other company's service, but Apple itself is responsible for not rolling these services out beyond their hardware ecosystem (acknowledging the incredibly shitty Windows ports of iTunes), thus preventing non-Apple users from become users of components of Apple's services.

But as it stands, Apple is not a good supporter of Marco's own arguments. In fact, if I don't want to use either company's services, I bet I can use more on my Android device. Hell I can even run my own mail server on my Android phone with half a dozen screen presses if I want to.

dictum3• 13 years ago

Apple propagandists have a way of acknowledging the wrongs of Apple while telling readers to not use Google's products and services:

Google says they like open things. Google had "Don't be evil" as a motto. However, Google does things that aren't open and things that are evil. That is why you shouldn't use Google's stuff.

My strawman isn't perfect, but it gets the gist of what Gruber, Marco et al say: Google tries to present itself as a better company, but they're not, so don't do business with them.

It's a noble point, but it completely glosses over Apple's equally bad behavior under the excuse that Apple, unlike Google, never pretended to be nice.

Symmetry• 13 years ago

A long time ago back in the 3GS days I was a happy iPhone user, who happened to like podcasts. There were several very nice podcast apps which I liked since they would download everything I wanted to listen to over the night and I could listen to them on my walk to work without having to boot up Windows and sync via iTunes. Then one day after an update all the podcast apps were gone from the Appstore and my phone since Apple claimed that they "Duplicated iTunes functionality". A few months later the mobile version of iTunes finally got the ability to do over-the-air synchs. And when an iTunes security update ended up installing Safari on my desktop that was the final straw.

I haven't had any experiences that bad with Google. Losing Google Reader was bad, but also made me appreciate the existence of the Data Liberation Front[1]. And I know I can install non-Google android or Ubuntu on my phone if it comes to that.

[1]http://www.dataliberation.org/

tewha• 13 years ago

Apple never removed apps. They stopped accepting updates.

tonyskyday• 13 years ago

This is simply not true. There are several podcast apps in the AppStore that I'm aware of (Instacast, Downcast, Aural...) and certainly several I've never heard of. I've been using Instacast since before Apple's app came out and just recently bought Aural.

jxdxbx2• 13 years ago

What podcast app was ever removed from the app store? There was some controversy before they started being accepted, and then problems with search in the app store. But I'm not aware of any apps that were accepted and then removed.

ZacharyRD• 13 years ago

.....Downcast is a podcast app I use constantly, has been around for years, and receives regular updates. You're, umm, wrong.

beat• 13 years ago

What about the personal cost of platform switching? I went to the iPhone when version 2 hit the market and it was clearly going to survive as a product. I hate switching technologies, with all the cost and frustration it involves. I've been able to have a single, constantly evolving configuration through four different phones now (five soon, once I can jump from my 4S to a 5S). It's always backed up. It's survived the physical destruction of a phone. It does everything I require of it, most of that very well.

So to get a user like me to switch platforms - it's a huge personal expense, not just of money, but of time and intellectual bandwidth. I don't need a device that's just arguably better, or a little better... I'd need a game-changer of a device to switch, something that does basically everything I do on my iPhone more efficiently, faster, better, cheaper. I don't see that.

I'll probably stay on iPhone unless Apple really screws up.

gcb0• 13 years ago

I usually disagree with marco posts here and i'm 99% sure he get's paid by apple :) but this point is pertinent and i'm looking for alternatives for gmail and maps and voice and failing.

caryhartline• 13 years ago

How do we know you're not being paid by Google or Microsoft? I guess they might cut you off for that comment.

thrownaway24242• 13 years ago

It doesn't seem very hard to believe that someone uses an iPhone but doesn't use iTunes to manage music. iTunes is next to useless if your music doesn't fit on your device. A service (such as Google Play Music All Access [worst product name ever]) makes more sense if you're always connected.

nimh2• 13 years ago

Apple has had iTunes Match since 2011 for music that doesn't fit on your device.

thrownaway24242• 13 years ago

Sure, for a fee. Google Music is free for the first bazillion bytes (20k songs or something).

xradionut2• 13 years ago

Marco so conveniently forgot the whole debacle of Apple's developer resources and sites being down for almost two weeks.

nimh2• 13 years ago

Which is completely irrelevant in a discussion about the iPhone from a user's perspective.

xradionut2• 13 years ago

The original poster is a developer. A developer for Apple platforms. Chances are this affected him and if not, it did affected his peers. Yet he never mentions the massively embarrassing outage...

Oletros4• 13 years ago

Marco Arment saying that other people has a "narrow tech-world view" is highly ironic

oscargrouch• 13 years ago

after reading both perspectives you learn that:

* you are locked in, no matter if you prefer android or ios * choose you poison?

come on, it took years and a lot of effort to take us all out of the nightmare of the windows ecosystem lock in.. so we can fall out in the same trap all over again?

and while this is a natural behavior of apple that we should be all expecting, i expected more from google.. because nowadays google is looking like a schizophrenic, working for the web and open ecosystems, creating a lot of awesome opensource projects with one hand, and creating more and more closed ecosystem that try to lock people and developers in.. google looks like dr jekyll and mr hyde..

i hope the open google, the google with the hacker culture, that the "Dr Jekyll" google wins in the end..

but nowadays it looks that google is more in a love affair with its mr hyde side.. i hope it gets cured preety soon and come back to its hacker spirit roots.. with no traps in their products..

apple will just loose more and more market share, because its acting like if it was the 90´s.. and we see now with microsoft that this way of doing things its a thing of the past.. so it will fall by its own steps..

but google with a candy in one hand, and a knife in the other hidden on the back.. thats a behaviour that should be feared..

workbench5• 13 years ago

You don't really get a choice about lock in, however you do get to choose if you want your actions, searches, communications and location harvested to build an advertising profile or not.

tptacek• 13 years ago

Not that any other forum would do a better job of carefully and intelligently discussing the differences between Apple and Google and iOS and Android, but just so you know: HN is terrible at these kinds of discussions. Maybe we should cultivate them so 'pg and his minions can come up with clever statistical tests for bad comments using these stupid OS-war slapfights as a corpus.

Meanwhile, to everyone else on the thread: GUESS WHAT? You're never going to resolve this issue. None of your comments are convincing anyone of anything. They're generating head-nodding from people who already agree with you, and rageposts from people who don't. It has ever been thus, since the moment where someone wrote a second text editor in the history of text editors, and it will always be thus. At least you're part of a noble, silly-looking tradition.

taylodl• 13 years ago

The most fundamental difference between Google & Apple? With Google you're the product. With Apple you're the customer. It's a subtle, but important, difference.

Other than that both are for-profit companies seeking to lock you into their ecosystems as much as they can. And in order to do that they need to compete for customers - who are varied and have different needs and expectations. Some will choose Android, others will choose iOS. Meanwhile the earth will keep turning.

Gromble• 13 years ago

Have any of you people done a single important thing today, or is arguing about what some guy on the internet said about [corporation] so vital that you couldn't ignore the Call to Troll?

bitsoda• 13 years ago

Hey guys, use whatever products and services work best for you. There's no need to pledge allegiance to any company, nor is there a need to tear down somebody else for having an opinion.

jimsilverman• 13 years ago

"I object to a huge, creepy advertising company having that much access to me and my data, I think it’s unwise to use many proprietary, hard-to-replace services in such important roles, and I think it’s downright foolish to tie that much of your data and functionality into proprietary services run by one company in one account that sometimes gets disabled permanently with no warning, no recourse, and no support."

that's one horrific run-on sentence. it's both grammatically flawed and descriptive solely of the platform the author is attempting to defend.

i can no longer tell if this guy's serious or just trolling.

Google Blindness

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