KitKat's new website

by dionyziz • 13 years ago

300 150 13 years ago

quchen• 13 years ago

It's the standard change-background-while-scrolling website that seems to become fashionable. Am I missing something about this post?

buster• 13 years ago

You should read the text. It's full of cloud and tech references, because KitKat and Google are promoting the next Android Version (Android 4.4 will be named KitKat).

Also you can win some Google Gadgets with KitKat (at the bottom).

jmathai• 13 years ago

This was trending on HN earlier today. I think the reason it's on the front page is because of the parody on Android's new version being named Kit Kat.

Looks to me like this was a joint marketing campaign by Google and Nestle. Seems successful.

apricot13• 13 years ago

The new android is called kitkat apparently. www.android.com/kitkat

Brajeshwar• 13 years ago

It is preferably referred to as parallax scrolling, which is very common with single page designs these days. Unless otherwise used with the right intention and for the right purpose parallax scrolling technique is becoming the new carousel or from the olden days "skip intro".

aninhumer• 13 years ago

I'm not sure that's the right term. Parallax refers to two or more planes moving at different speeds to give the illusion of depth.

deletes• 13 years ago

http://www.android.com/kitkat/images/android.png

ramykhuffash• 13 years ago

I still prefer regular scrolling to "parallax scrolling." Maybe I'm just getting old...

hatu2• 13 years ago

I pretty much hate it by now. It just acts in a unexpected way and breaks my usual reading experience.

davidjgraph• 13 years ago

Already been covered https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6323572

Matti• 13 years ago

The differences between the comments posted so far in the two threads seem to illustrate the importance of the submission title.

andyhmltn2• 13 years ago

Sweet site but a loading bar.. REALLY?

Peroni• 13 years ago

I think the entire thing is meant to be a bit of a parody.

andyhmltn2• 13 years ago

Oh makes sense. It's just so annoying with the amount of sites now that seem to have loading bars

Discordian93• 13 years ago

No GPU? Not worth buying if I can't play Crysis on it.

radiowave• 13 years ago

It would melt.

jasonkester2• 13 years ago

Pretty. But do there exist web browsers that display these scroll-to-animate sites correctly? Using either mousewheel or dragging the scrollbar (or worse still, dragging on an iPad), it's never anything but choppy choppiness and I miss important bits of text as they scroll past entirely between the little click stops on my mouse wheel.

Surely it must be possible to actually view these sites, as evidenced by the fact that people keep building them. Is there some web-designer-and-executive-approver-specific build of Chrome that's built specifically for this effect?

bgarbiak• 13 years ago

It works great on basically any browser on a system with the Apple's Magic Mouse. I'm still wondering why there's no some sort of smoothing polyfill in wide use.

hatu2• 13 years ago

Agh, this should definitely be a design anti-pattern. Don't change my browsers functionality. If I wanted smooth scrolling I would find a way to turn it on.

w1ntermute• 13 years ago

It also works fine on my ThinkPad when using the TrackPoint to scroll.

lewispollard• 13 years ago

I think the only device that's worked well with them is a Macbook with the smooth scrolling on the trackpad.

tfinniga• 13 years ago

True. There are some windows trackpads that have that same smooth scrolling trackpads.. I've used some hp laptops that also have it, for example.

chr1• 13 years ago

Recent version of all browsers have roughly the same performance. But you need relatively new hardware. Old p4 and on-board graphics card won't handle it.

jasonkester2• 13 years ago

I'm on a six month old maxed out Thinkpad W520. I don't think they have much in the way of newer hardware than that, so I suspect it's more likely that there's a "smooth scrolling" setting somewhere that one could presumably turn on to see this effect.

Somebody else mentioned that it's on by default on Macs, thus confirming my theory about the "web-designer-only" build of Chrome (the same one that renders those extra blurry fonts that designers like to use on their blogs correctly). Chances are nobody with a Windows box ever saw this in action before they pushed it live.

Schlaefer2• 13 years ago

Smooth is one part of the problem, the other is getting stuck between two "frames" after scrolling: http://imgur.com/gtJGtsT.png

Scrolling gives you no visual feedback for "content units" like margins around paragraphs or headers. You cannot be sure if a "frame" has all its animation loaded until you scroll down - up - down a little bit. Imho that's not a pleasant experience.

mattmanser• 13 years ago

It's working great on my admittedly beefy Win 7 Laptop on Chrome with my mouse wheel or dragging the scroll bar. The mouse scroll is a little choppy in that it jumps in tiny increments rather than elegantly transitions.

It would be nice if they supported the keyboard too though.

stephengillie• 13 years ago

It works great on my Win 7 desktop with a C2D and low-level Radeon video in Chrome, with Javascript disabled. Not even slightly choppy at all.

C1D• 13 years ago

It looks and works fine on my ipad.

stuaxo• 13 years ago

Use the middle click scroll.

Middle click, then drag mouse down a little bit, then sit and watch.

[EDIT] Tested in FF and Chrome, surprisingly FF was smoother on my computer.

oftenwrong• 13 years ago

Works fine for me. I was shocked because I have JS disabled.

adim86• 13 years ago

Yeah I know, I noticed that yesterday and was impressed that they went through lengths to make it work on browsers that have no javascript

bgruber• 13 years ago

was i the only one that found that the kitkat site performed well, while the android one stuttered?

jonb• 13 years ago

I noticed and LOL'd.

Schlaefer2• 13 years ago

The Android site uses a lot of (annoying) JS driven CSS opacity changing and also the font-smoothing CSS attribute. My money would be on that.

peterbergg• 13 years ago

Works smooth for me on Chrome Canary with this extension: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/smoothscroll/nbokb...

drcube• 13 years ago

Just click the space bar. There's no need to scroll.

littlemerman• 13 years ago

Worked fine on my mobile as static images.

boards2x2• 13 years ago

Nice looking site. But why associate your product with junk food?

MDCore• 13 years ago

Android Jelly Bean? Android Ice Cream Sandwich? Android Honeycomb (ok that's not necessarily junk food). Android Eclair, Donut and Cupcake? It's been "junk food" since 1.5.

boards2x2• 13 years ago

True, though so far it was less obvious, as in they're non "processed" snacks and deserts, and not brand names (as far as I can tell, maybe for North Americans it is more obvious?)

Cthulhu_• 13 years ago

Depends on your definition of junk food. Chocolate covered biscuits were considered a delicacy and a snack before it was called junk.

butler14• 13 years ago

afaic chocolate covered biscuits fall quite neatly into most any definition of junk food...

epo2• 13 years ago

Because it matches their demographic.

babuskov• 13 years ago

Android releases are named after some sweet, and going alphabetically. They just reached letter K. I'm not sure I can think of some other sweet starting with K?

biggfoot• 13 years ago

Off topic, but did they get an engineer to write the content? "Thanks to its world-renowned, tri-core, wafer thin CPU with full chocolate coverage." If this is intentional sarcasm it is tasteless (pun intended)

wtetzner• 13 years ago

It's full of tech references because they're promoting Android 4.4, which is named KitKat.

garethadams2• 13 years ago

"No matter what kind of break you're looking for, with 2 mega-bites, 4 mega-bites or a chunky-bite option, we've got it covered"

RobAley8• 13 years ago

Nestle is a truly horrible company[1], this hook-up has really re-enforced the notion in my eyes that Google is now just another big multi-national corp in the same vein as the rest. It's sad, because I used to think they could show the world that a big corp didn't have to do things that way. I'm not sure if they changed or if I was just naive.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestl%C3%A9#Controversy_and_cri...

sharan• 13 years ago

You arrived at this conclusion as a result of Android's naming convention which uses food names instead of version numbers?

willvarfar3• 13 years ago

Jelly Bean was sponsored?

Calling the version "KitKat" was basically product-placement.

epo2• 13 years ago

Google could not have adopted marketing like this without Nestlé's approval. Nestlé are truly vile and "do no evil™" are in some form of partnership with them, at the very least it is cross-promotion.

RobAley8• 13 years ago

No, I arrived at that conclusion because KitKat and Google have both publicly announced the tie-up, and Google doesn't seem to understand, or more likely doesn't care, what it means to actively promote a company like Nestle. There are plently of other "K" foods they could choose if they wanted to.

To be fair, it's not just this incident that helped me reach the conclusion, its been festering at the back of my mind for a while.

gdilla2• 13 years ago

They never used branded or trademarked food names. It's cute and attention getting though.

blumkvist3• 13 years ago

Nestle's CEO insists on his opinion that all the water in the world should be privatized. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SEFL8ElXHaU

gojomo2• 13 years ago

He's the former CEO (still chairman), and thst's not a fair summary of what he says in that video, about recognizing that water can have a price/cost like food.

sambeau• 13 years ago

Also a good read:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nestlé_boycott

ig1• 13 years ago

You realize your smartphone almost certainly has metals mined or processed by children in dangerous and unhealthy work environments ?

RobAley8• 13 years ago

Yes. Next time I upgrade, I've got my eye on fairphone.com, for what it's worth.

Not quite sure what that argument has to do with my preposition though. I had no such illusions about my phone manufacturer (Samsung). Google set out on a different path ("Do No Evil"), but turns out they're not much different to Samsung et. al. now, and that was my argument. Many still see them as working in a different way, but they don't.

mistercow2• 13 years ago

Yikes, and also probably your computer, and possibly your car. And I was having such a nice morning.

Now I feel like I need to work out how much money I need to give to an effective charity or something to offset the bad that I'm doing when I buy my next phone or computer.

oneeyedpigeon4• 13 years ago

And that's certainly bad, but Nestle have carried out about 10 other known immoral practises in their history, including the use of child slave labour, so they pretty much 'win' that one hands down.

opminion• 13 years ago

Rather than "truly horrible", it's fairer to say that it's controversial in the UK. For example, on one hand there has been a long standing boycott at university Student Unions, on the other about everybody has a Nescafé tin at home.

RobAley8• 13 years ago

"Truly Horrible" isn't mutually exclusive with "everybody has a Nescafé tin at home".

Also, it's not just controversial in the UK, it is in many countries, and it's not just Student Unions that have held boycotts against it.

I'm also not saying that it's in anyway alone in being a truly horrible company, there are many others in that category as well.

oneeyedpigeon4• 13 years ago

I for one don't have any Nescafé tins at home and refuse to purchase any of their chocolate or breakfast cereals, too. I realise you said "about", and I'm only one person, but I think you overestimate their reach; I know others who adopt the same stance. I'd go so far as to say that Nestlé are up there alongside The Sun (british newspaper) and Sky TV when it comes to 'most boycotted' here in the UK. Only time will tell whether Google has made a minor PR error here (granted, it will only be minor because Google is SO pervasive).

oneeyedpigeon4• 13 years ago

I think, if anyone was still labouring under the intention that Google was somehow morally 'above' other companies, this is pretty much the death-knell. If I'm being very optimistic / fair to Google, I'd hope that it was a Google US decision and they don't fully comprehend the feeling towards Nestle in the UK. Maybe this leaves a void for a 'good' technology company to spring up.

andylei• 13 years ago

in the US, Hersheys controls the branding for KitKat, not Nestle

phaedryx• 13 years ago

Interesting aside, it is made by Hersey in the United States: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitkat

gojomo2• 13 years ago

No wireless. Less space than a Nomad. Lame.

floobynewb2• 13 years ago

Ugh, read the small print section. Horrible, designed by committee to attempt to sound like their audience. I sometimes find these quite revealing, although irritating. It shows how they perceive the people they are targeting with a product. In this case we are flighty, feckless, caught up in a culture full of meaningless catch phrases. They have mistaken the irreverence and playfulness of the y,z gen for low brow incoherence.

Joe-Z• 13 years ago

I just read it and I actually found it funny. Come to think of it, I like the whole idea of the site. Slightly nerdy and, that's the important part, not taking itself too seriously.

There's definitely worse examples of trying to adhere to this new lifestyle/fun-centric culture thing (I hope you know what I mean by that, since I don't know a better word for it)

Ntrails• 13 years ago

I thoroughly enjoyed it. So maybe I'm the target audience? Although honestly how anyone could not already be in love with the peanut butter Kit Kat chunky is frankly beyond my ability to comprehend.

floobynewb2• 13 years ago

I loved the overall site. I'm talking specifically about the text at the very bottom of the page, the small print section.

NicoJuicy• 13 years ago

Actually, this was just fun to see, didn't expected this when i navigated to their site :P

klimeryk• 13 years ago

  <!-- Thanks for viewing the source -->

You're welcome, always a pleasure :)

ollybee• 13 years ago

no humans.txt though

skeletonjelly• 13 years ago

Procedurally generated

Thereasione• 13 years ago

There are easter eggs, type "haveabreak" or "up up down down left right left right b a".

hendrik-xdest2• 13 years ago

Nice find. There are no other possibilities to start this easter egg, though. Yet, there are actually three different images that might be shown:

http://diclr3aci3hzg.cloudfront.net/desktop/images/misc/droi... http://diclr3aci3hzg.cloudfront.net/desktop/images/misc/droi... http://diclr3aci3hzg.cloudfront.net/desktop/images/misc/droi...

FajitaNachos3• 13 years ago

How did you find these? Just curious.

DanBC3• 13 years ago

Some people try the Konami code with everything. Try it with HN, see what happens.

poxrud• 13 years ago

All the main code is in main.js Take a look at the initEasterEgg() function.

willvarfar3• 13 years ago

they break back :( But otherwise, lovely.

To think its only going to be people like us that 'get it'

olive_• 13 years ago

i did not realized how back button is important for me until i see me clicking madly ten times to get back to HN

omegant• 13 years ago

So kitkat bought the new android OS release name for themselves, and released a coordinated marketing campaign. Is there any insider story on how that happened somewhere?. Maybe is a bit too early for that.

zuppy• 13 years ago

here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23926938

"However, Google told the BBC that it had come up with the idea and that neither side was paying the other."

marcamillion2• 13 years ago

How did this make it to the top of HN 2nd day in a row?

mdigi• 13 years ago

Nestle marketing team.

oneeyedpigeon4• 13 years ago

* new Android OS imminent

* Google teams up with morally bankrupt (IMO) company

* weird scrolling/animation navigation device becoming mainstream

* first ever sponsored OS?

lots to dicsuss

marcamillion2• 13 years ago

For those that missed it yesterday, per this[1] BBC article....no money exchanged hands.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-23926938

grimman• 13 years ago

Trademark infringement -> no money changed hands. Smells like a huge pile of bullshit to me, but I'm certainly no expert.

w0utert• 13 years ago

No money, maybe. Free cross-product advertising, definitely.

I'm not sure whether the fact that (allegedly) no money changed hands makes this whole thing any better. I've never been a fan of Android or Google because I'm allergic to advertising and that's basically Google's business model, but blatantly signing cross-promotions deals like this so not one but two companies can leverage a new phone OS release to spam the internet with free advertising doesn't make me feel any more positive about Google and Android. But I guess I'm a lost cause for them anyway...

micampe• 13 years ago

In my entire HN history I have never seen a sentence and a link posted more than this "no money changed hands" one.

Kiro• 13 years ago

It's one of the most important sentences in the history of HN.

hendrik-xdest2• 13 years ago

Oh no, does that mean that meta keywords are relevant for Google search again?

adamc• 13 years ago

Adding to my history when I _scroll_ is just a terrible decision.

chrisrh• 13 years ago

Certainly one of those "Just because you can, doesn't mean you should." situations.

blueblob• 13 years ago

Totally concur, had to press back like 6 times (or right click it) just to get back to hacker news.

polynomial• 13 years ago

Their implementation is horrible and completely unnecessary. Pretty as it was, it's one of the worst UX I've seen all year.

It's possible, easy even, to achieve the same page scroll results (and even deep-linking fragments if that's a requirement) without taking over the browser history.

Kind of shameful, really.

mydpy• 13 years ago

Nice page. I wish I didn't need to hit the back button as many times as I did to escape.

okeemokee• 13 years ago

Those KitKats are not as tasty as they used to be, but the video at the bottom of the page is really awesome.

gmcgraffin• 13 years ago

4.4mb downloaded for this 1 page, Some bandwidth being used there!

eCa• 13 years ago

It's Android 4.4 after all. Makes sense.

eduardoejp• 13 years ago

KitKat just re-defined what a "tablet" means for me.

theandrewbailey• 13 years ago

Wow. Just wow. It feels like it's my birthday, except it's not.

(My birthday is April 1st.)

dalacv• 13 years ago

#GrannyEyed. I'm sure I've heard that before somewhere on the inner net.

FajitaNachos3• 13 years ago

I enjoyed it. It appears I'm in the minority.

brokenparser2• 13 years ago

Yeah, those whiney commenters should take a break!

mgrouchy• 13 years ago

Well, marketing works it seems.

alayne• 13 years ago

The next version of Android is going to be called Lipitor.

seymores• 13 years ago

I hope this is not going to be a trend because I find it ridiculous.

joeblau• 13 years ago

One question I have is why Google (If this website is Google's) is hosting their stuff on Amazon?

freehunter• 13 years ago

Why would Google own kitkat.com?

alexlitov• 13 years ago

Previous discussion - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6323572

brokenparser2• 13 years ago

That sweet 404

madaxe• 13 years ago

They were doing so well until the flash video at the end. :(

rcavezza• 13 years ago

The video was the best part. It poked fun at tech videos: "With adjustable orientation, it works perfect in portrait or landscape". Genius.

sbornia• 13 years ago

Anyone noticed how funny it is? Even if it's not perfectly coded? God you guys know how to complain!

efnx• 13 years ago

It's just a line on my iPad.

lowlevel• 13 years ago

I think I'll go get a kit kat out of the vending machine...

loceng• 13 years ago

I think along with Tesla's marketing - this is one of the top, ever.

arxpoetica• 13 years ago

I don't think there's nearly enough under the hood. This site needs more code.

jnyx• 13 years ago

i am utterly amazed. 124 comments for a fucking advertisement site? What's wrong with this society? And worst, it doesn't work with lynx.

KitKat's new website

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