Google compares Apple to 'Big Brother' from iconic 1984 ad - Page 11

Google admitted to collecting data about people's online activities from unsecured Wi-Fi networks over the past four years.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/19639..._thinking.html

Google censored search results in China for FOUR years before getting out of China.

http://news.cnet.com/Google-to-censo...3-6030784.html



Google IS STILL CENSORING search results in several countries (other than China).

France
Germany
UK
Vietnam



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_by_Google
http://techcrunch.com/2010/04/19/google-censorship/




GOOGLE If youre going to take a stance, dont pussyfoot around it.

That wasn't directed at you specifically. More of a general question.

Can you give an example as to where this has been bad for the consumer?


While its true Google is expanding into many markets, the only market Google dominates is search. Google does nothing to restrict fair competition in any particular market including search.


I think this is the heart of your point.


As if US based companies don't do these same things. But Toyota's problems had no effect on the competitiveness of the car industry. They only hurt Toyota.


Competition is not goalless. The point of competition is to provide increasingly better products at a price that is market sustainable. The system isn't 100% perfect but it does work.

Their are many examples where large successful companies attempt to stay with their old business models and never change. When a new, smaller, more nimble company comes along and changes everything. Which forces the old companies to adapt, improve, or die. This happens far more often than any example you've given.

I know, and it was answered that way. Proving dumping charges within an antitrust law framework is extremely difficult, but as an antitrust concept it certainly does exist.

There is no end-point, no goal to competition, per se.

What you describe above is one way in which a company may decide to compete, but it's not the only option available. It is not the essence of competition. For example, they may compete, as you seem to have already acknowledged is possible, on price alone, with no attempt to make a better product, or even maintain the current quality of the product.

Competition is simply the struggle to succeed, and just as living organisms have "adopted" many forms and strategies in the competition of natural selection, companies may adopt any combination of possibly innumerable strategies and forms in their competition with other companies. The goal of each company is whatever they make it, but there is no goal inherent in the concept of competition itself. And, just as each organism does not develop toward some predetermined form, but is shaped by forces often outside it's control, so may the form of a market develop in unpredictable ways, which may or may not be beneficial to consumers.

Bzzt! I expected you'd take the bait. Dell alone does not provide a reasonable comparison. Dell isn't with HP in the consumer space. Dell doesn't make software. Dell doesn't make smart phones. Dell doesn't make MP3 players. If Dell ever does any of these things, it doesn't do them very well, very much, or very long. Dell is heavy in the enterprise market.

Google has a ginormous profit margin compared to Apple or just about any other company. Yet how often do people make aspersions about Google being the epitome of perfection? People do this about Apple not because of its above average profit margins but because of Apple's design aesthetics and customer rapport.

They actually did make MP3 players and will be releasing smartphones. They had a "DJ" line of MP3 players way back when. Don't know how well they sold.

They also have a whole lineup of Android smartphones they're about to release. They look pretty slick from the previews, but I'll reserve my judgement for when I either get to play with them or see some video reviews.

I know their history well enough:
N.B. "If Dell ever does any of these things, it doesn't do them very well, very much, or very long."

AND, arguably, online advertising. Google has such an overwhelming share that no one else is close. That's how they pay for the search (and it's also intertwined so heavily with search that the paid advertisers often overwhelm everybody else.


Only one problem with that. We're talking about the mobile space - and Flash has essentially NO infrastructure in the mobile space. Today, html is the handsdown winner for mobiles.

Even if Flash 10.1 turns out to be any good (and reports so far are not very optimistic), it will have only an insignificant percentage of mobile devices.


So it wasn't a lie. Using official U.S. government definitions may not be your preference, but calling it a lie is just plain absurd. But, then, no one expects rationality from you, anyway, so I guess it's OK.


If they did a good job, what is your complaint? That's what they're meant to do.

Furthermore, your assessment is wrong. Those ads consistently won awards for creativity by ad magazines. Other than a few loud-mouthd Apple haters, the ads were very well accepted.



Everyone should check out some of the facts on this site:
http://www.google-watch.org/

"Infrastructure" might not be the right word to have used to get my point across, I agree. How's about presence? You can't argue that Flash does have a very large prescence on internet itself. And of course it doesn't have that big of a prescence on mobile devices because it's only now that phones have become powerful enough to run the full version of Flash.


That's why it's called a public beta. You can't deny that it actually works now (read: the browser will display Flash content from sites that allow it). But like all software, there's tweaking that needs to be done to optimize it. Essentially, everyone who has it is beta testing it in real-world situation for Adobe. It's a great way for them to get feedback to allow them to do that optimization.

As for insignificant, we'll have to see. The most you and I can do is peer into our crystal balls and predict what might happen. I predict that as Android moves forward, OSs 2.2 and forward will have Flash support and as Android increases it worldwide presence, more and more devices will have Flash support.

I guess it depends on where you sit on the issue, if you hate flash, it could spit hundred dollar bills, and the 'reports' would still be not very optimistic to you.

Given where flash was say 6 months ago regarding the mobile space, it looks pretty promising from my perspective. But then again I don't -hate- any of the technology.

Since it's a plug in, people have to choose to install Flash and use it. Are most people going to choose to have ad banners running on their phone? I doubt it.

no, but I'm guessing they'll want to see all of the other flash content. And maybe be thankful for click4flash or whatever similar that could be available, since just wait til all that html5 delightful goodness comes into vogue and all the annoying ads figure out they can annoy you and you can't shut it off with disabling 90% of your browser.
LOL

I don't think the general public is that enamored with Flash.

Actually HTML ads already exist on mobile websites. Because of the size of the screen web banners don't work exactly the same way they do on full desktop websites. But yes in one way other another ads will be with us.

Google is like big brother as well, Retaining information on individuals searches.
Its Unfortunate that Google has taken this path as people will eventually learn that this can be harmful or used in ways it was not intended to be. Even though Google claims that it will only release the info if they receive a supena.

I'm not complaining, just noticing that not saying truth can do good for your business, even if it annoys number of people. Google is definitely not the first trying to gain some point with questionable statements. Apple was doing that for years, sot hey should not complain if they eventually find themselves on receiving end.


That they were well accepted and awarded for creativity does not mean message they were spreading were truth.

I'm also sure that lot of people will well accept Google's remarks regarding Apple, irrelevant how truthful remarks are, and is Google at all morally entitled to make them.

Depending what time of the year it is, I might go for a vacation

I am using Firefox since it's introduction, by the way. Couldn't care less for IE.

What is your point?

The amount of traffic Google handles that is pr0n related must be amazing. If their servers and page/image caches survive an alien attack, said aliens will have a brilliant catalogue of online human sexuality.

enamoured enough for it to be the most widely used and ubiquitous plugin ever. Still is.

I don't the public cares, -that- much about the nuts and bolts of the issue, unlike the minority such as us here. But it seems they do care that they keep running into missing plugin icons all the time, and that, just ain't going away anytime soon, no matter how hard the few wish to will away the millions of flash files out there. I know for a fact that interactive shops are churning more and more flash daily at the same rate now as always, and there isn't any slowdown, despite some strategic uses of say the html5 video tag. I still make my decisions not to use flash on projects just as I always have. It's always been my belief that the over use and abuse doesn't help the platform at all.

That's on the PC. Mobile devices are a whole new game.


Except reality doesn't bear this out. Smartphones sales are growing exponentially every quarter. Next year smartphones are projected to outsell personal computers. This trend will continue with or without Flash.

There is no public our cry for Flash on the phone. The most visited sites have all created mobile versions that stream media without Flash. Flash needs the smartphone more than the smartphone needs Flash.


Again you have to separate the desktop from the mobile device. Flash development does continue the same for the desktop. HTML5 compliance on desktop browsers is no where near as organized as it is on the mobile device. The reason for that is because webkit runs 90% of the smart phone web browsers. Running a recent build of webkit means they are immediately HTML5 compliant.

you're trying to point out assumptions I've made, with a whole string, of further assumptions!

The most vocal against flash, seems to be the small minority of mac users who dislike it. PC users, mostly couldn't give a crap. It runs fine for them.This in no way equates to a world wide push against flash.

Doesn't exist.

As you said, no one really cares, beyond a lot of people are tired of the broken icons. Even Apple has quietly tried to remove the broken icon display, prompting flash developers to insert their own. So there must be enough of a complaint, we certainly wouldn't hear about it though... They won't go away, and the general public could care less about steve jobs campaign against flash nor the community here who hates it, nor adobe "hearting' apple. end of story.

And you seemed to have conveniently missed the fact, that two versions of the site -still- have to be created if a major number of desktop browsers aren't html5 compliant.

And, you are pointing out the obvious, that flash, needs the mobile. Well, of course it does!!!

What assumption did I make? Your examples directly point the relationship Flash currently has with personal computers. My point is Flash does not and will not have that same relationship to mobile devices.


Most Windows users were fine with Windows XP and the limited internet that MS wanted to lock the world into with IE6, so who trusts their judgement. If it had been up to MS we would have extremely limited rich application development that largely kept us tied into Windows.


You are over playing this claim. In reality you rarely ever see broken link icons. We're three years into this and most everyone has a site with a mobile UI. The mobile browser is directed to the mobile site that has no Flash.

Apple removed the broken link icons because Engadget would post pictures of it as ridicule.


Major website developers don't care about crap phone browsers that are stuck displaying WAP pages. They are largely going to support mobile browsers with the most market share.


Is this about maintaining the status quo or is this about using the best technology available for the task?

There's your assumption. "will not". Apparently, you have a crystal ball! I think a lot of people make a whole lot of assumptions about the platform, without actually knowing what has happened the last couple years on the platform, and massive change in programming language that has taken place. I doubt very much it's going to continue as it is today, and can see it's going to continue to morph. It's no coincidence the new actionscript has become even closer to javascript than ever before, but one would need to be very well versed in both AS3 and JS to know this. I don't have the answers, but I am aware of some interesting movements on the platform.




Not sure what your point is, I merely said, the majority of users out there on desktops, don't have the performance issues mac users have had in the past with flash. I certainly wasn't trying to say M$ was any better. (not)



Another assumption. It's all I hear about. Broken icons. In fact, as I said, it's important enough, to have prompted apple to take action, to reduce the number of broken icons users see. There's proof enough someone had to do something to reduce it...


I highly doubt, it's all engadgets fault...




But they do if they need to target both desktop browsers which don't support html5 now, and mobile that do. So, somewhere in the dumbing down, interactive requirements go down the tubes. You assume companies are ok with this. NOT.




It has -always- been about the best technology for the task. The trouble is, you keep defining the 'task' as one that doesn't require flash. There are, despite your assertions, many that do. When and if I can accomplish -everything, and I mean -everything- flash can do, (not just pretty vector animations possible 10 years ago) and can do so efficiently in a great development platform, I'll use something else. I don't care what I use, as long as it does what it is I want, without dumbing it down, if possible.

Yes I can say with absolute certitude that Flash will not be on 90% of the mobile devices.



Media sensationalism.

Two main reason I know its media sensationalism. Because most mobile phone users are accessing web services through a native app more than they are through the browser, you don't need Flash for that. When you do use the browser the far majority of the time the browser will be directed to a mobile website that does not use Flash, so you don't need Flash for that either.



You lost me here. They already have desktop sites that support Flash, nothing has changed there. I don't understand the dumbing down you are talking about.

In addition to the desktop site with Flash, they provide a mobile site, designed for small touch screens, and stream media in H.264. Where is the dumbing down?



Yes because Flash has clearly been shown numerous times to not work very well on mobile devices. Adobe is trying to force it to work any way. Not because it is the best technology for mobile devices but because they are trying to protect their control of the web.

While it is currently still maturing and it is in some ways hampered by design by committee. What HTML5 can do, has been shown numerous times to do better on mobile devices.

Many people here are sure of a lot of things, based on some pretty flimsy projections. I've been around long enough to know, nothing, is for sure, and likely, there will be some surprises. Don't assume 1) flash won't make it on the mobile platform, (it is already to the chagrin of a few) and 2) flash will be as it is today.


Convenient I say. I say there's more to that storey. However, truthfully, as I've said before, flash not being on the iphone is probably less an issue, then say a tablet.


I'm talking primarily about accessing the web through a browser. And being directed to a mobile site only happens on most major sites. all the rest, I get the desktop version. Hardly the "majority of the time" for me, but it depends, if all you surf are those major sites with mobile versions, sure.





If you want to create -one- website viewable by all, which seems to be the mantra around here, you're going to have to dumb things right down. Or, create two versions, fine. Which means flash will continue to be used, flourish on the desktops, and if adobe -does- succeed in creating a good flash for mobile, we'll see where that goes...





They have shown it to very clearly work very well too, it depends on what your bias is... . And, they have also shown it can have problems. What was that you mentioned... what was it. yes. "media sensationalism". I'll take all that with a grain of salt, and make my own opinions based on experience, I don't need a couple dudes in search of click hits to tell me what to think.


There's that "shown" thing again. I waitin for some real production ready stuff here! I'm tired of all this look at what my google link says. People in forums throwing around the latest blog sensation that "makes them right". What a waste of time. There are just as plenty videos out there that show html5 to run as dog as flash out there. But truthfully, I file those right in the same bin as the bad flash videos. I know well those technologies will improve, they will change things rapidly, certainly will change things for flash you'd be a fool not to see that.

What sites do you frequent that absolutely require Flash?



If the website has lots of mixed media content then you have to create at least two websites. One for a personal computer with keyboard and mounse. Another for 3 inch touch screen. Both require entirely different UI. Some are making a third for the 9-10 inch tablet UI.


It does work, working well is a different matter. It does crash, it does slow the phones performance, it does drain the battery faster.




That's interesting you don't like the google links? The only reason to not like them is that they don't prove your point.

I've seen HTML5 demonstrations that shows a feature running poorly because the browser does not properly support that element of HTML5. I agree that is an issue. But I have not seen a demonstration of HTML5 that crashed the browser, caused the phone to perform poorly, or drained the battery faster.

No I don't see the magical fairy dust that Adobe is using to suddenly drastically improve the performance of Flash.

Well, they were betrayed or tricked by both Apple (iTunes, etc.) and Google (Search, Online Marketing & Content) companies which at least in Apple's case they ironically invested and only helped Steve Jobs back into his position held till today.

It seems a bit late compared to both Apple and Android, but the latest Windows Phone 7 seems yet another (very blunt from what I've seen) clone of the iPhone OS. Including all the flaws, they scrapped multi-threading and even simple Copy&Paste has been postponed to a further release (sounds familiar? )

Sites with major interactive requirements. People also seem to not consider the platform for development. Flash is simple better, and far more capable than other alternatives currently, and for some time to come. Flash has also morphed in an extremely powerful application development platform. I'm still waiting to see those "flash killer" sites. I see a lot of example of cool animations, and game stuff, but no "flash killers". But I suppose you have to really understand the capabilities before understanding where to use it, and not. Many here simply spit out what they read on a blog or what someone else posted as some kind of fact. By the same token, I know many developers who don't understand either, and over use a technology when something better is out there.



That's interesting because you're singing a different tune than some of the others around here, who asserted that an html5 site could be viewable across all. Truthfully, you could create one flash site and have it serve -all- devices. All screen sizes. Yes, this is very possible. And you could with html/js/css if you were smart.



Have you personally verified this? I have.



Oh but they -can-. There are plenty of links out there showing how crappy html5 runs, all the myths surrounding flash on mobile devices etc etc. But, no one is interested in those, even though I posted them, for the reasons you stated. But playing the "google link" war is for know nothings who don't know anything about something, so they google to look smart.


Oh, it's the browser's fault. I -have- seen html5 / javascript lock up browsers, and crash them. Quite a few times in fact. But I don't slam html5 because of it. You can take out a browser quite a few different ways.


I do. I've seen the performance increases since V9 because I've worked very closely and had to make a lot of tweaks to account for the differences between pc and mac for years now. Whether adobe can make it happen, well that I can't control. We'll see the player out on android, and nokia phones which will be quite a few phones. So if the player is crapware, then, it'll die.

That's not an answer, give me some URL's.

you're kidding me right?

I don't mean to be offensive buuut.. you do surf the net right?

here's some examples of highly regarded flash sites. www.thefwa.com

note, I don't like all of these, but there's some good examples here.

yeah, i agree