So yet another Google fail that will get little outside news reporting. All fanfare when announced and launched, and then crickets when yet something else of Google fails yet again. Let me tell you, it's a pretty LONG list of failed Google things.
I remember my Android loving friend excitedly linking me to this, and bragging how it was "so much better than Apple Pay". Like 90% of poorly thought out Google projects create solely for hype with no real thought of mass usage, I knew Google should shut it down shortly. And..I was right, on cue.
I think it was an "invite" only test, restricted to a single city and a few select stores. It's wasn't ever intended to be a public or permanent app. Google of course is hinting that at least some of it might be rolled into Android Pay but who knows.
So, you're saying this was Google's goal? To have it limited to a single city and then to shut it down? Really? I don't believe that, at all.
FWIW Google was doing what Appel does now several years ago with Google Wallet... Separate hardware-based secure element, tokenized credentials so that the CC number and personal info wasn't exposed to the store, fingerprint authentication, bank partnerships... Google just didn't have the negotiating power of Apple and allowed the carriers to interfere. The more they tried to change things to please 'em the more entrenched those carriers became, and not much Google could do about it. But Apple has the power.
They also didn't have the willpower to make it work. Google often believes throwing something out there to say they "did it first" is what matters, without following up and doing whats necessary to make it a success. And no, you're wrong. Google Wallet only morphed into an Apple Pay duplicate after Apple Pay was released, not before. Apple Pay didn't magically become a success.. Apple painstakingly looked at every single angle before release, and made sure all the components were there to make it a solid experience. That was never the case with Google Wallet, even on Google branded devices.
Google's Wallet (todays' Android Pay essentially) was revealed back in Sept of 2011. It took little time for a greedy ATT, T-Mo and particularly Verizon to step in the middle and attempt to push their own mobile payment solution unfortunately called ISIS, blocking every attempt to make Google Wallet an integrated feature in Android handsets. I'm sure you remember it. First link is the original announcement:
http://mashable.com/2011/05/26/google-mobile-payment-system-liveblog/#WUaARVW39GqY Sounds amazingly like Apple Pay doesn't it?
..and the second link proves how quickly Verizon (followed by others in short order) moved to protect their own payment plans. Their supposed issue? Read this. In hindsight isn't that exactly what Apple did? The difference is Apple is much richer, powerful and connected. The carriers cannot say no to them as they did Google. http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-blocking-google-wallet-2011-12 I'll guess there's a lot of readers here who have no idea of the history.
To use Alphabet/Google for anything other than search is totally absurd!!
Uh...no. Their app for Maps is still vastly superior. Same goes for gmail and it is improving as well. Google calendar also good and improving. Google Keep is pretty good. And i will take Google Drive over iCloud any day. For me, the Google music app/service is also superior...And they all work beautifully on my iPad.
I don't see anything that are "improving" can be superior, but each to his/her own. I know that Apple and Google offer similar services, but given their competitive price differences, I would rather go for Apple ecosystem.
I remember my Android loving friend excitedly linking me to this, and bragging how it was "so much better than Apple Pay". Like 90% of poorly thought out Google projects create solely for hype with no real thought of mass usage, I knew Google should shut it down shortly. And..I was right, on cue.
I think it was an "invite" only test, restricted to a single city and a few select stores. It's wasn't ever intended to be a public or permanent app. Google of course is hinting that at least some of it might be rolled into Android Pay but who knows.
So, you're saying this was Google's goal? To have it limited to a single city and then to shut it down? Really? I don't believe that, at all. It probably got close to zero adoption in their "test" market, an a ton of negative feedback and security/reiability/useability issues, which is why it didn't make it past a "beta test". Don't try to pretend this is what Google aspired to. They simply came out with a half-baked product, yet again, that was nowhere near ready for widescale adoption, and then killed it when it inevitably failed.
Of course that was Google's goal. Have you forgotten about the Nexus? It was a "reference design", never meant to sell in large quantities you know, because f**k profits from hardware!!
Good luck trying to get a sane response from GatorGuy.
I remember my Android loving friend excitedly linking me to this, and bragging how it was "so much better than Apple Pay". Like 90% of poorly thought out Google projects create solely for hype with no real thought of mass usage, I knew Google should shut it down shortly. And..I was right, on cue.
I'm surprised that no one at Google spotted the epic fail right at the heart of the scheme: the photograph and the cashier.
For security it relies on you not changing your hairstyle or going out in drag (hey! It's my weekend!). It relies on the cashier not being short-sighted and actually giving hoot whether it's you or not.
This is worse than PIN numbers.
Well, with any luck they'll learn something from it (like it's safer to just copy what Apple does. There's a vague chance they've thought it through).
FWIW Google was doing what Appel does now several years ago with Google Wallet... Separate hardware-based secure element, tokenized credentials so that the CC number and personal info wasn't exposed to the store, fingerprint authentication, bank partnerships... Google just didn't have the negotiating power of Apple and allowed the carriers to interfere. The more they tried to change things to please 'em the more entrenched those carriers became, and not much Google could do about it. But Apple has the power.
Google *specified* what it wanted for a secure system, but without having it's own chip design house, it relied on third parties to fill in the blanks for them. The reason that Apple shot to the front of the pack is because it could present the banks with a complete end-to-end system, rather than a hotch-potch of different technologies bolted together from different suppliers.
The other problem that Google had was that it lacked a fingerprint recognition system anywhere near as reliable as TouchID. Because of this, I suspect Google launched this ill-fated photo nonsense in the desperate hope of bypassing the problem. Secondly, Google trades a lot on the its currency of being successful, so even while they didn't have a solution that was as good as Apple Pay, they could pretend that they were developing one until the Android manufacturers could come up with something that was good enough. Once this had happened, and once Apple had made NFC payments pretty much mainstream, then Google could abandon the project; they knew it wasn't going to work anyway.
One other thing; when faced with a bunch of people criticising Google, you stumble onto the well-trodden path taken by all the other Google fans; you race to your favourite search engine and bring back a load of links that prove Google was there first. This is the wrong path to take, because folk who have followed Apple more closely than you know that Apple is rarely there first; in fact Apple is usually the last on the field, and still manages to walk away with the football. In this case, Apple looked at Google Wallet and asked "Why is no one using this?" They put their heads together, look at the shortcomings, and then come up with a solution that attracts consumers as well as geeks.
And like everyone else, I'm going to finish with a prediction.
Apple Pay doesn't make that much money, and with all the whining the banks are doing about costs, it's probably going to make even less. So where next?
Well, here's what Apple has.
A top-notch contactless payment system. Almost $250billion sitting around doing nothing. The world's most valuable customer base. And by valuable, I mean they're quite well off and very unlikely to commit fraud.
An Apple Bank?
Well, they already have branches in most major cities.
To use Alphabet/Google for anything other than search is totally absurd!!
Uh...no. Their app for Maps is still vastly superior.
Not so sure about that. Apple Maps has come along in leaps and bounds in the last two years.
I took a long road trip a few weeks back. After a couple hours driving (and I like that Maps turns off the screen when it has nothing to do for about twenty miles), I ended up on a dirt track that got dirtier and dirtier. It shrank to the width of the car and I was going past cows who were looking at me with that "WE DON'T STRANGERS ROUND 'ERE" sort of expression. I thought, "Enough. Maps has obviously screwed up! This isn't even a bloody road, and it reckons I'm five minutes away!"
So I call the fella I'm heading to see. "I'm lost,", I say. "I let Siri handle the navigation and now I'm on mud path surrounded by hostile cows." "Right," he says. "What can you see, aside from the cows." "A farm house, and rusty tractor in a ditch next to the cow paddock." "Ah, broken tractor! I know where you are! Stay there, I'll meet you."
So I wait, cursing Siri and her future offspring
Five minutes later, he appears, travelling along the same crappy road in the opposite direction.
In this ONE instance I should have had a bit more faith.
I remember my Android loving friend excitedly linking me to this, and bragging how it was "so much better than Apple Pay". Like 90% of poorly thought out Google projects create solely for hype with no real thought of mass usage, I knew Google should shut it down shortly. And..I was right, on cue.
I'm surprised that no one at Google spotted the epic fail right at the heart of the scheme: the photograph and the cashier.
For security it relies on you not changing your hairstyle or going out in drag (hey! It's my weekend!). It relies on the cashier not being short-sighted and actually giving hoot whether it's you or not.
This is worse than PIN numbers.
Well, with any luck they'll learn something from it (like it's safer to just copy what Apple does. There's a vague chance they've thought it through).
FWIW Google was doing what Apple does now several years ago with Google Wallet... Separate hardware-based secure element, tokenized credentials so that the CC number and personal info wasn't exposed to the store, fingerprint authentication, bank partnerships... Google just didn't have the negotiating power of Apple and allowed the carriers to interfere. The more they tried to change things to please 'em the more entrenched those carriers became, and not much Google could do about it. But Apple has the power.
Google *specified* what it wanted for a secure system, but without having it's own chip design house, it relied on third parties to fill in the blanks for them. The reason that Apple shot to the front of the pack is because it could present the banks with a complete end-to-end system, rather than a hotch-potch of different technologies bolted together from different suppliers.
The other problem that Google had was that it lacked a fingerprint recognition system anywhere near as reliable as TouchID. Because of this, I suspect Google launched this ill-fated photo nonsense in the desperate hope of bypassing the problem.
One other thing; when faced with a bunch of people criticising Google, you stumble onto the well-trodden path taken by all the other Google fans; you race to your favourite search engine and bring back a load of links that prove Google was there first. This is the wrong path to take, because folk who have followed Apple more closely than you know that Apple is rarely there first;
Offering some evidence for a contrary opinion is generally a good idea. If I didn't then you and a very few others here would even MORE quickly dismiss out-of-hand some things you'd prefer to believe differently about. You already know I wasn't about showing "Google was first". I was hoping I could prompt a little reading where you'd realize you were mistaken about your initial assertion Google copying Apple Pay rather than taking my word for it. And obviously you now have since you'v modified your stance. See, links are good, not bad. You learned something.
As for the Hands-free tests your claim it was a an attempt to bypass unreliable fingerprint sensors is downright silly. The Hand-free testing was slated to last for a year, started in March/16 and ending March/17 and fingerprint readers were already both fast, reliable and widespread by mid-2016. Google was and is testing more convenient payment processes that don't require pulling out a phone, buying and wearing a watch, or requiring anything other than having your smartphone with you whether in a pocket or purse. Simply a possible convenience feature. Nothing might come from it but kudos for trying. Now had you said they might have been testing a way to avoid relying on smartwatches or other wearables I'd have given you a point. Android Wear has been a stumble-fest so far. Fingerprint readers are already good.
The rest of your post just supports what I said in the first place. Google had the hardware figured out, the process identified, banks signed on board with it, retail partners at the roll-out, cooperation from Mastercard/Visa. . . Still not enough. It needed Apple to break the carrier's blockade. Google has far less economic power and couldn't force it. Apple is the new Exxon and has that power. They're a beast.
So you are right. First is not as important as being successful at it, which Apple is more often than not. It does not make one of them inventive and the other a copyist pretender either.
I think they mean the fact you have to hand over your personal info to them. Using Google Drive over iCloud is the most absurd.
google drive at least does not destroy my iTunes collection, as has been a regular issue for thousands of iCloud users. In fact, Google Music automatically copies and stores all my iTunes purchases up in the cloud so i can play music from the Web easily (not allowed to have iTunes on work computer). The music app interface is also more functional as well than Apple Music. I understand your preference for Apple in general, but the fact is both companies offer a lot and Google products generally work well in iOS. I still love my Apple hardware, but the company is not the same with Steve gone, for sure. Google just does some things better.
You need to study the history of Google Wallet more closely. The first version (pre-Apple Pay) Google Wallet kept a copy of your CC on their servers, sent all transactions to Google, paid from a Google virtual CC assigned to your Wallet and charged your CC from Google, giving Google insight into all of your purchases. Apple was never in the middle of Apple Pay transactions and required no server storing CC information of users and once Google saw the right way to do this, they created Google Wallet v2 which copied Apple+Bank's secure methods .
To use Alphabet/Google for anything other than search is totally absurd!!
Uh...no. Their app for Maps is still vastly superior. Same goes for gmail and it is improving as well. Google calendar also good and improving. Google Keep is pretty good. And i will take Google Drive over iCloud any day. For me, the Google music app/service is also superior...And they all work beautifully on my iPad.
I don't really have a need to use maps on an iPad. Apple maps works just fine and is good enough. I only ever use it on the phone.
There isn't anything that Google produces that I even want. Not even search. I myself find Bing superior.
I will say that occasionally I will go to YouTube for a how to video. Like details in programming my home automation system. But that's it. I make certain to do the search from Bing too, not in the YouTube web page.
To use Google for anything is totally absurd from my perspective. By the way, more and more of my friends and colleagues have turned to Bing for default search.
Why would maps not be great on iPad? Maps on the ipad mini is far superior to on a phone or a Garmin-like device. My iPad mini is mounted on my dashboard and proves its versatility again, as such. Also, lots of people plan a trip before getting in the car. iPad is a natural for that. Big screen means you see more of the travel path.
Bing? It is losing what little share it had because it just isn't as good, but it is functional enough for haters and fanboys who can't admit that Google does some things very well. I don't feel a need to choose between "sides." And i own both company's stock. Everybody wins from the competition.
Hate on YouTube if you want but Apple has supremely failed to become a player in the transformation of television due to hubris and inattentiveness. Their box is fine but limited. A simple Roku, even the cheapest version does more. Google is experimenting there and will likely not only continue to be a major factor in television, but growing and perhaps even will establish a dominant role with its new TV service coming soon. Apple without Steve misses more opportunities than it hits. They still make great hardware -- some of the best -- but they no longer rule. I am no iHater, but I am not blinded by the famed Apple reality distortion zone either.
To use Alphabet/Google for anything other than search is totally absurd!!
Uh...no. Their app for Maps is still vastly superior. Same goes for gmail and it is improving as well. Google calendar also good and improving. Google Keep is pretty good. And i will take Google Drive over iCloud any day. For me, the Google music app/service is also superior...And they all work beautifully on my iPad.
Even tech writers don't consider google maps vastly superior anymore. Last round up i read a year ago said they're about the same, which matches my own experience. tho i haven't had to use google maps in years. i travel the country a few times a year and haven't had problems in the major metros i visit.
I remember my Android loving friend excitedly linking me to this, and bragging how it was "so much better than Apple Pay". Like 90% of poorly thought out Google projects create solely for hype with no real thought of mass usage, I knew Google should shut it down shortly. And..I was right, on cue.
I think it was an "invite" only test, restricted to a single city and a few select stores. It's wasn't ever intended to be a public or permanent app. Google of course is hinting that at least some of it might be rolled into Android Pay but who knows.
So, you're saying this was Google's goal? To have it limited to a single city and then to shut it down? Really? I don't believe that, at all. It probably got close to zero adoption in their "test" market, an a ton of negative feedback and security/reiability/useability issues, which is why it didn't make it past a "beta test". Don't try to pretend this is what Google aspired to. They simply came out with a half-baked product, yet again, that was nowhere near ready for widescale adoption, and then killed it when it inevitably failed.
FWIW Google was doing what Appel does now several years ago with Google Wallet... Separate hardware-based secure element, tokenized credentials so that the CC number and personal info wasn't exposed to the store, fingerprint authentication, bank partnerships... Google just didn't have the negotiating power of Apple and allowed the carriers to interfere. The more they tried to change things to please 'em the more entrenched those carriers became, and not much Google could do about it. But Apple has the power.
They also didn't have the willpower to make it work. Google often believes throwing something out there to say they "did it first" is what matters, without following up and doing whats necessary to make it a success. And no, you're wrong. Google Wallet only morphed into an Apple Pay duplicate after Apple Pay was released, not before. Apple Pay didn't magically become a success.. Apple painstakingly looked at every single angle before release, and made sure all the components were there to make it a solid experience. That was never the case with Google Wallet, even on Google branded devices.
i also recall that google wallet originally used CC numbers on file and not tokenization.
I remember my Android loving friend excitedly linking me to this, and bragging how it was "so much better than Apple Pay". Like 90% of poorly thought out Google projects create solely for hype with no real thought of mass usage, I knew Google should shut it down shortly. And..I was right, on cue.
I think it was an "invite" only test, restricted to a single city and a few select stores. It's wasn't ever intended to be a public or permanent app. Google of course is hinting that at least some of it might be rolled into Android Pay but who knows.
So, you're saying this was Google's goal? To have it limited to a single city and then to shut it down? Really? I don't believe that, at all.
Pilots and tests are in pursuit of great aspirations -- that it passes the test and is deployed. Slurpy is contesting your claim that they never intended it to get out of a pilot phase. Of course they did, that's why people build and test things. It just didn't work.
To use Alphabet/Google for anything other than search is totally absurd!!
Uh...no. Their app for Maps is still vastly superior. Same goes for gmail and it is improving as well. Google calendar also good and improving. Google Keep is pretty good. And i will take Google Drive over iCloud any day. For me, the Google music app/service is also superior...And they all work beautifully on my iPad.
I don't really have a need to use maps on an iPad. Apple maps works just fine and is good enough. I only ever use it on the phone.
There isn't anything that Google produces that I even want. Not even search. I myself find Bing superior.
I will say that occasionally I will go to YouTube for a how to video. Like details in programming my home automation system. But that's it. I make certain to do the search from Bing too, not in the YouTube web page.
To use Google for anything is totally absurd from my perspective. By the way, more and more of my friends and colleagues have turned to Bing for default search.
Hate on YouTube if you want but Apple has supremely failed to become a player in the transformation of television due to hubris and inattentiveness. Their box is fine but limited. A simple Roku, even the cheapest version does more. Google is experimenting there and will likely not only continue to be a major factor in television, but growing and perhaps even will establish a dominant role with its new TV service coming soon. Apple without Steve misses more opportunities than it hits. They still make great hardware -- some of the best -- but they no longer rule. I am no iHater, but I am not blinded by the famed Apple reality distortion zone either.
Sorry but that's some nonsense. Please provide some facts that infamous Apple "hubris" is failing in television? They've never announced anything other than what they have -- the ATV, which in my opinion does much more than a roku. Better chip and graphics, better platform for apps, better voice control, better synchronization with my ipad and iphone via the TV app, better AirPlay beaming, and better Apple Music and iTunes content playback.
I remember my Android loving friend excitedly linking me to this, and bragging how it was "so much better than Apple Pay". Like 90% of poorly thought out Google projects create solely for hype with no real thought of mass usage, I knew Google should shut it down shortly. And..I was right, on cue.
I think it was an "invite" only test, restricted to a single city and a few select stores. It's wasn't ever intended to be a public or permanent app. Google of course is hinting that at least some of it might be rolled into Android Pay but who knows.
So, you're saying this was Google's goal? To have it limited to a single city and then to shut it down? Really? I don't believe that, at all. It probably got close to zero adoption in their "test" market, an a ton of negative feedback and security/reiability/useability issues, which is why it didn't make it past a "beta test". Don't try to pretend this is what Google aspired to. They simply came out with a half-baked product, yet again, that was nowhere near ready for widescale adoption, and then killed it when it inevitably failed.
FWIW Google was doing what Appel does now several years ago with Google Wallet... Separate hardware-based secure element, tokenized credentials so that the CC number and personal info wasn't exposed to the store, fingerprint authentication, bank partnerships... Google just didn't have the negotiating power of Apple and allowed the carriers to interfere. The more they tried to change things to please 'em the more entrenched those carriers became, and not much Google could do about it. But Apple has the power.
They also didn't have the willpower to make it work. Google often believes throwing something out there to say they "did it first" is what matters, without following up and doing whats necessary to make it a success. And no, you're wrong. Google Wallet only morphed into an Apple Pay duplicate after Apple Pay was released, not before. Apple Pay didn't magically become a success.. Apple painstakingly looked at every single angle before release, and made sure all the components were there to make it a solid experience. That was never the case with Google Wallet, even on Google branded devices.
i also recall that google wallet originally used CC numbers on file and not tokenization.
Visa, Mastercard, Amex and other CC companies hadn't yet come up with an agreed on way of integrating tokenization in 2011, so it would have been impossible for Google to have used the same method in 2011 that didn't become available until early in 2014. Probably would have been later than that, and thus initially unavailable to Apple Pay too, if not for the Target CC breach in 2013. That's what pushed the provisioners to finalize a standard for tokenization on smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices.
But why would Google have even abandoned that hardware-based secure element by 2013 and go with Host-Card Emulation "tokenization", a little over a year before Apple Pay was introduced? Kinda sounds like they were waffling around with security, "throwin' stuff against the wall" as some here would say. It's obvious a hardware-based encrypted secure-enclave like Apple's current method is the better way. Actually Google didn't abandon it. They just weren't allowed to control it.
Google Wallet as originally designed supported both an embedded secure element (SE), a chipset isolated from the operating system, along with one that could use the smartphone's SIMcard. They tried to cover both. But it didn't matter which was used because the carriers other than Sprint (the big three, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mo) chose not to allow Google Wallet to work on their network. Period. They prefered to promote their own Softcard (ISIS) mobile wallet to ensure their fingers were in the emerging mobile payment flow.
The carriers controlled it? How was that? They held the cards, stacked the deck, and made the rules because they owned the keys to the Issuer Security Domain for the SE, no matter whether a chip or SIM.
So how did Apple get around them?
Apple controls their own key as the manufacturer of their contracted secure element and the phone it's used in. The carriers don't get access, nor would Apple agree to a contract with them if they insisted on access. Google wasn't manufacturing their own phones and the carrier contracts with the actual handset manufacturers who relied on those carriers allowed the likes of Verizon/ATT to control it. Huge advantage Apple.
Had it not been for Google agreeing to take the basically worthless Softcard off the carriers hands in 2014 Google might still be fighting them over the secure element.
As a manufacturer of their own phones, and with carriers falling over themselves to cut deals with Apple due to the money they make with them (who doesn't admire an iPhone?) Apple is an a far better position to call their own shots, and does.
That's what it took to shake off the carriers chains. Until very recently Google was more interested in the OS rather than building devices. Emulating Apple is the wiser path if they want to avoid future problems like this one.
Comments
https://www.nfcworld.com/2016/03/03/342883/google-pilots-hands-free-payments-san-francisco/
Sounds amazingly like Apple Pay doesn't it?
..and the second link proves how quickly Verizon (followed by others in short order) moved to protect their own payment plans. Their supposed issue? Read this. In hindsight isn't that exactly what Apple did? The difference is Apple is much richer, powerful and connected. The carriers cannot say no to them as they did Google.
http://www.businessinsider.com/verizon-blocking-google-wallet-2011-12
I'll guess there's a lot of readers here who have no idea of the history.
http://www.pocket-lint.com/news/136939-google-hands-free-payments-app-what-is-it-and-how-does-it-work
Of course that was Google's goal. Have you forgotten about the Nexus? It was a "reference design", never meant to sell in large quantities you know, because f**k profits from hardware!!
Good luck trying to get a sane response from GatorGuy.
Google *specified* what it wanted for a secure system, but without having it's own chip design house, it relied on third parties to fill in the blanks for them. The reason that Apple shot to the front of the pack is because it could present the banks with a complete end-to-end system, rather than a hotch-potch of different technologies bolted together from different suppliers.
The other problem that Google had was that it lacked a fingerprint recognition system anywhere near as reliable as TouchID. Because of this, I suspect Google launched this ill-fated photo nonsense in the desperate hope of bypassing the problem. Secondly, Google trades a lot on the its currency of being successful, so even while they didn't have a solution that was as good as Apple Pay, they could pretend that they were developing one until the Android manufacturers could come up with something that was good enough. Once this had happened, and once Apple had made NFC payments pretty much mainstream, then Google could abandon the project; they knew it wasn't going to work anyway.
One other thing; when faced with a bunch of people criticising Google, you stumble onto the well-trodden path taken by all the other Google fans; you race to your favourite search engine and bring back a load of links that prove Google was there first. This is the wrong path to take, because folk who have followed Apple more closely than you know that Apple is rarely there first; in fact Apple is usually the last on the field, and still manages to walk away with the football. In this case, Apple looked at Google Wallet and asked "Why is no one using this?" They put their heads together, look at the shortcomings, and then come up with a solution that attracts consumers as well as geeks.
And like everyone else, I'm going to finish with a prediction.
Apple Pay doesn't make that much money, and with all the whining the banks are doing about costs, it's probably going to make even less. So where next?
Well, here's what Apple has.
A top-notch contactless payment system.
Almost $250billion sitting around doing nothing.
The world's most valuable customer base. And by valuable, I mean they're quite well off and very unlikely to commit fraud.
An Apple Bank?
Well, they already have branches in most major cities.
Not so sure about that. Apple Maps has come along in leaps and bounds in the last two years.
I took a long road trip a few weeks back. After a couple hours driving (and I like that Maps turns off the screen when it has nothing to do for about twenty miles), I ended up on a dirt track that got dirtier and dirtier. It shrank to the width of the car and I was going past cows who were looking at me with that "WE DON'T STRANGERS ROUND 'ERE" sort of expression. I thought, "Enough. Maps has obviously screwed up! This isn't even a bloody road, and it reckons I'm five minutes away!"
So I call the fella I'm heading to see. "I'm lost,", I say. "I let Siri handle the navigation and now I'm on mud path surrounded by hostile cows."
"Right," he says. "What can you see, aside from the cows."
"A farm house, and rusty tractor in a ditch next to the cow paddock."
"Ah, broken tractor! I know where you are! Stay there, I'll meet you."
So I wait, cursing Siri and her future offspring
Five minutes later, he appears, travelling along the same crappy road in the opposite direction.
In this ONE instance I should have had a bit more faith.
Google is actually quite hot in security, which is why it bans its own products from meetings.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-bans-glass-at-shareholder-meeting-8650084.html
As for the Hands-free tests your claim it was a an attempt to bypass unreliable fingerprint sensors is downright silly. The Hand-free testing was slated to last for a year, started in March/16 and ending March/17 and fingerprint readers were already both fast, reliable and widespread by mid-2016. Google was and is testing more convenient payment processes that don't require pulling out a phone, buying and wearing a watch, or requiring anything other than having your smartphone with you whether in a pocket or purse. Simply a possible convenience feature. Nothing might come from it but kudos for trying. Now had you said they might have been testing a way to avoid relying on smartwatches or other wearables I'd have given you a point. Android Wear has been a stumble-fest so far. Fingerprint readers are already good.
The rest of your post just supports what I said in the first place. Google had the hardware figured out, the process identified, banks signed on board with it, retail partners at the roll-out, cooperation from Mastercard/Visa. . .
Still not enough. It needed Apple to break the carrier's blockade. Google has far less economic power and couldn't force it. Apple is the new Exxon and has that power. They're a beast.
So you are right. First is not as important as being successful at it, which Apple is more often than not. It does not make one of them inventive and the other a copyist pretender either.
Bing? It is losing what little share it had because it just isn't as good, but it is functional enough for haters and fanboys who can't admit that Google does some things very well. I don't feel a need to choose between "sides." And i own both company's stock. Everybody wins from the competition.
Hate on YouTube if you want but Apple has supremely failed to become a player in the transformation of television due to hubris and inattentiveness. Their box is fine but limited. A simple Roku, even the cheapest version does more. Google is experimenting there and will likely not only continue to be a major factor in television, but growing and perhaps even will establish a dominant role with its new TV service coming soon. Apple without Steve misses more opportunities than it hits. They still make great hardware -- some of the best -- but they no longer rule. I am no iHater, but I am not blinded by the famed Apple reality distortion zone either.
But why would Google have even abandoned that hardware-based secure element by 2013 and go with Host-Card Emulation "tokenization", a little over a year before Apple Pay was introduced? Kinda sounds like they were waffling around with security, "throwin' stuff against the wall" as some here would say. It's obvious a hardware-based encrypted secure-enclave like Apple's current method is the better way. Actually Google didn't abandon it. They just weren't allowed to control it.
Google Wallet as originally designed supported both an embedded secure element (SE), a chipset isolated from the operating system, along with one that could use the smartphone's SIMcard. They tried to cover both. But it didn't matter which was used because the carriers other than Sprint (the big three, Verizon, AT&T and T-Mo) chose not to allow Google Wallet to work on their network. Period. They prefered to promote their own Softcard (ISIS) mobile wallet to ensure their fingers were in the emerging mobile payment flow.
The carriers controlled it? How was that? They held the cards, stacked the deck, and made the rules because they owned the keys to the Issuer Security Domain for the SE, no matter whether a chip or SIM.
So how did Apple get around them? Apple controls their own key as the manufacturer of their contracted secure element and the phone it's used in. The carriers don't get access, nor would Apple agree to a contract with them if they insisted on access. Google wasn't manufacturing their own phones and the carrier contracts with the actual handset manufacturers who relied on those carriers allowed the likes of Verizon/ATT to control it. Huge advantage Apple. Had it not been for Google agreeing to take the basically worthless Softcard off the carriers hands in 2014 Google might still be fighting them over the secure element.
As a manufacturer of their own phones, and with carriers falling over themselves to cut deals with Apple due to the money they make with them (who doesn't admire an iPhone?) Apple is an a far better position to call their own shots, and does. That's what it took to shake off the carriers chains. Until very recently Google was more interested in the OS rather than building devices. Emulating Apple is the wiser path if they want to avoid future problems like this one.