[nindalf]

I have to disagree with this characterization. I don't work for Google but it is apparent that a lot of work goes into their products. You don't necessarily need to launch a new product to show impact. Improving existing ones is plenty great too, even if these improvements aren't as apparent as product launches. For example, we take for granted that the Google assistant can understand most things we say to it. By this time next year it would have gained a bunch of new capabilities that we would also take for granted, except more people would likely be using it and they'd be happier with it than they are today.

On one hand you acknowledge that they are constantly improving existing software, launching new hardware, new frameworks, new tools and on the other you criticise them for "not launching even one product". It's strange because I've actually heard the opposite criticism of Google on HN, that they launch too many products and don't focus enough on existing ones.

[akvadrako]

Many Google products are getting worse. The Maps UI isn't as good as 5 years ago. Search doesn't find things as well as it used to. And competitors are catching up. The developer libraries and languages they have released are all 2nd rate.

The grandparent is right - they basically haven't been able to capitalise on their incredibly strong position, except by becoming better as selling ads.

[3pt14159]

The UI might be worse, but everything else about Maps is better. It knows where front doors are, you can get directions through buildings if you're walking, it's far more traffic-aware, you can schedule when you want to arrive somewhere and it's public transit is smart enough to adjust for available busses, it works in areas of the world like Kiev with Latin or Cyrillic spelling, it has photos of the insides of most places, you can send the directions to your phone and it opens in the maps app there.

My only major complaint about maps is that it isn't friendly to people with limited data. Tapping on a restaurant in Thailand where I might have 50 megs of data for the whole month loads around 1-3 megs of images when all I want to do is see what time it opens. There are minor UI annoyances but overall Maps is a much, much better product than 5 years ago.

[BatFastard]

I think you are not seeing the larger picture. I am sure I am not, but I get glimpses of it. Google maps has added a huge amount of functionality, just not for getting from place to place. They had that down for the most part.

Now they have rankings, hours, sometimes details floor plans on almost every business, every park, every location in the world, that is mind blowing!

On top of that they have photos of everything, those photos, can be used to generate 3d maps for the web, VR, MR. Those photos are also used to train AI.

I think they are doing a great job of capitalizing on their position.

[remus]

I think that's quite subjective.