[ajsnigrutin]

So, a speech-to-text and vice versa with a limited set of options, a website to buy domains from and "inovations", that you cannot buy yet, and might be cancelled before they ever come to consumer-ready completion?

That doesn't sound like a lot.

Google had an XMPP compatible chat client, that they killed of and revived with a new product every few years, so from gtalk, to wave, duo, alo, meet, chat, or whatever else it was called.

Youtube stopped promoting independent producers, and is basically just a frontend to legacy media.

Google apps was a great free tool for your own domain, but nope, not free anymore.

Google maps started featuring ads everywhere and is a pain to try to find thing X with lidl logos everywhere.

Google reader, great product, dead.

Google cardboard... great, cheap VR "for the masses"... dead.

Google fusion tables.. dead.

Google search results are 50% pinterest, 50% unrelated.

Google inbox, dead.

The audio only chromecast.. dead.

Google mytracks, great tool, killed by google (luckily an opensource replacement exists).

Picasa.

Google+ was a great idea... create bubbles, share stuff to only specific groups... too much forced integration everywhere, people hated it, dead.

Google nexus/pixel phones were great in the nexus 4/5/5x era.. now they're expesive and "meh".

Android privacy features are broken... no way to change unique ids, and most of the permissions are not granular enough, and people have been complaining for years about that.

The only thing google is really great at, is taking a chat service, making a new one and killing the old one... everything else is building nice prototypes and killing them.

[NikolaNovak]

I mean... You kinda defeated your own point. You listed great number of great google innovations, and are (as far as I can tell) actually upset at people / users / market for not embracing them and allowing them to succeed?

FWIW I'm with you. People just don't seem to like the things I like so they die and I don't have things I like. But I don't find that google's fault or lack of their innovation. They seem to go more crazy than vast majority of companies to try crazy things - and you missed out on as many dead innovative things (Google goggles etc) as you listed :)

[romwell]

Creating a product that operates at a loss (by funding it with ad money from search), effectively evaporating small players in that niche, only to kill the product in several years, leaving a smoldering hole where an ecosystem used to be?

Or, in cases like Picasa buying a product, only to shut it down and force existing users onto a new platform (Photos in that case) with no feature parity.

If that's innovation, it's a rather sad kind. Google could do with less of that.

And as a xoogler: Google is long past trying crazy things. New things — sure, crazy — nope. Crazy won't fly in a project proposal.

FWIW most of the things mentioned in the parent comment (Waymo, Wing, etc) are not Google.

Yes, they're owned by the same holding group. But if you work at Google, you don't have access to projects, employees, and spaces.

[xmprt]

I partly agree. But only partly because Google has tried crazy things recently too. Stadia seemed pretty crazy in my eyes and it's the kind of thing that most people wrote off but I had hoped that Google could prove them wrong. They didn't and have killed it off for the most part (it still exists but I think it's back to the drawing board). A while back Google was working on building a modular smart phone with Project Ara. They killed it before it got to consumers.

It seems like Google still attempts crazy things now and then but the crazy things don't succeed like they used to. Maybe there's just not as much blue ocean for crazy things in tech to succeed like there used to and the crazy things are crazy for a reason and no one's trying it.

[gooses]

Is stadia really that crazy? OnLive existed well before stadia and was basically the same thing.

[smeagull]

It is. The lag for steam play just over wifi is insufferable. Encoding the video takes too long for latency intensive applications like video games.

[romwell]

There's a difference between "very complicated to accomplish" and "crazy" in my book.

For example, balancing a bowling ball on the tip of a pencil is technically very challenging, but accomplishing that isn't exactly what people would call "crazy" - more like "OK, but why would you do that".

The problem that Google faces now is that the fun and crazy things that could be done with the wealth of personal data that it collects are increasingly seen as creepy by the people providing that data, immoral by the journalists, and illegal by legislatures.

Saying this as someone who would have absolute loved to do some of the crazier things while working there. It's for the better that it was not an option, at least at the time.

Google has a lot of power now, and with great power comes great responsibility. And responsible behavior tends to lean away from "crazy".

[Ygg2]

Stadia isn't crazy. It's just dumb.

Is it new? No. Streaming games has been done for a good while now.

Is it exciting? Games on subscription? Already done.

Even exclusive games were done. And done better by Epic store.

Works with existing collection? Nope.

Working on any device? So does GFNow but works with current Steam collection (unless publishers is greedy).

Does it solve any interesting issues? No. But adds non-repairable console. Basic issue can't be fixed easily - Network congestion, speed of light.

On launch it was universally panned by hardware reviewers like Gamers Nexus, and others.

It's not like Google graveyard was a secret at that point.

[romwell]

>But only partly because Google has tried crazy things recently too.

Our definitions of "tried" and "crazy" clearly differ.

>They killed it before it got to consumer

By that definition, I "tried" building a spaceship yesterday. I just killed it before it got to the launch. Crazy, huh?

>Maybe there's just not as much blue ocean for crazy things in tech to succeed like there used to

Or maybe a company abandoned by its founders that ditched its "Don't Be Evil" motto for something incomprehensible ("Respect the opportunity", pardon me? Should I also "Be nice to profits" and "Revere stock value"?) isn't the shining paragon of innovation it used to be.

There is plenty of space for crazy things, more than ever before. And both Alphabet and Meta are doing crazy things. Just not as a part of their main businesses (Google/Facebook, respectively).

[claaams]

Does anyone have any good alternatives to google maps? The new sponsored content is extremely obnoxious and god forbid you accidentally mouse over it while looking at the map.

[ajsnigrutin]

OsmAnd on android for an opensource solution - downloads openstreetmaps and renders them locally, but can also use web maps if needed

Here maps from nokia for a commercial solution

[YarickR2]

Any of those with as complete list of local businesses as Google ? If I want to find an ice cream parlor, or an engine oil dealer, or a sports equipment shop in my vicinity , would all three have similar results ?

[galbar]

I use OSMAnd for navigation a and location-related stuff.

Sadly, the only complete business listing I've found is Google Maps... So I use it just for that, with all permissions revoked.

Lately, I've started to add my favorite places in OSM, directly through OSMAnd. So my personal experience has gotten better

[NGRhodes]

Google maps is useless for local results form me, I live in a village on the edge of a small town with a few dozen local businesses and 4 chain businesses and all my search results are polluted by 2 cities 30 minutes and 45 minutes away by car, which is really annoying as these results are useless to me as my disability prevents me traveling that far or amount of time.

[djitz]

If you search for something and then move the map over an area, you’ll get a button to “search this area” which will only show results in that spot.

That’s how it should work, anyway.

[thayne]

Probably depends on the area. Where I live, OSM doesn't really have anything beyond just streets. But I've heard other areas have much better coverage.

[NGRhodes]

Yes, complete opposite for me, loads of single track roads and whole 4sq miles of woods/Forrest missing, including numerous public paths .

[ajuc]

I used osmand in Poland and Ireland and it's great. Better for walking and biking than Google maps. And it's fully offline.

[FpUser]

I use OsmAnd for cycling navigation. It is very good at that. At least in the places I was.

[matthias509]

You can try HERE WeGo. Add free and you can download maps for use offline.

Disclaimer: I work for HERE Technologies.

[NGRhodes]

Magic Earth is a good map/navigation app that uses OSM data and has a decent search tool. IMHO it does car navigation well, but I prefer Organic Maps for hiking/walking, so I keep both on my phone.

[durnygbur]

> Google maps started featuring ads everywhere and is a pain to try to find thing X with lidl logos everywhere.

It makes me wonder who at BP, Shell, McDonalds, Aldi, Lidl thinks that obscuring the map with their obscene logo is a good idea. They do it everywhere - Garmin devices, Google Maps, other providers. The moment you have maps, there is a queue of sales and marketing people from these companies with invitations for "conferences". Then PM/PO/manager after coming back creates turd tickets for "premium POIs".

[Frost1x]

I wonder how many people are on a mapping service like, "oh wow, Aldi, why didn't I think of that" and go to Aldi. Or perhaps they're searching for gas and don't want to optimize on route or cost and go "aha, a BP, thankfully I can actually fuel up now." I imagine it's next to no one but the way people advertise I have to assume it's not.