Microsoft says Google trying to undermine Windows Phone Microsoft has admitted that Windows Phone 8 doesn't work as well with some of the internet's most popular properties as do other smartphone platforms, but it has pinned the blame on a surprising culprit: apparently, it's all Google's fault. In a blog post on Wednesday, Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Dave Heiner said …
Awwww evil old Google beating up on poor wittle Micwosoft. There there poor baby, console yourself with the thought that you're a big fat corprate bastard that's been kicking sand in the faces of smaller guys for years so it's about time you got yours. I'm old enough to remember FUD and Astro Turf. Stop whining and innovate!!!!
They can't. MS have lost all their creative staff and effective engineers (the dross remains as usual). Even MS haven't got enough money to fix their appalling range of offerings - they've entirely lost their way. Windows 8 tries to turn the desktop into a sub-standard touchscreen phone, Windows for phones doesn't work properly (it's even worse than Blackberry!), Windows 7 is incompatible with most business software, and all of them have stupidly high hardware requirements (ever tried "running" Windoze 7 on an Atom-based netbook?).
Apple aren't much better. Their desktop OS is now aging (the latest version is just a set of patches on top of a seven-year-old OS), and business can't justify the need for the higher hardware prices. iOS is a poor joke. Everything that was good about earlier versions is largely broken, and they just can't compete with the ability of Android to run on virtually any hardware....
Android is now the "acceptable face of Linux" and is stealing a march on everything else. Chrome looks great, and is easy to use - the Samsung Chromebook is fabulous (and insanely cheap). The latest Nexus phone will outsell everything else on the market over the next few months.
Google aren'y being nasty to MS and Apple - it's just that they've lost the plot completely, and neither can compete with Google's pricing policy! Android, Chrome and Linux are all free (in every sense), and their inexorable march towards supremacy in all markets will be fascinating to see!
"Apple aren't much better. Their desktop OS is now aging (the latest version is just a set of patches on top of a seven-year-old OS)"
Irony++
This desktop OS has underpinnings dating back over 40 years, how on earth can steady, methodical improvements be labelled in this way? Because you think everything is like Windows?
You should know all about systems based on Unix, you base your life on a Penguin-flavoured free-ripoff version of it after all and nobody is complaining that is "just a set of patches". You have no respect for the amount of work put into these things clearly.
Idiot.
Indeed.
Reminds me of when they intentionally delivered borked content to Opera Browser...
http://slashdot.org/story/03/02/14/1256231/opera-releases-bork-edition
I have a suspicion that the underlying problem is Microsoft's insistance of pushing the closed H.264 video standard. If they supported open VP8/HTML5 video, i'm guessing there wouldn't be a problem with the YouTube app.
Either way, the lack of a decent YouTube app on Windows Phone is the very least of users problems, the whole OS is shite, not just a single app.
"@Barry - Did you even read the article? They clearly said that the problem was nothing to do with video, but the metadata related services, such as ratings, categories etc."
The coward is right! Too many retards hit submit without thought or consideration for whey they rant about. Hardly surprising in here tho is it?
The whole windows phone os is rubbish eh? Have you ever actually used it? And I don't mean reading a review from some Apple ir Google biased reviewer. Or fiddling with it in a shop.
Yes, it has faults but so do all the others. I just think people are now too quick to dismiss it.
We need more competition in the market..
So feel free to use a sub-standard mobile platform if you think that brings competition to a market that is spilt quite well between two tech giants, bring a 3rd party to the table that locked down the previous desktop market so it contained only themselves. Something they were fined for doing multiple times, why on earth would anyone want Microsoft back in the mix again ?
You are correct - feel free to use the substandard Android, by not acknowledging or complaining about its many failings, and believe that you are bringing competition to a market.
Android's email, battery power handling, calendar system and People contact handling UI are massive steps backward from both BlackBerry and Windows Mobile 6.1 / 6.5, but you blindly believe otherwise. But you'e bought into the hype, haven't you?
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That's pretty obvious, obviously The retards seem nowadays to concentrate primarily in the vicinity of your beloved Redmond City. Because, it's not that hard to write an app for youtube. The one Android devices use had an Apache license, so were MS not that retarded, they'd be able to figure it out. There is a python project called youtube-dl (GPL'ed), MS could use to parse youtube urls to their own liking and fire up some nice video player to watch the movies. Do MS have a decent videoplayer? I doubt it, in that case they can use a free player, they are aplenty. The code of mplayer or vlc, these are GPL'ed. So MS should use some caution here.
Of course, MS might be able to do all that, they just need to cry out loud like a bunch of professional weepers. I'll try to smother this hysteria with a little reminder that MS had been failing to deliver any of their products to GNU/Linux and *BSD platforms (not that most bother, but still...). So they better shut their baby-crying mouth up.
There may be issues. I've heard from a senior mobile phone company guy that Windows Phones are being returned en masse and it's to do with the phones slowing down and not working properly. Currently they try to mitigate issues by recommending removing the last added apps.
I haven't seen anything on the web about this yet - maybe the Reg wants to look into it?
That would be why most of YouTube is still H.264 then??
Also, VP8 is inferior to H.264 in every way. It's a larger file, it's a lower quality picture, it's a format that doesn't play on servers without extra configuration, and no support for hardware acceleration. Pretty lame....
Also video has nothing to do with this story so not sure what bandwagon you are on. If I have been caught by excellent trolling then my hat goes off to you sir.
Back in the day, when Microsoft had the clout to act like the bully, they served different html to IE and Opera browsers from their MSN site. The code served to IE worked on Opera, but what was served to Opera was a less polished interface. It made IE look "better".
And this: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/msn/
Does anyone else find that the Google search pages have a different, more functional design on the stock Android browser to what you get on Firefox for Android?
Lets play the Microsoft game...
In the following paragraphs, swap the names around....
"According to Heiner, Google has denied Microsoft's YouTube app access to metadata that would allow it to deliver all of YouTube's functionality, including such features as user ratings and the ability to search for videos by categories.
Because of this limitation, he says, Microsoft has been forced to deliver an app that's really nothing more than a repackaged version of the YouTube website running in a browser – unlike the apps for other platforms, which offer richer experiences."
So you get something like this:
"According to Heiner, Microsoft has denied Google's / Firefox's / Netscape's, YouTube app (or any other piece of software) access to metadata that would allow it to deliver all of YouTube's functionality, including such features as user ratings and the ability to search for videos by categories.
Because of this limitation, he says, Microsoft have been forced to deliver an app that's really nothing more than a repackaged version of the YouTube website running in a browser – unlike the apps for other platforms, which offer richer experiences."
I remember for YEARS that Microsofts IDIOT media player that so totally fucked things up, so badly that any other program by any other company, was WAY better, and now we have Open Source "VLC MEDIA PLAYER" and the like to play almost anything, on any Operating System, while Microsoft's management simply squat on a bigger DRM butt plug.
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This from the same company that's going around Android licensees, demanding money for menaces^h alleged patents in the form of protection money^h^h licensing agreements. They really ought to be more careful on how they engage allegations of dubious trading conduct; it's only a matter of time before the FTC, and the EC, out them. It's a clear anti-trust violation. Just amazed that they've got away with that for so long.
Unlike these PR stunts, no consumer is complaining about Google, only Microsoft. Competition is but a mouse click away for the rest of us, if indeed there was a credible alternative.
Not that I agree with it at all (the patent stuff not being outed etc), but I fail to understand your reasoning. If they have these patents, they should be able to charge for them. As it seems they are agreeing with the companies that are paying the licensing fees there must be something too them and they must be real.
Yes the patent system in the US needs to be overhauled, worldwide it needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into something more workable. But why are you not asking everyone that has patents to stop using them? Oh yes sorry I forgot, it affects your beloved Linux and therefore it is bad, bad, bad because it is not free and is owned by a Company you have a distinct dislike for.
"If they have these patents, they should be able to charge for them."
Yeah, but the issue is more that they're insisting they have these patents but refusing to clarify how exactly Android infringes and trying to do the "You wouldn't want to end up in court discussing this, would you?" sales pitch for the settlement.
It's especially dubious when Microsoft is trying to promote its own competing OS in partnership with a rival company to those whom it is threatening with litigation. It may be innocent, but MS have a fine track history in corporate-level felonious bellendery so I wouldn't want to jump to conclusions either way...
But surely in the negotiations they have to show the patents to the people involved. Otherwise they could say, well hey, we're not infringing as you can't tell us what we're infringing, and carry on.
Perhaps I live in a dream world and for some reason this is not possible. But a lot of the companies involved can easily afford what you are saying.
So, after spending the best part of 15 years screwing competitors and partners with secret APIs, unannounced API changes and even code that detects competitors and issues spurious warnings (remember DR DOS?), Microsoft finds itself at the other end of such 'competitiveness'. Oooh the irony.
So, it seems like the consensus here is 'an eye for an eye'?
Maybe Microsoft do deserve a bit of their own medicine but Google would earn far more of my respect if their behaviour was above reproach. In my view deliberately anti-competitive is just wrong, even if it represents a bit of karma rebalancing.
