Posts by viscount 112 publicly visible posts • joined 16 Jul 2014
If Google get really worried about the cost of running Gmail (and I not convinced that they will) then they can reduce the free storage limit and charge a subscription fee for those who use it regularly enough to build a large inbox.
Those upset by that change would take their email elsewhere, leaving a smaller user base of people split between a large number who hardly use it (and so have a nominal cost to serve) and a power user group who are paying anyway.
The key element for me is this quote from Apple.
"We are not going to talk about other apps."
Obviously you can use Office365 etc. on Apple and they do not make you buy it via them, whether consumer or corporate. So why lock out Hey like this? What distinction are they actually trying to make?
You misunderstand the GOP mindset. The GOP is always in favour of _big_ business, regardless of domain and political view. So for example, conservatives rail against the Hollywood libs, but GOP administrations will always do everything they can to protect their IP at home and abroad.
This may seem contradictory. It is not as long as you understand the first principle of the GOP is to support big business. The actual business is of secondary importance. So expect Google to get a very easy ride indeed.
"Not you hit F1, and an almost random page opens in a browser with very little, if any, useful information."
This. I remember when MS help was awesome - full, clear and context sensitive in Excel for example. Now you get random links to websites that often don't exist anymore, along with lots of worse than useless "community content".
The vast majority of users do not currently use ad-blockers. So this is a smart move by Google. They are hoping to head of the growth of the blockers by stripping out the massively irritating ads but leaving the fairly innocuous ones. That is where Google started remember - small simple ads on search results.
It may or may not work, but its an interesting move to try it, especially for mobile.
If you had asked me a year ago whether visibility of what buses were arriving where and when would be helpful, I probably would have been lukewarm.
However, having recently consumed the service via mobile apps it is genuinely useful because you can decide which bus to take from which stop, or whether to walk or get a tube. It sounds trivial but for a city the size of London it's a big deal: there are so many bus users and each gets a little bit of benefit.
Good work TfL.
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