Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dvt | Hacker News Reader

"To recap, Page criticized Microsoft for treating Google as a rival, blasted Oracle for caring too much about money, and then whined about everyone being so negative. Heck, if it weren’t for those other companies standing in the way, Google would have probably already solved world hunger."

I mean, pretty much this (assuming the above was facetious). The Youtube thing really made me lose a lot of hope in Google as a company. Even though, I feel that we've made great strides in the past 10 years, I can't help but be reminded that:

1) I have people on my Facebook that I can't add to my phone without some ridiculous hacks (that essentially scrape FB, breaking the TOS) - thanks Facebook

2) I can't use GMail in the vanilla mail app on my touchscreen W8 laptop - thanks Google

3) I can't have a Metro Chrome app - thanks Google

4) My sister can't have almost anything (native) Google-related on her ARM-based W8RT tablet - thanks Microsoft

5) I can't have a distro-agnostic framework that "just works" for downloading/updating/installing/uninstalling Linux packages - thanks FOSS infighting cliques

6) I don't have full control over my Android/Apple phone, over my Android/Apple/Windows tablet, (and soon over my Google glass) unless I root said devices

This is simply a consumer-space extension of the legal battles that these companies are so fond of (see Samsung vs. Apple). The sad part is, it's probably going to get worse before it gets better. Oh, well.. c'est la vie.

2 - Gmail supports SMTP and IMAP, so any mail client should work. The top hit for [windows 8 gmail] is http://www.redmondpie.com/how-to-configure-mail-in-windows-8... , which indicates that the Windows 8 mail app has an icon specifically for configuring Gmail accounts.

3 - According to http://blog.chromium.org/2012/06/try-chrome-in-metro-mode.ht... , Chrome has supported Metro since June 2012 when running on a non-RT version of Windows. Computers running Windows 8 RT can't run any browser in Metro mode (see http://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2012/05/09/windows-on-arm-users... ), so it's not like Google has a choice there.

6 - To root a device means to gain full control over it. It's not obvious how you could have full control over your phone without rooting it.

> It's not obvious how you could have full control over your phone without rooting it.

It could come with root access enabled, just like your computer does.

From a security and reliability perspective, having root enabled by default is a terrible idea. The arms race between OS vendors and malware developers means that defaulting root to disabled is both desirable and inevitable.

Only root can install malware into the kernel or BIOS. Only root can pull keys and passwords out of /dev/mem. Only root can damage an installation beyond the ability to factory reset.

I eagerly await the day when every major OS will require jumping over some basic hurdle (e.g. rebooting into single-user mode and running /sbin/root-me-harder) before enabling root access, because that will eliminate entire categories of security risks from consumer-oriented computing.

Which of these arguments does not apply to computers?

I don't understand your question. Just so it's clear, I consider smartphones and tablets to be computers also, and I hope that one day all computers (desktops, laptops, tablets, smartphones, watches, goggles, Borg implants) come with root-equivalent access disabled by default.

Fair enough.

2 - http://www.informationweek.com/byte/personal-tech/mobile-app...

3 - There is no native Metro Chrome app (talking x86 or x86-64 here, I address RT in my subsequent point), so I'm not sure what you're talking about. The current Metro implementation is NOT a true Metro implementation (it's just the desktop app stuck in a metro window -- no gestures, no larger fonts, etc, etc).

6 - Someone already addressed this point

2 - According to that article, Microsoft disabled access to EAS even for Google accounts that still supported it, and has not yet added support for the standardized contact/calendar protocols supported by Google Apps. That is not the same thing as "can't use GMail in the vanilla mail app on my touchscreen W8 laptop". In particular, unless the mail app somehow dropped support for SMTP/IMAP, then it will support Gmail perfectly just like any other desktop client.

3 - So your complaint is that the Metro version of Chrome does not support some Metro features? Again, that is absolutely not the same as "can't have a Metro Chrome app".

2 - I guess my quip should have said "thanks Microsoft" in retrospect. (Although even if I wanted to run GMail natively, there's no Windows store app made by Google when there's one made by Yahoo, for example; I would ask why)..

3 - Sorry, but I don't buy this. A desktop app copy-pasted onto a Metro frame (I have no idea what the containers are called so excuse my ignorance) is NOT a Metro app (like the one Mozilla is working on, for example: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Metro).

A lot of things you mentioned are more "why would company A bother building for company B's platform?" than "the companies are evil!"

Then why does Vimeo have a Windows Phone 8 and WinRT app while YouTube with a much higher revenue can't make one?

Why does the zombie company Yahoo Mail bother to a Windows Metro app while Gmail doesn't?

Or perhaps Google doesn't want to support Windows Phone and WinRT for the fear of rivaling Android phones and tablets.

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