Google is going native!

For the longest time, Google’s applications have always felt off. This change should hopefully put Google’s applications in line with everything else that’s native to iOS and iPadOS.

3 Likes

The tweets by Verkoeyen are worth reading. Here’s a threadreader link. It’s not that long. The Lucas Pope forum posts he links are design classics, too.

I expect the evaluation process will result in moderate improvements, but any time development progress can be made by removing and consolidating code after paying close attention to details, something is being done right. :slight_smile:

1 Like

Welcome for sure. But I have to say that my biggest displeasure with Google’s iOS apps has been how many separate ones they expect me to run. Most recently, how they forked Hangouts into Voice and Chat. I wish they would stop cluttering my screen and storage with more and more apps for, no doubt, the sake of shoving their brand in my face at every opportunity. Look at that article thumbnail even; 4 separate “Something-Tube” apps.

1 Like

Stop using them then. I know that’s blunt. but if the apps you use aren’t serving you, why should you put up with their bullshit?

I now only have one google app I need and that’s Chat over which I keep in touch with a very good friend. I can take or leave every other app from google and quite frequently I leave them.

Hopefully, if they rip out a bunch of their custom UI and stick closer to stock Apple stuff they’ll be able to implement new OS features a bit quicker.

I have, where I can. Only have Maps, Chat, and Voice. But since it’s a discussion about their apps, chiming in…

Would you rather have to deal with an extremely bloated communication client and an extremely bloated YouTube application?

Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. I have a feeling that’ll be the case. :slight_smile:

Combining chat and voice into one app is not bloated. Plenty do. Including Hangouts. Nor is combining video and audio into one player bloated. Again, plenty do. Including YouTube.com. If Google has 4 or more media players, it means they’ve created 4 or more players’-worth of bloat. Not that there is 4 or more players’-worth of features therein.

They would have to merge…

  • The “YouTube” application (which is already bloated enough as is) for “traditional” videos…
  • The “YouTube Kids” application that’s specifically curated for young children and is a whole different beast of its own…
  • The “YouTube Music” application for streaming music…
  • The “YouTube TV” application for streaming live television and recording programs to cloud DVR…

…all into one single application. Imagine how much of a mess that would be! Some people don’t want their music mixed in with everything else, so they use YouTube Music. Some people don’t want their young child’s video recommendations mixed in with their own personal recommendations, so they make their young child use YouTube Kids. The same can easily be said for YouTube TV too. Most people don’t want live television mixed in with anything that isn’t… well… live television. :man_shrugging:

I can’t even begin to imagine what that would be like if such an idea was applied to the web version of YouTube too…

There isn’t enough space for that.

So instead of a music tab, an AirPlay button, and a parental controls lock screen, they have 4 apps. Got it.

You clearly haven’t used any of the applications beforehand then.

As someone who has taken on a new remote work role with a company that EXCLUSIVELY uses Google for everything, this is much appreciated news!

I thought the comment about Google “going native” meant something completely different. :laughing:

I’m glad to see this happening but Google lost my support long ago because of privacy issues and software that seemed to get worse over time instead of better. I recently gave away a lot of my Google Home products because I just couldn’t deal with how incredibly unreliable they had become.

This being said, there are still certain Google products I still use instead of Apple’s, such as Google Maps. Not for navigation purposes, but for their beautiful terrain overlay. I love cartography and am hoping that Apple implements a topographic overlay one day, but until then I still really like Google Maps.

Wasn’t that kind of stuff implemented into Apple Maps in iOS 14 (or was it iOS 15)?

Massive improvements have been annually made to Apple Maps since iOS 13.

Not a topographical map, no.

Oh, I see now…

I didn’t even realize that Google Maps had such a thing. I’ve only ever seen and heard of topographical maps in physical form.

Probably not a big deal for most folks. But when I lived in the mountain west it was nice to be able to look at a topo and see a rough idea of how steep the grades were through mountainous areas.

That’s rule number one for a UNIX geek. They probably can’t help it :grinning:

The Unix philosophy from the Bell System Technical Journal 1978:

  1. Make each program do one thing well. To do a new job, build afresh rather than complicate old programs by adding new “features”.
1 Like

My office is heavy into Google Workplace (for better or worse). The trend that I have seen is the opposite. Everything is now being crowded into the Gmail app. The are further along the web - where you now even edit docs in a gmail window - but gmail on iOS now also includes Chat, Meet, Rooms and I am sure will soon include other functions. To be honest, it’s crowded but I rather like it.