

Yahoo Axis - KaoruAoiShiho
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/yahoo!-axis-a-search-browser/id506520874?mt=8&ign-mpt=uo%3D2

======
freditup
I hate the favoritism people show to companies. Whenever Apple (and normally
Google) come out with something, people go crazy just drooling to try it out.
However, when Yahoo came out with Axis, I saw people saying things like 'Why
doesn't Yahoo just quit trying and go bankrupt already?' etc. When a company
comes out with a new product, people shouldn't jump on the company-
fanboy/hater bandwagons.

That being said, it's nice to see Yahoo do something well.

~~~
fjarlq
I think Yahoo's brand perception differs depending on the audience.

The HN crowd seems to be pretty tired of Yahoo. I know I am. I'm disappointed
that they never made a good Flickr mobile app, and sad about what Yahoo did
with del.icio.us. A few years ago, those were two of my favorite web services.
No longer.

Other issues: the quality of Yahoo Answers is a running joke. Yahoo Groups
sorely needs to be remodeled, but their 2010 attempt was a miserable failure.
Some people are still sore about what happened to GeoCities.

Issues like these set expectations among a certain audience. I admit I don't
expect Yahoo to hit a home run these days.

Yet there are people (non-techy folks) in my family who have used Yahoo for
over ten years for their mail, news, and search. When they've had problems,
I've tried to talk them into switching to something better, but they like
Yahoo. So there you go.

To each their own. But after my recent poor experiences with Yahoo, I don't
feel guilty that my expectations are set low. I'm not rooting for them to
fail, but I can't help feeling fairly cynical about them.

~~~
zackzackzack
Exception that proves the rule of the quality of Yahoo Answers: Craig Newmark
answering a question about how craigslist makes money.
[http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060720194938AA...](http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20060720194938AADFTbO)

~~~
chris24
Are authoritative answers like those still being posted on Y! Answers these
days though? Craig's answer was from 6 years ago.

~~~
icoloma
These days I still find many general knowledge questions (i.e. non-technical)
being redirected from Google to an entry in Y! Answers. These are not strongly
affected by time, so I suppose it's still playing a role (even if only as an
archive)

------
tedmiston
The iPhone version of Axis is fantastic. I love the visual search. The
horizontal scrolling took a minute to figure out and get used to, but being
able to flick back and forth between the search results & the open page
instantly is fantastic.

One thing that's annoying -- when you're scrolled down a page and you're
reaching for the page titlebar handle it's a little too small. I keep swiping
the the iPhone status bar down instead.

Edit: Looks like the desktop version of the "browser" is actually an add-on.
For Safari, it's only 24KB (awesome!). If only it did a little prefetching to
make the next & previous search results a little faster.

The image search on the desktop is _insanely_ fast. It preloads so well. Kudos
to Yahoo.

------
stephenhandley
Those reviews look fake.

In my experience, the onboarding experience sucked and it crashed every time I
used it until I installed it.

"Very cool!! Tons of features. Very fluid. Definitely a step in the right
direction by Yahoo!"

Sounds like someone from PR wrote that.

~~~
btipling
There are 900+ ratings with a 4+ star average. You're saying those are all
Yahoos?

~~~
cpeterso
Probably not, but how many of those 900+ reviews are from Yahoo's 12,000
employees?

~~~
mikeleeorg
I know some mobile app companies will have a few of their own people write
reviews. But if someone from the Yahoo Axis team really sent out a mass
company-wide email asking for fake reviews like this, someone is bound to cry
foul (and forward the email to ATD).

~~~
melvinram
They don't have to ask for fake reviews. They just have to say "Hey our cool
new app dropped into AppStore today. Check it out and review it if you like
it." Yahooers might genuinely like it and give it a high score.

~~~
protomyth
It should be taken as a good sign if 900+ employees are still motivated enough
to download and review the app.

------
modeless
Review manipulation is rampant on the iOS App Store. The rating system is
basically useless because of it.

[http://www.freelancer.com/job-search/buy-app-store-
positive-...](http://www.freelancer.com/job-search/buy-app-store-positive-
reviews/)

------
rabidsnail
This is one of those cases where I wish I had a giant "SELECTION BIAS!" sign
that I carried around everywhere.

------
alizaki
Why does Apple warn users that they must be at least 17 to download a browser.
Or for that matter say that Axis may contain:

    
    
        Infrequent/Mild Profanity or Crude Humor
        Infrequent/Mild Alcohol, Tobacco, or Drug Use or References
        Infrequent/Mild Simulated Gambling
        Infrequent/Mild Horror/Fear Themes
        Infrequent/Mild Cartoon or Fantasy Violence
        Frequent/Intense Mature/Suggestive Themes
        Infrequent/Mild Realistic Violence
        Infrequent/Mild Sexual Content or Nudity

~~~
naz
Because some parents might disable Safari but still enable installing apps
that have appropriate age ratings, and installing this app is a way to bypass
Safari being disabled.

(Not that I agree with any of that -- that's just why).

------
swang
I didn't really want to prognosticate what would happen to Axis, despite the
promo video being _really_ really cringeworthy. But my doubts stem from the
fact that regardless of whether or not it became successful, it's still
dependent on Microsoft/Apple/Google to deliver this to users.

If it gains traction and people like the features it brings, whats to stop all
the current major players in the Browser space from just copying it? This
isn't exactly a social media site where no matter how much money is thrown
into Facebook it comes out on top because of sheer number of users. This is
completely dependent on attaching itself to a browser. I have to believe that
they would eventually implement it into their browsers if it started making
money or became very popular for Yahoo.

And the second thing, what happens when Apple decides that this thing is
competing directly with Mobile Safari and kills it from its store (and
surprise, the other two major players in the Browser space, Google and
Microsoft, also own the app store Axis is trying to deploy to).

So the best outcome for this thing is to be just a moderate success, where the
big 3 in browsers don't really have incentive/time/effort to implement
directly into the browser.

~~~
taligent
You mean like when Apple killed Opera, Google Search, iCab Mobile, Atomic and
the many other web browsers. Oh wait. They didn't.

And there are plenty of replacements for the core apps: mail, contacts,
calendar etc.

~~~
te_chris
That's just not fully true and you know it. You can't drop in a full
replacement browser like on Android in iOS. All web rendering still has to be
done using the native webkit.

~~~
jsprinkles
Yet the others are full replacement browsers. I'd call Safari and Chrome (on
desktop) entirely different browsers, because the browser itself is designed a
lot differently in each case. The way Opera Mini works, I'd certainly call
Opera Mini a different browser from Mobile Safari.

Who cares what the rendering tech is? Only Web designers and anal retentive
people; everybody else just wants a browser experience, and doesn't give a
shit. Honestly.

If only WebKit apps are permitted that means they're paying attention to
securing just WebKit, which is good from my perspective even as a developer
that supports open-source. I'm betting that in the future Android will be the
Windows of yesteryear, where the first thing you do is install a virus
scanner. Apple is selling me on closed platforms so far.

~~~
GeneralMaximus
> _If only WebKit apps are permitted that means they're paying attention to
> securing just WebKit, which is good from my perspective even as a developer
> that supports open-source. I'm betting that in the future Android will be
> the Windows of yesteryear, where the first thing you do is install a virus
> scanner. Apple is selling me on closed platforms so far._

What I'm taking away from this paragraph is that you're a developer who
supports _open source software_ , but not a developer who supports _Free
Software_. Am I right?

------
geekin
I think if Yahoo came up with Hadoop at this point of time, people would have
ridiculed it too. Just a herd mentality to feel superior by hating Yahoo.

------
kenjackson
I actually think the feature set seems really good. I saw it and immediately
downloaded it. Unfortunately, I had to uninstall it not much later (from a
desktop machine). It just seemed to screw up the browser.

If they can get the stability and performance up to snuff, I'd give it another
shot.

------
mwexler
Anyone get it to install on recent Chromes on Win7? 21.0.1145.0 dev-m doesn't
think it's installable, and when I forced it through the developer panel, it
crashed, restarted, and crashed in a loop til I disabled it. Is it just me?

------
nembleton
I think even if Yahoo have had terrible direction during last 5 years, this
product could be their salute. I'll give it a try to see what they can do now.

------
veyron
What constitutes 'users love'? It says (at this time) 4.5 stars across 891
Ratings, and prima facie 891 users seems pretty low ...

~~~
kreek
900 ratings in two days isn't bad

------
pssdbt
Correction: Users love the Yahoo Axis iOS app

~~~
sbornia
yeah it's not the same thing... tried the chrome extension and it sucks... it
really does

------
hobonumber1
It's not what people inside Silicon Valley think. It's what people outside
Silicon Valley think.

------
rmm
the chrome extension is great. I wouldn't use it for technical searches but
researching a topic in the news so far has been brilliant.

one thought, this would be awesome as an RSS feed reader.

------
pedrokost
Hasn't anyone noticed the similarity between Axis' and Adobe's logo?

------
shpoonj
If you've used the app, you know that something isn't right here. Seems
like(and reads like, especially compared to other app store reviews) these are
being written by Yahoo employees trying to avoid a lay off.

~~~
blntechie
Axis iPad app was mostly well received by the tech media. HN is one of the
notable exception. You do realize you sound silly sprouting this conspiracy
theory right? If you don't like, don't use it. But that doesn't make whoever
disagrees with you a Yahoo employee.

~~~
shpoonj
lol

------
aiscott
I just downloaded. It seems nice I guess. The search is neat, but not a killer
feature for me.

I still prefer Atomic Browser, mainly for the full screen capability. That is
not so important on the iPad, but it makes for a nicer experience on the
iPhone.

