
Google Hardware makes cuts to laptop and tablet development, cancels products - cattlefarmer
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/google-hardware-makes-cuts-to-laptop-and-tablet-development-cancels-products/
======
robocat
Please build me a Linux laptop for software engineering, Google.

For engineers only. No software support beyond ensuring the BIOS and the
drivers work and are updated.

I _hate_ Dell, but I got a Dell XPS 15 because it was the only laptop I knew
would: boot Linux reliably; last two Ubuntu LTS upgrades (4 years); have a
high spec (i9 etc); and was reasonably priced (Apple tax was 50% higher for
worse hardware).

Is it impossible to make a laptop better than Dell or Apple? Google: how much
goodwill would you receive through developer love? Why do I have to pay for
Windows when the OS division seems to be actively working against making my
work easier? Google, you have the skills and size to make a secure laptop.

Google, maybe it is because most of your engineers internally just need a good
terminal, instead of a fast laptop?

~~~
tannhaeuser
What is it about Dell that you hate? Anyways, Thinkpads are also held in high
esteem for running Linux. I'm currently using a Dell XPS (2016 model) at home
and a Thinkpad at my current customer project, both running Ubuntu 16.04, and
I can recommend both. I chose the Thinkpad over a MacBook Pro, and would do
again, but the display and touchpad is no match to Dell's, much less Apple's;
that's however no problem because the thing is hooked on a docking station/two
monitors/external keyboard.

~~~
kamarg
Three gripes with my Dell XPS13.

1) The docking station is horribly buggy. If I unplug it to take my laptop
somewhere and then plug it back in, I have to do a full reboot or none of the
USB peripherals on the docking station get power. Monitors, power, ethernet
all still work through the docking station after being plugged back in. Dell
support took 4hrs of my time installing/uninstalling drivers and firmware
updates before finally giving up and sending me a new one. Which suffers the
exact same issue. So I can buy a different brand of docking station, not take
my laptop anywhere, or constantly reboot my machine.

2) Rebooting takes forever then fails. Every single time. After 8-10 minutes
of sitting on the blue "Rebooting" screen it finally crashes and tells me
something went wrong while rebooting. Every single time.

3) Sleep still doesn't work about a third of the time. If I put my machine to
sleep through the Windows start menu and wait for all the various indicators
to power off before closing the lid, there's a good chance that when I boot up
tomorrow, the battery has fully drained and the machine has to boot back with
all my applications closed down and context lost.

It makes me miss my Thinkpad.

~~~
broknbottle
All 3 of these issues appear to be related to one common variable.. Windows. I
have a Dell XPS 13 9360 8th Gen i5-8250u running Fedora 29 and I've never
experienced any of these issues. Why don't you try another OS instead of
blaming the hardware. If it continues with Ubuntu 18.04/18.10/Fedora 29 then
contact Dell for support..

~~~
kamarg
It's almost certainly a driver issue. Drivers that are provided by Dell. I'm
not at all blaming the hardware for the issues. I'm blaming Dell.

To answer your question, I don't switch OS because the machine belongs to my
employer and they set the rules. They say everyone runs Windows so I run
Windows. It's actually a very usable OS.

You also seem to have missed the part where I spent 4 hours on the phone with
Dell support already. Why would you expect that will be more successful with a
different OS?

~~~
tannhaeuser
FWIW, my aforementioned Dell and the Thinkpad both are running Ubuntu
flawlessly and without any reboots for months on end, as true workhorses
should. In fact, out-of-the-box experience for Linux desktops with first-party
support by manufacturers has never been better IMO.

~~~
dekhn
agree 100%. every dell and thinkpad (and now thinkstation) I've installed
ubuntu linux on for the past 3-4 years has worked flawlessly (wifi, sound, and
gfx being the big three). What really impressed me was the Dell 5520 I had
when working at Google- it had a nice nvidia card that was dedicated to
running tensorflow training while the rest of the machine was perfectly usable
for software development. All of this _on battery_.

------
ChuckMcM
_The move comes after the group received pressure to turn Google Hardware into
"a real business" from higher-ups at Google/Alphabet_ \-- the squeeze
continues unabated :-)

Its too bad, since the Pixelbook is pretty nice and with actual investment it
could have been something much more than it is, but alas it would not have the
margins search advertising does. Back in the 90's I met the head of Xerox's
PARC after he had given a talk on innovation. One of the challenges he saw was
that gardening innovation was like gardening crops, which was to say it was
very hard to know when sprouts had one leaf out of the ground which were weeds
and which were crops. Ideas were the same way, you need to nurture them to at
least adolescence before you can reasonably decide if they are going to go on
to be great or not so great.

From the outside, Google appears to be at that stage where they have not
learned how to nurture an idea to see if it will be great or not before
killing it.

~~~
jpm_sd
As an Xoogler, I can tell you that promising products that "will never be a
billion-dollar business" get killed all the time. $100M in projected revenue?
Yawn. Kill it.

~~~
dv_dt
The odd part is that this doesn't select for billion-dollar businesses, it
selects for billion-dollar businesses that can be developed with revenue
growth that doesn't pass through $100m for more than x-years. Essentially
billion dollar rev with discontinuous growth through lower revenue - this
seems unnecessarily constrained for any business that plans to be around for
the long haul.

~~~
dv_dt
Another way to look at it is, how good is your estimator of a billion dollar
market, vs how good the estimator of the same is with a prior that the
good/service can make at least $100M?

------
jpm_sd
I'm looking forward to the upcoming announcement of a Google game console in
2019 [0], and the subsequent announcement that it has been discontinued in
2022.

[0] [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/all-signs-point-
to-a...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/all-signs-point-to-a-google-
game-console-announcement-at-gdc/)

~~~
stevenwoo
There was some hiring mini surge around 2006 or so where Google seemed to hire
a lot of my game development coworkers and they already cancelled whatever
they were working on within three years.

~~~
akchin
Ha - I think you might be thinking about 2009-2011 or so. That was the Google+
effort (under VicG) and thinking that games (like it did with Facebook) would
be a key driver of growth. I think this was also around the time of the bad
$180M+ acquisition of Slide to get Max Levchin. Lots of folks used this
"social games" and the Google+ track to launch stuff and get promoted quickly
and then after it shuts down, find another place within the org where they can
now hang out with the nice salary that comes with the promotions they got. :-)

------
on_and_off
It seems that the company is entirely unable to have a vision about anything.

Too big to dare might also be a good way to describe them. They are not going
to dare making e.g. one great messaging product (or even 2 .. there are after
all some niches like office communication). Instead they do 7 and see which
one works.

Apparently launching a new product is also the only sure way to get a
promotion at Google, not improving an existing one.

~~~
s3r3nity
I am not an Apple fan-person by any means, but Steve Jobs had a Product
philosophy that stuck with me many years after he described it:

You can't start with a cool technology and build a product / user experience
around it; you have to start with a vision of a coherent user experience, and
build the technology around _that_.

I think that's my biggest frustration with Google: they have interesting and
really cool tech that is just way too fragmented. The structure of controlled
chaos via launching many products as experiments and culling down to the
"best" ones makes it difficult to provide consistent, cohesive experiences.

~~~
eikenberry
I think Google is bad at taking this advice because their original big success
was a cool technology that they built a product / user experience around
(their search tech).

~~~
trhway
> their original big success was a cool technology that they built a product /
> user experience around (their search tech).

i think it is other way around - they significantly improved existing pain
point of bad web search user experience by applying and implementing what in
its core is citation analysis that had long been used in academia. The other
successes also seem to start with a task or need at hand not with a cool tech
- while Android may have started as a vision, its purchase was a result of the
need for mobile OS, Youtube guy wanted a place to publish videos, Chrome
originating from Webkit is definitely not a cool tech, more like Google didn't
have enough strength/balls to go with Mozilla while having pressing need for a
browser to control, Maps and GMail were significant improvement upon existing
user experience, while in contrast Google Wave for example was cool tech for
completely new, from scratch user experience.

------
remir
In the grand scheme of things, I think it is a good thing that Google, or any
other big tech company, isn't dominating every product category.

Think about it: Google is dominating search and online advertising, they have
the most popular web browser in the world, the most used mobile OS in the
world, they have Youtube, Maps, Gmail, Chromebooks.

Now imagine if they also ruled messaging, social media, had the most used
laptops and tablet in the world, were dominating on cloud, etc...

I cannot see that as being a good thing for consumer.

~~~
lainga
Or for Google: it would just build an antitrust case against themselves.

------
itbeho
Well damn... I have my dev environment running very nicely in a Pixelbook via
Crostini and love it.

~~~
gkfasdfasdf
Same here...crostini is awesome and I absolutely love the portability and
keyboard/trackpad of the pixelbook.

------
spaceflunky
Building hardware is difficult. Like really difficult. More difficult that
anyone expects it to be.

~~~
dylan604
Sums up most of Kickstarter or any crowd funded hardware product that fails to
launch. People get super excited about the prototype they built, but then come
to realize that mass producing is way more difficult than anticipated. The
money raised in crowd funding gets burned through faster than anticipated with
the various iterations with each of their vendors.

As guess could be said of any startup though. Not just hardware.

------
imroot
The biggest issue that I have with google is product sustainability -- if
something doesn't seem to have "Hockey stick" levels of growth and use, google
kills it.

Do I want to spend $500 on yet another google branded brick?

~~~
threatofrain
Does Google kill hardware often? What's the previous Google brick you can
remember?

~~~
dragonwriter
> Does Google kill hardware often?

Its killed several hardware projects (Nexus Q comes to mind immediately,
though that only got into anyone's hands as a prerelease version at I/O 2012),
but I don't know that any of those have involved bricking devices already sold
(though cutting off software support and associated services may have reduced
the potential lifespan for some, but that happens for old models from most
makers even if the project isn't killed; Nexus Q, for instance, had support
dropped in Google Play Music and Google Movies & TV in May and June of 2013.)

~~~
Rebelgecko
If we look at Alphabet and not just Google, there's the Revolv hub that was
bricked. However they assured us that it's not the end... just the beginning
of a new wonderful chapter in the journey of home automation, and sorry that
the hardware we sold you doesn't work any more

[http://revolv.com/](http://revolv.com/)

~~~
mkozlows
That's a product that was made by a failed company that Google acquihired
people from. And Google supported it well past when that company would have if
they had died on their own.

~~~
Rebelgecko
Did people that bought it know that their "lifetime subscriptions" would end
in less than 2 years, and that they'd only get 1 month's notice before their
houses stopped working? You'd think that a company like Google would have the
resources to keep a single VM running to support them, or do what other
companies have done and release a firmware update that allows limited offline
capabilities.

------
jmull
"Dozens" of employees may indicate a fairly small course correction rather
than a change in direction.

------
akhilcacharya
The way I see it the only _good_ pieces of Google Hardware are the Chromecasts
(which are absolutely amazing devices, might be near perfection in terms of
simplicity and price) and the Google Home (though that's still 2nd in the
smart speaker market). Everything else is either niche (Google WiFi, which I
forgot existed even as a techie) or a hanger on (Nest).

~~~
rtkwe
The Pixel/Nexus phones have been my only phone for the last several years. I'd
put them on the good list too just for giving a good phone without having to
use Samsung's OS and avoid their attempt to force Bixby on the world.

~~~
akhilcacharya
I loved my Nexus 5... but the pixels have been incredibly disappointing in all
respects save for the camera.

~~~
mohaine
The price is high but they are really nice. I bought Pixel 1 on launch day and
still have no desire to upgrade. (To be fair I have replaced the device a few
times due to cracked glass but still a Pixel 1).

This could just be a slowdown in hardware needs thought. Good enough is
sometimes good enough.

~~~
turbinerneiter
My Pixel 1 died for no reason 4 months after the warranty ended. Google
Support basically said: "lol sucks". Repairing means dealing with a shitty
third party service, and even the most trivial repair costs more than the
device is worth.

For me the high price was totally not worth it. I have a Pixel 3 which I
bought 4 months after release for 30% less than the release price. I was
considering an iPhone, but the cheapest one they sell in Germany is 850€,
which is a bad joke.

I got my Librem 5 devkit tough, and maybe, hopefully something will come out
of that.

------
ralmidani
I used a Samsung Chromebook 2 (Exynos processor, 4GB RAM, 13 in. screen) as my
primary laptop for a couple years. It was fast and quiet, but getting
GNU/Linux running via Crouton meant jumping through hoops every time it
powered off and back on.

I now use a Macbook, and really wonder why any developer would buy a Pixelbook
vs. a Macbook. If you want to run GNU/Linux, you can install a VM, and
otherwise you still have a functional OS.

Edit: I see the value proposition in $200-300 Chromebooks. I'm specifically
puzzled by the Pixelbook, which starts at $999 (not much less expensive than a
new Macbook Air).

~~~
mav3rick
Chrome OS comes with Linux VMs now. You can do most dev work with it

~~~
ralmidani
Do you have to enable developer mode, and if so, does it stay enabled between
boots?

~~~
netinstructions
No, as I understand it, that was the "old way" of doing it. The "new way"
(which I think is called Project Crostini) is much smoother.

I got a Pixelbook a couple months ago and it was as simple as going into the
Chrome OS settings, clicking the button to enable Linux support, and then it
sets you up with a terminal to Linux. I've had no issue accessing the Linux
environment / apps between boots.

------
izzydata
Who do I have to kill to get a Nexus 7 (2020) model?

~~~
ggm
Would that be without the bad eeprom hardware AND a headphone jack?

------
vkaku
Well, Google wanted to promote ChromeOS, and now it's killing it and slaughter
all the engineers involved in the project.

Doesn't that sound hypocritical to say the least? Why axe those engineers? Why
not get them to fix Android, Fuchsia or whatever needs fixing?

~~~
naner
I don't think they're killing Chrome OS, Chromebooks seem to be as popular as
ever with schools. Schools that can afford to buy Pixels probably would go for
iPads instead, though. I doubt there is much of a market for high end Chrome
OS hardware.

~~~
pjmlp
US schools, hardly used anywhere else around the world.

------
mruts
What's wrong with Google nowadays? They seem completely unable or unwilling to
invest in anything besides search for longer than 3-4 years. Completely
untrustworthy at this point. I would never buy another Google product ever
again.

------
bepvte
I really loved the design of the pixelbook, but I just didnt see who would be
interested in it. When I buy a 1,000$ machine i dont go for that kind of OS
and it just didnt stand out very much. I wish the best to those who worked on
these.

------
drdeadringer
I may be soon in the market for a new Android tablet. Does anybody have
suggestions?

~~~
readittwice
Google just recently abandoned Android and pushed ChromeOS for tablets. Now
this, there is just no continuity with Google.

Unless you absolutely need Android for some reason, I would recommend the
iPad.

~~~
gst
> Google just recently abandoned Android and pushed ChromeOS for tablets. Now
> this, there is just no continuity with Google.

It's GTalk/Hangouts/Allo/etc. all over again, just this time with Android and
ChromeOS. I wouldn't be surprised if they announce that they're going to
abandon ChromeOS and that they're going to only use Android instead. How can
the different product teams at a company be so completely disconnected from
each other?

~~~
pjmlp
Internal politics.

Similar to the whole .NET vs C++ at Microsoft, and how that influenced
Longhorn, WinRT and such

------
abrowne
Any impact on Fuchsia, I wonder? Or a much more short-term change?

------
hiven
It’s not really worth investing in google hardware in my opinion- you get
invested and they just can it. They have no staying power.

------
kevin_b_er
I'll take this as the sign that entirety of Chromebook is at high risk of
being canceled.

~~~
akhilcacharya
Isn't it still wildly successful in the edu market? This would be shocking if
they went this route.

With that said, the Pixel Slate was an unmitigated failure so hopefully the
only impact this has is on the Chromebook Pixel line.

~~~
pjmlp
US education market, hardly noticeable anywhere else.

Question is if one country is enough to keep it going, even one of the US's
size.

~~~
electriclove
What are other countries using that would be as cheap to deliver/manage?

~~~
pjmlp
No idea, the point is that it didn't take off anywhere else.

Here in Germany I only saw them a couple of times in a few consumer
toolchains, as regular visitor it was interesting to watch their price being
reduced across weeks until they could finally get rid of them, and never again
on display.

------
burtonator
Google can't seem to do anything right anymore.

They're last place in cloud. They don't have a good search API product to
compete with Algolia/Elasticsearch. They can't release new products. Can't
build new hardware.

The only things they have going for them are Youtube, Google (the search
engine), Android, Chrome,...

Basically everything they did 10 years ago. Even Android + Youtube were
acquisitions.

Another good example of too big to fail.

~~~
ohaideredevs
GCP is the cleanest cloud platform by far. But it's also the one I know only
in theory, whereas I have worked with Azure and AWS enough to seem them fail
miserably, so maybe I have a case of rose-tinted glasses.

~~~
zihotki
I have experience with all three of them, indeed Azure fails miserably, AWS is
a bit better but I didn't spend much time there. GCP is the most solid one and
I had the least troubles there.

~~~
bilal4hmed
I use Azure at work and GCP for personal projects. GCP is by far the cleanest,
easiest to work with

------
jasonvorhe
Not very surprising.

~~~
CaptainJustin
I wonder if Google would benefit from spinning up new products and services in
another brand or company. Later, they could migrate only what they plan on
supporting in the long run.

The cost of deprecating products every couple months has to be expensive - if
only we could measure it.

Is anyone aware of a good response to this concern?

I understand that Google would rather deprecate something that not support it
well but that does not mitigate the apparent risk of adopting / deploying
Google products.

~~~
freehunter
That's what I figured they would do with Motorola, especially with the move to
Alphabet. On the other hand, if it's under another brand name people may not
associate it with "first party". When the Nexus line came out, one of the big
selling features was "Android straight from Google themselves". If it was from
Motorola, it'd be "Android straight from Google themselves because Google owns
Motorola so hopefully their internal corporate structure means the two
divisions have a close working relationship otherwise what's the point".

~~~
howard941
Does Alphabet still own any visible bits of Motorola? My phone claims to be
Motorola, by Lenovo, complete with broken Bluetooth LE support....

~~~
freehunter
Alphabet sold Motorola to Lenovo a few years ago after doing really nothing
productive with them.

~~~
jessaustin
The Motorola phones of a few years ago were _much_ more reliable than the two
I've been stupid enough to buy since then.

------
ringaroll
Sounds like a good reason not to buy new hardware from Google. They
discontinue products too fast.

~~~
pgeorgi
> They discontinue products too fast.

Fashionable trope, but apparently this is more about unreleased products not
being released? Every company has these, software, hardware or otherwise.

~~~
xvector
I'm sorry, but I definitely don't see this behavior from Apple or Microsoft.

~~~
DanCarvajal
What are you talking about? Microsoft courier never launched, Microsoft band
was cancelled, Microsoft Kin phones were killed, Windows Phones were killed,
plus their entertainment division has lots of cancellations. Microsoft cancels
things all the time.

Apple's got its own cancellations, maybe less noticeable stuff like their
routers and cinema displays. But the photography world still mourns Aperture.

