
Now Google is blocking Windows Phones from accessing maps.Google.com - unwiredben
http://wmpoweruser.com/now-google-is-blocking-windows-phones-from-accessing-maps-google-com/
======
sergiotapia
"Not a client side problem. I just ran it through a network capture. (see
here[1] )

Google is 302 redirecting anything with a WinPhone user agent to the main
page. This may be a bug rather than an intentional thing, but it's Google's
bug to be sure." Source:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/15yx0a/after_mic...](http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/15yx0a/after_microsoft_complains_that_google_is_blocking/c7r47v8?context=3)

[1] <http://i.imgur.com/Hfum6.jpg>

\---

And update here:

[http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/4/3836510/windows-
phone-8-use...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/4/3836510/windows-
phone-8-users-unable-to-access-google-maps)

Seems this is 100% intentional from Google. What the fuck? I was completely
blindsided by this, I couldn't imagine a huge company like Google doing this
at this scale.

~~~
ams6110
Well... it's their service. And you're not paying for it. Seems to me they can
offer it any way they want.

I don't know if it's a good move on their part, that's a different question.

~~~
azharcs
This is exactly the reasoning that pisses me off. If MS pulled the same shit,
we would be out with pitchforks ready to bury them. Have some consistency. Any
corporation using their monopoly product to provide a bad experience for
competitive products is evil.

~~~
ecspike
Microsoft has already pulled it. Please point me to a native version of Office
running on any Linux distro...oh that's right, doesn't exist.

Bing Maps does exist.

~~~
gizmo686
Google went out of their way to prevent MS phones from using Google maps. MS
did not go out of their way to allow Linux to use Office. There is a big
difference.

~~~
RivieraKid
Microsoft's pretty agressive against Android (license fees for every sold
Android, #droidrage campaign etc.) so I fully approve of this Google's move.

~~~
philwelch
Spitefully blocking Windows Mobile's browser because Microsoft is
insufficiently humble in its competition against Android is a raging dick-
move.

------
sbuk
Google's statement:

 _The mobile web version of Google Maps is optimized for WebKit browsers such
as Chrome and Safari. However, since Internet Explorer is not a WebKit
browser, Windows Phone devices are not able to access Google Maps for the
mobile web._

Microsoft's response:

 _Internet Explorer in Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 use the same rendering
engine._

~~~
ch0wn
Google, however, doesn't provide the same version of Google Maps for desktop
and mobile.

~~~
sbuk
So instead of not providing any service, why not offer the desktop service
with caveats, or stop just supporting one rendering engine.

------
petrel
Again a open case of abusing Monopoly. Google keep forcing the users as it
want and everyone says, its a free service and can be bent as Google want. It
forces to use Google Plus for may services, forces to log in to Google to
install chrome extensions.

~~~
dansul
>forces to log in to Google to install chrome extensions

Is there a legitimate reason for this?

~~~
glogla
It's more that you can install "extensions" just fine, but need to be logged
in to get "web apps". In reality, both are Chrome ran code, but there's the
distinction there. You can however install basic extensions like adblock or
ghostery without logging into Chrome.

(It won't help you on the anonymity standpoint of course, because every Chrome
has unique id that's recorded when you log into any google service)

It's the "we require login to access any google docs documents if you use
chrome, but don't need it if you use other browser" that's more annoying than
web apps in my opinions.

------
gillianseed
It's certainly an interesting development, Microsoft has been gunning for
Google by any means, fair or foul: [http://readwrite.com/2013/01/03/googles-
ftc-settlement-is-an...](http://readwrite.com/2013/01/03/googles-ftc-
settlement-is-an-epic-fail-for-microsoft)

Now it seems Google is doing pay-back by crippling Microsoft's Phone efforts
by not offering their services on them. I can't feel sorry for Microsoft in
the least, it seems like finally they are subjected to 'what you reap is what
you sow'.

~~~
jgroome
I feel like it's the customers who are being punished, not so much Microsoft.

~~~
glogla
Yes, but it's Microsoft customers who implicitly agree with Microsoft policies
like pressuring OEMs to not sell computers without Windows Tax, or the whole
Secure Boot debacle.

~~~
spiralpolitik
Be careful for what you wish for as it looks like other non WebKit browsers
will be caught up in all this. Under this remit Firefox OS/Boot to Gecko for
example would be blocked from using Google Maps.

Regardless who the victims are its a bad move for anybody who believes in open
web standards.

------
ZeroGravitas
I remember when it was Opera that people cared so little about that they
regularly banned it, purely by accident. Not a good place for Windows Phone to
be.

<http://www.alistapart.com/articles/msn/>

------
nthitz
Is it just me or has the other hacker news submission on this story with much
more discussion disappeared?

~~~
jamesgagan
if you mean this one, it's just moved down:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5010891>

~~~
nthitz
Indeed that's the one. Given its current points and submission time I really
don't understand the HN sorting algo sometimes.

~~~
kenjackson
It was likely flagged. Anti-Google stories don't do well on HN. There's a very
strong bias against anti-Google stories, but a strong bias for anti-MS
stories.

~~~
paul9290
Don't know about you, but as web dev/designer who codes html emails and
websites, I curse Microsoft on a daily basis!

Thankfully ie6 is no longer and issue and there are many frameworks that
making building websites for ie7/8 along with the others a snap. Wish there
was something for html emails cause i was just cursing microsoft and wishing
they'd hurry up and go extinct.

~~~
kenjackson
You do realize that IE6 is more than 11 years old. Microsoft wishes everyone
used IE10 probably more than you do.

Do you curse Apple because of Safari 1? Which is actually newer than IE6?

Microsoft's greatest fault here is that they haven't been able to get people
to upgrade their OS fast enough. An odd reason to curse them. And an odder
reason still to flag their articles and push Google articles.

I get that everyone will have some bias, but the amount of bias doesn't seem
justified, IMO.

~~~
iboga
If anything the amount of bias is way to low, MS singlehandedly crippled
progress on the web for many many years and would deserve to be burned to the
ground by an angry mob of webdevs for it.

You can develop in Chrome and it just works in Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc.,
but without fail things are always broken in IE (yes also in 6+ versions). Any
webdev could tell you about the horrors.

IE versions have always been DOA compared to what’s possible in competing
browsers at the time. Microsoft's fault of not getting people to upgrade is
their own doing by not anticipating and adequately reacting to the problem… or
frankly just not giving a shit™. Others don’t have these upgrade problems.

Also, we can be very thankful that they failed in their ploy to make the whole
web IE-specific, but we should not forget and it’s to soon to forgive.

~~~
nostrademons
Do you not remember how much of a giant leap forward IE6 was when it was
introduced? Or how massively far ahead of Netscape 4.x IE 5/5.5/6 were? IE5
gave us AJAX, and its CSS support was light-years better than the competition
when it was released.

I've been a die-hard Microsoft hater since I was a teenager. Even so, there
was a period from 2000-2004 when I used IE, because it was so clearly _better_
than any other browser on the Internet. I gave up Netscape reluctantly, but
when it just hung on half the sites of the Internet because it was so buggy,
it was time to switch.

I take it you don't remember coding <layer> tags and working with Netscape's
broken & nonstandard DOM implementation either, nor laying everything out with
tables and spacer GIFs because it didn't support CSS. It used to be we'd get
our pages to work in IE first, and then the boss would grudgingly say "And
you've gotta make it work in Netscape too." (That was actually what got me my
first full-time job...they called me in for an interview and during it I
worked around a nasty layers bug that they hadn't been able to figure out.)

~~~
iboga
Yes Netscape was having problems around that time, good luck trying to finance
the development of a complex commercial software project when your competitor
is abusing its monopoly by bundling a free alternative with its operating
system. You are right about the ancient history timeframe but my points are
valid for everything that happened with and after version 6, you know… the
point when the web and broadband really started to take off. And you could
have used Opera or the Phoenix/Firebird Firefox-precursor instead of IE6.

~~~
sarvinc
I'm not sure i agree with your over-all point, but I have to say Microsoft
bundling a browser probably helped move the Internet rather than hinder it.

------
outside1234
And it begins. It's clear to me that Google is the next Microsoft now -- cue
chokeholds on competitors, starting with maps on iOS and WP.

------
SanjayUttam
I'd be curious to see what happens if you change your user-agent header...

~~~
rbanffy
When you change it to something else (I did to Android 2.3, WebOS) it worked.
When accessing with a WP7 user agent string ("Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE
9.0; Windows Phone OS 7.5; Trident/5.0; IEMobile/9.0; SAMSUNG; SGH-i917)" I
was redirected to www.google.com.

Looks like an innocent mistake, however. Or they decided they wouldn't support
IEMobile 9.

~~~
jongalloway2
Wait, how does that look like an innocent mistake? It used to work, they
changed some code, and now they're blocking users with a specific useragent.

~~~
kenjackson
It's Google. Of course it's an INNOCENT mistake. If Microsoft had done it, it
would be a mortal sin against humanity.

Google has even come out and said that mobile Google Maps is only for WebKit
engines. The open web is no longer about web standards apparently -- it's
about one specific rendering engine.

~~~
jacquesm
It goes even further. At the top of my google docs spreadsheets there is now
some scary language saying I should upgrade to chrome from my unsupported (but
perfectly functional) browser.

~~~
xentronium
Those horrible notifications that reappear every time you refresh the page are
my very own source of annoyance with google. I have a 23" display and I like
zooming into all pages to see text clearer. Now, google is the only internet
company that decided to show me a big red box with "Your browser's current
zoom setting is not fully supported".

------
brudgers
I'm not saying this isn't new, but I've had a WP7 phone since June 2011; I've
never been able to access a Google map on it.

~~~
dannyr
Well, if what you're saying is true, I guess tech blogs and Hacker News are
just freaking out over nothing.

If it's indeed old, the timing is suspect since Google just avoided sanctions
from the FTC. MS lobbied hard to get Google penalized.

------
emehrkay
I guess we're forgetting how expensive it is to officially support IE. When
Windows phone first launched it came with some sort of IE6/7 combo and was, of
course, another nightmare from Microsoft for web developers.

If it were up to me, I wouldnt have my developers waste the effort on a
browser/device that doesnt matter. However, I have not targeted the newest
version of mobile IE, it is on my list, I have read that it is magnitudes
better than what they originally shipped.

------
zimbatm
Where's the proof that this is some sort of "retaliation" ? As far as we know
it could be an update to GWT that introduces the change.

~~~
recoiledsnake
I agree there's no proof of retaliation and the article is going a little
overboard with jumping to conclusions but why would an update to GWT cause a
site to redirect user strings with "Windows Phone" in them to google.com ?

Anyway Google has come out with a statement saying that only webkit is
supported on mobile for maps.

------
compilercreator
Relatedly, see also the Youtube access blocking on Windows Phone
[http://www.wpcentral.com/youtube-access-and-windows-phone-
mi...](http://www.wpcentral.com/youtube-access-and-windows-phone-microsoft-
throws-down-gauntlet)

------
SeppoErviala
I haven't tested WP8 devices but the default browser on WP7.5 didn't support
pinch gestures so google just displayed a page saying "Your device is not
supported".

------
jsilence
Maybe Microsoft should put some funding into OpenStreetmap.

~~~
allerratio
They already support OSM. You can trace their aerial photos from bing which is
the best material you are allowed to trace in many regions.

See wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bing

------
majormajor
Huh. The ad-supported third-party gMaps app still works on my WP7.5 Lumia. Not
sure what I'd gain by using it in the browser.

~~~
lawdawg
You don't get to whine about it when something you never use stops working.

