
“Please let me know if I should stop developing apps for Google Products” - anuaitt
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/google-tasks-api/T4kKnEDl6so
======
davidjgraph
We developed a product specifically for Google Drive using their JavaScript
client. We were hoping to make it commercial but had to abandon those plans
due to 3 bugs that have been present since around the beginning of 2013.

Also, there's no open bug tracker. The developer relations people are very
friendly, but when I ask where to report bugs I'm told "just tell me". So
every 2 months I've reported the same 3 bugs in person and they get swallowed
up and that's the last I hear about it until my next report.

The silly thing is that we were one of the showcased applications in Google
I/O this year, for the Drive section. A number of Googlers came past and said
"Wow, cool. Please, please commercialise this". The truth is, we can't and
it's because of the bugs in Google's code (well, partly, the other problem is
Drive has just been too unstable over the past 4 months, until there's 99.9%
uptime for a year, we can't consider it).

Don't get me wrong, I love what Google are doing with their API stuff and the
dev relations really go out of their way to help (specifically the Drive SDK
team). But, as it stands, this isn't a platform I'm confident in building a
critical business product on, currently.

EDIT : That last sentence is wrong. I'm confident to build a critical business
product on it, I think it'll get there, I'm just not confident to charge money
and have to support it, at this point in time.

~~~
atirip
"I love what Google are doing" \- but of course you do, it is called Stockholm
Syndrome. Irony aside, i'm trully amazed of Google. See, the smallest misstep
Apple makes, everybody jump to hate Apple. Google on the orher can do whatever
they want and nada, everybody jump in to alleviate the evelasting,
unconditional love, no matter what. Remarkable achievement, hat off, in todays
world.

~~~
davidjgraph
Don't patronise me. I've been developing commercially for 20 years now, I'm
not exactly wet behind the ears, nor easily persuaded by anything but facts.

I've evaluated what they are doing on their technical merit. If you want me to
give you a detailed explanation of why I prefer their system, it'd probably
take about an hour, so it's a bit much as a HN comment.

I genuinely think their direction with the API I'm using is the way forward,
I've been waiting for someone to have the balls to do it for some time.

Any anyway, I must have missed the outpouring of love Google received for
closing Reader, for not having a native Google Linux kernel OS Drive client,
and so on.

~~~
adestefan
> I've evaluated what they are doing on their technical merit

That's your problem. Google is phenomenal on their technical merit. It's the
softer, people skills (support, listening to bug reports, etc.) where they
constantly shoot themselves in the foot.

~~~
znowi
> Google is phenomenal on their technical merit

They turn into Microsoft where brilliant engineers are bogged down by corrupt
management :)

~~~
test-it
Funny that all the Google product managers I know personally are ex-Microsoft
guys.

~~~
pyre
Does that mean that they brought Microsoft's problems to Google, or that
Microsoft is having problems because they left? ;-)

------
sdfjkl
If you build something on someone else's API, you can get fucked in a million
ways. They might shut down the API (Google Reader), take away the
functionality you relied on (Google Calendar), limit it (Twitter) or deprecate
the version you're using, forcing you to do development work to keep working
at the worst possible time for you (IOS). They might also decide that your
product is very good and build a version of it themselves, using functions not
available to you via the public API so that you cannot compete with it
(Apple).

So before building something that relies on things entirely outside of your
control, consider a few things and the effort it would take for each:

\- Can you run it on something else (S3 is a good example - there are several
API-compatible competitors) \- Can you replace the service you're relying on
with one of your own (e.g. building your own Google Reader sync API)

Then decide if it isn't worth building the whole thing yourself. Heck, you
might even want to put an API on it yourself. Feel the power? :)

Oh, and never, ever rely on someone else doing authentication for you. It's
just too easy to get your entire userbase taken away from you.

~~~
nonchalance
> They might also decide that your product is very good and build a version of
> it themselves, using functions not available to you via the public API so
> that you cannot compete with it (Apple).

Can you give an example of that?

~~~
philmcc
Notification Center > Growl?

~~~
nonchalance
Growl 2 integrates with notification center.

------
vog
The problems with Google start at the very basics of communication, with their
policy of providing just one email adress (and nothing else) where you may or
may not get an answer, effectively handling incoming requests more like
petitions than providing real communication.

This is in constrast to many other big companies where you get at least _some_
reply (although it's often canned and not very helpful, but still more than a
generic auto reply), or where you can call a more or less expensive hotline,
so you can at least _pay them for hearing your voice_.

This behaviour of Google is so restrictive that it even violates consumer
protection laws in some countries. For example, here in Germany they got into
trouble because they violated the so-called "Impressumspflicht". This law
requests that they have to provide (among others) at least one postal address
and one telephone number on their website, and that they can actually be
contacted by those, in 60 minutes or less.

[http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=htt...](http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.googlewatchblog.de%2F2013%2F04%2Fgoogle-
deutschland-abmahnung-verletzung%2F)

[http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=htt...](http://translate.google.de/translate?hl=de&sl=de&tl=en&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.recht-
freundlich.de%2Fgoogle-durch-verbraucherzentrale-abgemahnt-impressumspflicht-
moeglicherweise-verletzt)

~~~
Klarifier
Google can do what they want. If you want to do better, than do it.
Complaining won't help you.

~~~
moocowduckquack
Please never run a restaurant.

~~~
general_failure
He isn't. And neither is Google.

------
Luit
Perhaps slightly off-topic: The name, GmailSharedTasks, doesn't look like one
that Google's legal department would agree with. Your brand/product name
incorporates a Google trademark. It might have been better to call it
"SharedTasks for Google Tasks™" or "SharedTasks for Gmail™".

See "I'm a developer and used Google's developer products/tools to create a
new product. Can I use the Google name?" on
[http://www.google.com/permissions/faq.html](http://www.google.com/permissions/faq.html)

~~~
anuaitt
Thanks Luit for the information, I have fixed it.

------
kishor_gurtu
You're probably better off creating a product for a more professionally
managed marketplace - like the Office365 marketplace -
[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/fp179924.aspx](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/fp179924.aspx).

This lets you develop apps on Exchange (similar to your tasks app). See
[http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/jj220499(EXCHG.80).a...](http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/jj220499\(EXCHG.80\).aspx) and
[http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/office/Exchange-2013-Create-t...](http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/office/Exchange-2013-Create-
tasks-39b938ea)

Office365 customers (all of them are paying customers) who find it useful can
install the app on their accounts. You don't have to stuggle with PayPal
issues as Microsoft will pay you through the marketplace account after
charging the customers.

Office365 support is excellent as well (they even do phone support). No need
to chase anyone on Google+.

(I'm not shilling for Microsoft. I have no financial interests here).

~~~
hahainternet
> (I'm not shilling for Microsoft. I have no financial interests here).

Paid or unpaid, this post is pretty much shilling.

~~~
kishor_gurtu
Fine. If that's what you want to call it. I just want to point out
alternatives. Take it or leave it.

~~~
hahainternet
You weren't just pointing out alternatives but actively dissuading someone.
That's where I think it crosses the line.

~~~
kishor_gurtu
[http://xkcd.com/386/](http://xkcd.com/386/)

~~~
hahainternet
Yeah I mean it's not like I explained to you why I felt it was inappropriate
in a succinct way in my spare time. (That is exactly what I did)

------
nikcub
Google _are_ terrible at developer support, but I think it is fair to say that
they didn't foresee anybody using the Tasks API in this way, where you are
proxying for all your users.

Keep persisting, but as a temporary measure I would prompt your users to
provide you with their own API key. Lots of apps do this (such as CMS
plugins). You can give them a link to the API portal and explain in 2-3 points
how to generate a key and paste it back in your app.

Also, your app is in debug mode, so errors are showing a complete stack trace.
Your database is also down right now.

~~~
karangoeluw
> Google are terrible at support.

FTFY

~~~
tedsanders
Could you offer arguments or anecdotes about why you think Google is terrible
at support? Snarky, four-character comments like yours do not add much value
to the discussion.

~~~
MAGZine
Ever try to contact a human at google regarding their services/products? Or
even your account? It's quite difficult to find an email form that will lead
to a human let lone a phone number.

~~~
hamburglar
I've actually been fairly impressed with the support for Google Apps (paid
version). I submit a ticket and a competent human calls me on the phone and
usually solves the problem pretty quickly. One time, I got a lousy tech who
had obviously not read my initial ticket and I had to go through the whole
thing on the phone, but that was an exception.

------
foobarbazqux
If you work on something for 3-4 months, that's $30-40K at valley rates. To do
this for free with the intention to enhance the product offering of a megacorp
basically sends the message that you don't value your time. Of course said
megacorp is not going to give you the time of day. They start to pay attention
when the dollar value of your account is large enough. Start charging for your
app. Then you can say, "I want to make us both some more money, could you
please help me?"

~~~
anuaitt
It is difficult to charge money from India as Individuals, paypal does not
accept money for India nowadays and it is near to impossible to attach a
international payment gateway. I thought of donation as well but again paypal
issue.

~~~
VMG
You should check out Bitcoin as a payment option, it was pretty much designed
for your use case:
[http://www.weusecoins.com/en/](http://www.weusecoins.com/en/)

BitPay as a payment processor in particular:
[https://bitpay.com/](https://bitpay.com/)

~~~
wfunction
How are users supposed to get bitcoin? It's way too difficult right now
compared to cash.

~~~
sdfjkl
That's the problem exactly. While I encourage folk to implement bitcoin
payment, as a developer I don't expect any significant amount of users to
adopt it as regular payment option any time soon. Even my more nerdy friends
are being very cautious about it - "regular" people like my parents wouldn't
touch it even if they knew what the heck it was.

------
mikeknoop
I put in an API quota bump for Google Calendar a few months back and it was
silently accepted after 2-3 days.

Based on my experience, each team individually deals with quotas for their
API. Google Tasks is not really a dedicated product so it probably has little
to no permanent team behind it. This is probably the cause for the slow
response time on quota requests.

~~~
robryan
Yeah, we requested an API limit increase for Adwords. When we got an email
about some specifics and how we stayed within their terms I figured it might
just get rejected.

Thankfully it was a real person who actually knew what they were talking about
and were able to sort it out over a chain of emails.

So yeah, I guess it is team by team.

------
pyalot2
You should stop developing apps for Google

~~~
znowi
Or any other PRISM company. Unless you want to aid the NSA.

~~~
mpyne
That effectively means "any other US/UK/AUS/NZ/CAN" company, not just PRISM-
interfacing ones.

------
ew
We also receive very little love from Google. They are notorious for not
helping developers, which is tragic.

~~~
utopkara
Google does give a lot of love to developers. AFAIK, they have dedicated
developer teams for developer relations; just look at the quality of their API
documentations and support. This one looks like a operations issue. Perhaps
they do not have a corresponding relations team focused on operations support.

~~~
masklinn
> Google does give a lot of love to developers.

That simply isn't true. They have support for some very specific areas which
they consider of specific importance (e.g. Android), for the rest you're left
to rot.

> Perhaps they do not have a corresponding relations team focused on
> operations support.

This has nothing to do with ops, it's a developer needing a raise in his apps
requests quota.

~~~
robryan
The core areas can have the opposite problem almost. The Adwords API has moved
pretty quickly but they are also quick to remove things. Most stuff built in
early 2012 would have had to be updated for changed/ removed features by now.

~~~
utopkara
I admit I haven't really traveled much on the less beaten paths. From the
quality of what I have seen, I thought they must have policies for the minimum
acceptable quality of all the public facing services to developers.

On the other hand, I am happy that even the big G cannot afford to cover all
fronts. It means, there is still room for new players to grow and do well in
those areas.

------
erikb
This is so tragic but basically verifies my own experiences with Google. If
you are not a paying customer, they don't listen to you. Even if you do
something that is more to their advantage then to yours. Maybe some paying
customers who use gmailsharedtasks could direct their Google support to the
thread.

~~~
eksith
It's been mentioned before that, considering the volume Google serves in all
their services, it's unrealistic to expect any sort of customer service beyond
the FAQ and bot variety, but I'm sure there are those who are willing to pay
for an actual response.

But, as one of my clients would attest, even if you're a paying customer, you
may still be left hanging in the wind. I hope they don't start spreading the
YouTube feedback treatment to all their services.

~~~
rmah
Google is on track to see a $14 bil pre-tax profit for 2013.

If they spent 15% of that ($2.1 bil) on support, with say a mix of 2/3 low pay
($100k/yr cost) and 1/3 high pay ($150k/yr cost) people... they could hire
18,000 additional support staff and still show a great profit.

That works out to 30 mil support hours assuming 1680 hrs/yr (35 hrs * 48
weeks) actually spent on support. They could probably hire twice that many
people by hiring some people in less expensive areas.

To sum up, Google puts making a more money ahead of better support. It's their
right to do so, but it not "unrealistic" for them to provide much better
support.

~~~
RogerL
Your numbers don't quite work - Google has to pay taxes, benefits, office
space, training, perks, equipment, recruitment costs, and so on. And then,
have you tried to hire 18,000 people? Finally, Google's reported head count is
around 40K - you are suggesting adding about 50% just for support. That's a
_tough_ sell to your investors. Where would all these people go. Mountain View
is basically Google these days - the office I am sitting in will be razed for
a Google parking lot (goodbye beautiful trees :( ). You have to factor in how
many new buildings, how many new buses and bus drivers, city taxes, chefs, HR
personnel - it goes on and on. The phrase "google scale" doesn't just apply to
their apps.

I'm not disputing that they could improve their support, just the price tag
and scale that you have placed on it.

~~~
ISL
Not to mention the inflexibility associated with having that many people
around. Google's lack of support may come with the territory at present.

If someone figures out how to automate support better, they're going to get
paid.

At the outset of Google's growth, their products and APIs seemed timeless;
with the passage of a little time, that's changed.

------
iwantatophat
Developed an app for Android and placed it on Android market. It had 5000
users after a week and then it got removed without notice, no email, no reason
why, no nothing. First and last time I do anything with Google, malicious
company not only for that reason but for many other.

~~~
adam12
What was the app?

~~~
iwantatophat
A music player.

------
mataug
Google's API documentation are generally abysmal. I have learnt not to spend
too much time on the docs but rather look at the samples and source code. But
there are times like when beta testing the APIs when there are no samples /
source code and you mostly sitting ducks unless someone from google helps you
out.

------
aliafshar
That's poor, I'm sorry.

The quota request was denied, but we (Google) failed to communicate the
decision properly / at all. Sorry about that.

------
nathanb
This is just another example of Google not caring a single solitary iota about
developers who volunteer their time to improve their products and bring value
to their platform and ecosystem. Digital sharecroppers, etc.

It's a tragedy. He doesn't want to spend the time to build his own platform,
and Google won't enable him to develop effectively for theirs.

Google are tarnishing their brand, eroding their user base, and compromising
their platform, all in the name of what? Avoiding the inefficiency of
dedicated support for a global brand?

------
anuaitt
If anyone in Google is reading this please don't mistake me, I know Google is
a innovative company and through this post I don't want to give any negative
impression about Google.

I want Gmail Tasks to be world recognized and people to use it more
frequently. I see that there are very less standalone apps developed for
Tasks, this is a small effort by me to make Google Tasks better and more
usable.

If you find value in what I am doing and see it innovative enough, please
help.

Thanks for giving me an opportunity to build an app on google.

~~~
tomorgan
I think your HN title would suggest otherwise.

I also think there are development enhancements you could make to your
application to work around these problems. Maybe you won't get any response
from Google until you have 2M users? What are you going to do about it? There
have been some excellent suggestions in the comments for working around this
(longer waits before retries, premium level retries etc). Do these first,
increase user base, then contact Google when it's less easy for them to ignore
you.

------
cupcake-unicorn
Can someone take the time to explain to me what this means for someone who has
an interest in developing Android apps that may make use of Google APIs? I
don't know how quotas work and why it sounds like you could request an
increase when you hit a limit, wouldn't they want you to move to a paid tier?

Does this mean that as soon as your app becomes popular, you are doomed to
fail?

I've looked briefly at a few Google APIs and they seem strange. So there's no
longer a straight search API, you have to put some params on a "custom search
API" that only has something like 100 searches per day? But on the other hand,
hit the Google Local Business API and you can make 10k requests...and then
there are APIs that were shut down all together, like translation. This is
really weird to me. Is it supposed to make any sense?

~~~
givehimagun
I'd love to understand this too.

Some services have prices over the courtesy limit (Translation) while others
just have a max. What happens for like the Books API when you get above
10k/req/day?

See
[https://code.google.com/apis/console](https://code.google.com/apis/console)

------
alex_doom
Doesn't Google have a way of paying for more usage of the API? I know the Maps
Geolocation API does. Maybe I'm naive, but if you're using a free service of a
mega-corp I would expect the customer service to be nil. Priority goes to the
paying customers.

------
jpalomaki
I have a feeling that Google is not very eager on having 3rd party
applications running on their "free" (ad supported) platform. One reason could
be that while these are useful for customers, they are not really bringing in
any money for Google. Obviously good 3rd party apps would certainly help
people to stick with Google services but they seem to be doing that anyways.

One drawback in having people build their apps on top of you platform is that
then you are stuck with the way things are. If you have popular apps depending
on the current task system, you can't just take it away or move it to Google+
(or you can, but then you get lots of whining).

------
oakaz
Google is terrible at support in general. I've been reporting a blogspot
website stealing my documents and impersonating me for making money by ads for
over two years. I sent my passport two times, and some friends also sent a
report for me. Result? not even a verification e-mail. They simply host
website that attacks my intellectual property, my name and give me no piece of
shit.

~~~
hahainternet
Identity fraud is a criminal matter. Talk to the police. If they have stolen
copyrighted material, file a DMCA.

~~~
oakaz
It's a technical doc without copyrights, that I wrote 8 years ago...

~~~
prewett
IANAL, but I did take an IP law course. If I recall correctly, you have
copyright from the moment that you create the work. You can have it officially
registered at a later date, however, you might be limited in collecting
damages to infractions after the registration date.

I'm not sure what happens if they registered the copyright. Presumably you
could sue them if you can demonstrate that you were the true creator.

I don't understand the part about sending a passport.

I do think that filing a DMCA notice is certainly the easiest way. Google has
to listen to that.

~~~
oakaz
I sent a copy of my passport to Google since they want me to prove I report
impersonation.

I really hate dealing with legal cases and also since I'm a Turkish guy living
in US, and the website impersonating me is also Turkish, I don't wanna spend
my time on this shitty case.

I just believe this; Google should start being friend with people.

------
ilaksh
There is no reason for a platform to be controlled by a single company. If we
need a common platform like gmail then it should be open source. I think we
really need to push for open source shared platforms and make sure they aren't
controlled by a single company. I think that means that engineering leadership
in separate companies have to work together. The easiest place to do that
under the radar is probably my github.

One missing piece if the puzzle that is really going to make this idea if a
shared platform across companies is moving to encrypted data oriented
networking instead of server based networking. Not only does that model make
vastly more sense in terms of the real topology of internet use now with data
being propagated to leaf nodes, but there are also very strong reasons to move
to distributed encrypted computing for privacy and economic reasons. A server
based internet means server based web apps which is going to continue to
result in due facto platforms created by individual companies.

------
sbose78
[https://code.google.com/p/google-apps-script-
issues/issues/d...](https://code.google.com/p/google-apps-script-
issues/issues/detail?id=546)

This issue almost took more than a year to get fixed - I had to drop a project
midway and start with other technologies from the scratch to build the same
thing.

The developer experience could have been better.

------
EugeneOZ
I don't understand why all these users who love so much that app can't just
pay $3-$5 monthly to help this app survive?

~~~
Yeroc
It's not clear how a willingness for the end-users to pay $3-5 monthly would
help the situation given that he can't use $$ to increase his quota-controlled
access to the api.

------
AliAdams
I think Google has such a strong consumer following now that it isn't as
interested in keeping the developers happy. We were early adopters so got a
good amount of attention at the start but that certainly seems to have waned
with Google's popularity.

~~~
hvidgaard
It just doesn't make sense. Without developers all the innovation happens
elsewhere, and at some point the consumers will switch. Google cannot keep up
with innovation internally, and they're not attracting new talent with such a
hostile developer stance.

~~~
ankitml
Seriously? Making a driverless car isnt innovation?

------
alan_cx
If you are genuinely asking that question I suspect you already have the
answer.

------
itsbits
Oh if its for commercial purpose please stop developing Apps for Google. Usage
will increase for a certain period of time, and then it drops constantly...

------
zszugyi
Comment of the day: "If you cannot increase his quota, at least give him a
job...". Right, because hiring someone is probably much easier than changing a
number in some database.

------
hrush
Yes.

------
OGC
I find it very hard to believe that a bunch of random people find the time to
comment (and all praise that app) on a Google Groups thread. Calling bullshit.

~~~
anuaitt
They are not random people, they are the users of gmailsharedtasks. They have
used it and love it. They have commented due to my request so that google come
to know that the app works great and is loved and needs attention.

------
Klarifier
Anuaitt:

1.) You are clearly young and do not know: if there is something on the
internet you do not like, go make it yourself. What obligation does Google
have to do something for you? None! They are providing mostly free services,
but if you don't like it (or the support), go make your own and quit bothering
people (and Google).

2.) You have no relation to the GMail Web Application, yet you specify:
"Founder GmailSharedTasks" Remove the Gmail from your description and build
out your solution without trying to get a free ride.

3.) Your Google Groups post can be summed up: "Cry! I'm not getting any
attention for my pet project!" Instead of crying, create your own solution
that does not leave you at the mercy of a company or individual who sees you
only as "1 of billions". Get over yourself.

4.) You know how to code, you know how to integrate with FREE APIs, now learn
what it takes to run a business.

~~~
anuaitt
Klarifier:

1) Why make it again if there is a platform already existing ? why not bother
them : please check this link
[http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/calendar/vdFSJ...](http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/calendar/vdFSJiVlhMQ)

2) Yes, I know it is my fault

3) I would rather chose not to comment on this.

4) Why create my own API ? If someone as good as Google has already build it ?
I know how to code and have built this app within 3 months.

and yes I am a young developer and I know what business is. I know about code
re-usability and providing a great user experience.

Regarding building of my own API, I could have done that but I always wanted
to make Gmail Tasks better, because I have been using it from past two-years.

Learn to praise the people instead of finding negative aspects.

