

MG Siegler: Faith No More - markgx
http://parislemon.com/post/12263286304/faith-no-more

======
Kylekramer
We don't need more Apples. There is one right now, doing very well at being
Apple. Google could take some cues from Apple, sure, but there is more than
one way to skin a cat. The fact that MG thinks Android sucking at first and
slowly iterating to a solid product is a negative is mind boggling. That is
great! We are talking about a search company that in the span of few years
became the dominant player in mobile operating systems. And that never would
have happened if Google took years and years to create one "perfect" phone.

Coming out of the gate with a great product is overrated. It can work. But
more likely, cause you aren't Apple, you will flop. By starting with the
basics instead of a complete product, you also give yourself a much more
interesting place to grow (the iPhone 4S could be mistaken for the original
iPhone; no one could mistake the Galaxy Nexus for the G1).

~~~
ryanwaggoner
There is a VAST difference between launching something simple and functional
and then iterating to a solid, polished product, and launching something that
sucks / is simply broken, and hoping people put up with it until you can get
it right.

Apple does the former; features for v1 of their products are almost always
quite limited, but what is there is polished. Increasingly, Google seems to do
the latter.

It's not minimum product, it's minimum _viable_ product. And if it doesn't
even work, it's hardly viable.

~~~
Kylekramer
You are honestly claiming Google products haven't been viable or working? That
seems like quite the stretch.

~~~
Anti-Ratfish
Have you read the article or used the app? Broken is exactly what it is, and
it's a Google product. So yes, I'd assume that's exactly what's being said.

~~~
Kylekramer
"The native Gmail app isn’t really shit... it’s just buggy as fuck and
extremely underwhelming."

I am not saying it is good app. It is weak and disappointing. I am saying that
the philosophy MG is promoting where you must get everything right the first
time is a distracting and unattainable goal.

------
tobtoh
I found this paragraph to be insightful: "When Jobs took the stage to unveil
something, people got excited not just because he was a great showman but
because it instilled an underlying belief that what he was going to unveil
would be great. You know that whatever it was, he signed off on it. And the
vast majority of the time, it was great. That built trust. Faith."

I have to agree - whilst Apple had it's stumbles from time to time, on the
balance of things, they consistently released good products. You always got
the feeling that there was attention to detail and care was put into whatever
Apple sold.

Google on the other hand - particular in the last few months has really
stumbled. To me, they are coming across as sloppy and with poor product
management. I don't really have confidence that their products will work
reliably or consistently unless it's been in production for years.

Slapping the 'beta' tag on their products used to feel exciting that Google
was rushing new developments out the door to us, but lately it's feeling more
like it's an excuse for covering up sloppy work habits.

~~~
megablast
As a fan of Apple, I see people seeming to forget the antenna issue from the
iPhone 4, and the current battery issue with the iphone 4s. The final cut
issue of a few months ago, and many, many other missteps. All big companies
make mistakes, and i think this entry is singling out Google for some strange
reason.

~~~
iaskwhy
I immediately thought about the first (?) releases Apple did for Windows:
iTunes and Safari. Both were really bad but I have never seen software as
buggy as that one new release of Safari that would crash if you clicked on any
button.

It's basically a matter of how many good releases you do against the bad ones.
Google is in bad shape right now but that changes quickly with a good release
in the near future. (I'd say the new Gmail theme is a good release.)

------
idle_processor
It feels like the author is giving Apple an undue free pass.

He mentions Microsoft and Yahoo as other companies who've failed him with bad
releases, and the subtext seems to be that Apple hasn't done significant
wrong.

To do so conveniently ignores how bad Windows versions of QuickTime, Safari,
and iTunes have been at early stages.

~~~
handelaar
Early stages? All three are still crimes against product management today.

~~~
idle_processor
Agreed.

1) I'm not sure what made Apple feel that their video codec warranted a home
in the control panel. I don't forgive DivX for this, either.

2) They put their personal aesthetic before usability in a big way. E.g.,
iTunes was unusably slow, though it's improved. Quicktime ran horribly. I am
_assuming_ this was in part due to wanting to use MacOS-style brushed-metal
chrome.

------
Yhippa
Did I miss something? Sounds like he got burned on a scoop. Did Google do
anything bad to him?

"MG: show me on this doll where Google touched you."

If the application is that bad at least they retracted it. I don't know how
much financial loss or other damage it did to the people who downloaded it. It
probably doesn't help the overall perception of Google but I view it
differently.

I really appreciate their test-and-learn style of product releases. Don't get
me wrong; I was very upset to learn the demise of Notebook and removal of
social from Reader. I like the concept of making lots of small bets and seeing
what works. That can be a cheap path to innovation sometimes.

~~~
tobtoh
> I really appreciate their test-and-learn style of product releases.

I do to - but don't you feel that lately they are just releasing far too
early? Take the Gmail redesign - opened up to beta, they took onboard the
early feedback about too much whitespace and when the fully released the new
design, we had a 'compact' option - to me, that is test and learn style done
well.

But take the Gmail app - released into production and it's key feature doesn't
work - how was this not picked up in basic testing? Plus it's getting near
universal derision as being an underwhelming app. That doesn't seem like 'test
and learn' style to me - that's more like sloppy work.

And Siegler lists a whole bunch of recent product launches that have fumbled
not because they release new tech, but because Google made basic faults. One
that affected me this week - the launch of Google+ for Google App users ...
only to discover that it doesn't work with their for iOS/Android app - again,
a basic fault.

I want Google to keep releasing in a 'test and learn' style, but I also want
them to have some attention to detail and tighten up their work practices
which appear to be slipping.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
Google Wave is hardly recent though. It's easy to cherry pick bad products
from a company that releases gobs of them. I could point to GameCenter. Or
Ping. Or MobileMe or iBooks.

------
espeed
Seth Godin warned Google about this 5 years ago...

"But I can give you a warning. This is a key moment of the life cycle of the
company. As the stakes keep getting higher and higher and the opportunities
keep getting bigger and bigger and the number of smart people keeps
increasing, so does the competition, so does the stakes, so does the
opportunity to pay a $200 fine. And what I want to do today is really place a
steak in the ground about a key conceptual underpinning that I want to sell
you on and then try to outline why I think Google has succeeded to date and
how repeating that could really help you moving forward.

People care about Google. What happened is you made an audacious promise to
people. You changed the way the interacted all day long when they are supposed
to be working, all day long when they are surfing, you changed their
interaction. And that interaction made them care about your brand. And that
means you have a platform to do some spectacular things. But if you blow it
just a few times in a row they won't care about your brand any more."

Google Tech Talk: "All Marketers Are Liars"
(<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6909078385965257294>)

~~~
rrrazdan
I hadn't thought about Google in this sense. The way I remember the net is a
big bad mess of ugly websites and then Google came along and they changed
search. And they changed Email. They changed advertising. Think of how many
more ugly flash ads there would have been without Google. And yes that built
affection for the brand. Taking risks is awesome. Shipping crappy products not
so much.

------
loso
Interesting that the main complaint is that Google does not know how to
develop for a competitors platform very well. Have you taken a look at Apple's
software on Windows machines? If I had to rely on the reputation of Apple
simply by their software on Windows machines then they would be among the
worst software companies ever.

Google+, Music, Voice, and Chrome have all been good releases but maybe not
earth shattering. So Wave has given them a stench of failure? Really?

------
danberger
Even though I see what MG is trying to do here, I don't agree that the botched
release somehow reveals a bigger pattern at Google. It's a big company doing a
lot of things and it's going to have flops along the way.

At least they're open and honest about their failures - I can respect that.

------
shampoo
The great thing about the headline to this piece is that it started with MG
Siegler, which meant I could ignore it.

------
metel
Matt Siegler is simply following the modern trend amongst Apple People in
viewing Google negatively. Has Matt posted anything negative about Apple re
iCloud? Because I've heard bad things about it from other Applists. In
summary: if I want this kind of stuff I'll go to the master: Gruber.

------
myspy
Some words to the people comparing the GMail app with Ping, MobileMe, Final
Cut, Antenna problem, Battery time etc. (and please start to make precise
distinctions here, not everything is that bad, like the GMail app).

These are not Apples core products. Apples core product is the hardware and
the OS on either platform. Googles core product is creating software.

So it's sad to see, they have no capable software developers knowing how to
code for iOS (or willing?). They don't use any native components from iOS,
even the navigation bar is a web element, how strange is that?

It's the same with Apple and iTunes for Windows. They take no native elements,
because they use some wrapper to get the OS X code to Win. When the rumors are
true and only five people do iTunes, then I understand why they do no decent
Windows app, but why not get some good Win developers?

Same for Google, why get no decent iOS devs? And the Google+ app is an awful
app too. It's such a shitty app, it's sad too.

But after thinking some time about it, I guess, they have no usable APIs for
the mail service, so they have to rely on web views.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
"Apples core product is the hardware and the OS on either platform."

Okay then, iOS 4 for iPhone 3G.

Checkmate.

~~~
myspy
Actually, no. iOS 4 was designed for the iPhone 4. 3G getting it was bonus,
and in the end, they fixed the bugs.

And when you say something like that, how about no Android 2.3+ for the
biggest part of Android phones out there?

------
periferral
how about a post on Apple 4S release with bugs causing battery drain. Or does
MG believe apple can do no wrong.

------
MatthewPhillips
Agree with the general sentiment but Google Music is better than iCloud music.

------
cageface
I think Google's bigger problem is that they have a hard time keeping people's
attention. They throw products over the fence with a lot of fanfare and then
they just languish and eventually get killed. I haven't heard a peep about
Google Music or TV for months now, for example. Most of the buzz about G+
lately has been the backlash for their ham-fisted and disingenuous handling of
the real names issue.

I think they have a lot to learn about product marketing.

------
pasbesoin
Google has jumped the shark. Though it will take a while to sort out, they are
bound for one of two destinations: The next MS (IBM, etc.), or death.

When you stop supporting and responding to your most technical users, you
divorce yourself from that edge.

And when you ignore and blow off user issues and complaints, you divorce
yourself from broader good will.

The Panda exercise was an improvement. Plus was appealing in concept but is
failing in execution. (We don't need another Facebook -- especially not the
Big Brother aspect.) The rest of recent developments have mostly sucked (where
products are not simply languishing).

Google Apps remains somewhat interesting, but it's becoming apparent that you
only count if you're the Feds, GM, or similar.

------
yanw
They released a buggy app they didn't go about punching orphans. Their webapp
is excellent and the native one will be fixed and re-released, let's get
things in prospective and try to complain less about free stuff.

~~~
tobtoh
Siegler isn't just complaining about a buggy app - he's complaining more about
the trend of Google releasing sub-par products or mis-managing their releases.

~~~
yanw
Nah, they've already released Gmail. And by the amount of stuff they release
statistically they will muck up a few, luckily it's mostly easily fixable. He
is just angry his "scoop" went sour.

------
clobber
Glad he basically addressed the point I made here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3188980>

Let's stick to this instead of all the hyping and hyperbole please.

~~~
ChuckMcM
Except this point isn't about whether or not MG was wrong about how gmail on
IOS would rock, this was his observation at the general randomness of Google's
product releases with respect to their perceived 'greatness.' He observes that
Apple had the iron hand of Steve to control the results. Google used to have
the iron hand of Marissa but that changed when she lost out in the big social
shuffle.

If you push out whatever any group considers done, and you take away the
'preview' zone that was labs, you have to accept that you are going to push
some turds out.

Google's previous product process didn't scale, this new one has quality
issues. I'm sure the next one will address that to some extent.

------
fleitz
Google is good at algorithms, not software used by humans.

Search is better than anyone else because the algorithms are better, Bing is
much prettier.

Same thing with AdSense no one can touch the CTR of adsense. Would anyone ever
WANT to use the AdSense interface? No.

Gmail was great because they figured out how to do giant inboxes at scale for
cheap (and had awesome spam filtering), again, the strength was algorithms.
Not because "OMG this is the best interface for email evar."

Google could beat Apple on the iPhone if there was some algorithm that just
'knew' who you wanted to call and whether you wanted to call. Imagine a phone
where you just opened it and it pulled up magically whatever you wanted to do.
That or some other great algorithmic feature could overcome the horrid
interface.

Google wins on algorithms and loses everywhere else.

~~~
eberfreitas
I personally think that Gmail's web interface is the best email client out
there nowadays. I can't find any desktop software or webapp that is nearly as
good, but that is my 2 cents.

~~~
gnufied
Agreed. I haven't played with new UI too much yet, but the gmail interface was
probably among the best web interfaces. And things just worked. It wasn't
about 2GB limit per se (but it did create the buzz)

