

Googler: "we pushed a bad version of our iOS app for Gmail" - mmastrac
https://plus.google.com/100940716892313727285/posts/4aPVQTj9jyL

======
avree
This response actually kind of scares me. Here's why.

1\. No one has taken time to address the real issue—yes, there's a weird bug
on launch, but the real issue is that the app itself _blows_. It's terrible.
It's basically entirely a web view that runs even slower than the GMail webapp
itself. As Scoble says in the comments: "The bar is high for apps. Make it
better than a web page or DO NOT RELEASE! Please."

2\. This an absurdly easy thing to check for. This has happened first with the
Google Voice app, then with the Google+ app, now with the GMail app. Is Google
committed to systematically destroying their own brand?

~~~
jrockway
_This an absurdly easy thing to check for. This has happened first with the
Google Voice app, then with the Google+ app, now with the GMail app. Is Google
committed to systematically destroying their own brand?_

Isn't Apple destroying their brand with the original iPhone 4's crappy antenna
and with the new iPhone 4's crappy battery life?

Bugs happen. It's software.

~~~
khafra
But where's Google's iOS record of success that should make us overlook this
error? The Google Maps app is pretty good...

~~~
martingordon
I don't have a source handy, but I'm pretty sure Maps.app for iOS was written
in-house by Apple.

~~~
kelnos
And the maps app on Android, written by Google, is superior in pretty much
every way to its iOS counterpart. Even ignoring the navigation component.

~~~
martingordon
I agree that Maps on Android is superior to Maps on iOS, just as native Gmail
on Android is better than Gmail on iOS, but the parent was using iOS Maps as
an example of a good Google iOS app – it isn't a good example because Google
didn't write Maps for iOS.

It's not about whether Apple writes better iOS apps than Google does for
Android, it's about whether Google makes any good apps for iOS.

~~~
khafra
Everyone seems to have missed my point, which was that Google has never
created a good iOS app. Google Maps is the closest thing to a good iOS app
that involves Google. So we have no reason to give them any slack on this; the
way we forgave Apple for the iPhone 4 antenna.

------
tobtoh
Google+ being released to Google App users - only for them to discover that
Google+ app on Android and iOS isn't compatible for them.

Google Reader being released to universal complaints that it's made reading
more difficult due to too much whitespace (a mistake that Gmail didn't make
even though it uses the same design).

Gmail app being released and seemingly universally panned as being such a bad
app, plus it's released with a major bug requiring the app to be pulled.

Since I actively use all three Google products, I'm a little more
biased/sensitive to these mis-steps and may be making more of their mistakes
than I should. But it seems to me that Google is really struggling to execute
anything successfully these days. I can't decide if my expectations of Google
has changed, whether Apple has caused me to have higher expectations on the
release of a product, or if Google is genuinely stumbling - but my impression
is that Google is making basic fundamental errors in the management of their
products. Fragmented release dates alienating your loyal users, buggy releases
and just outright bad design - to me, it seems like no-one is in control at
Google - their work is becoming sloppy and I can only imagine that will hurt
their brand in the long term if this isn't turned around.

Edit: Removed the 'over a year late' bit from the first line . Thanks to those
who pointed that out - I actually did know it was released this year - I'm
probably guilty of running on auto-pilot and inserted a 'cliched phrase' as I
typed :S

~~~
muro
> Google+ being released over a year late to Google App users

I don't think Google+ launched a year ago.

------
mmastrac
Another post by a different Googler:

[https://plus.google.com/102053381273068034374/posts/gc4Jj4wX...](https://plus.google.com/102053381273068034374/posts/gc4Jj4wXTqa)

" The iOS app we launched today contained a bug which broke notifications and
caused you to see an error message when first opening the app. We’ve removed
the app while we correct the problem, and we’re working to bring you a new
version soon. In the meantime, everyone who’s already installed the app can
continue to use it.

"We want to bring you a great Gmail experience, and we're sorry we messed up
here."

------
kogir
The really annoying thing here is that Apple's process is broken. There is no
way to test the binary that you submit to Apple before downloading it from the
App Store.

Loopt had this problem a few times, despite an explicit item in our submission
checklist to manually check the manifest file in a text editor. XCode often,
but not always, messes this up - and in my experience - only for distribution
builds.

~~~
cubicle67
haven't tries this, but would using a promo code work? I think they're valid
for use before you make the app public

------
untog
A stupid mistake by Google. Telling that Apple did not pick up on it in their
famed testing process, though. Maybe they wanted to embarrass Google a little,
but I assume we will never know.

~~~
pagekalisedown
Apple is not your personal QA department.

~~~
rendezvouscp
Not personal, but this isn’t something that should have made it through the
review process. I’ve had a Mac app rejected for a far more minor offense
(having a label in the preferences sometimes display incorrectly); an error
alert on launch should not have made it past any reviewer.

~~~
justincormack
Maybe Apple accepted it on purpose to discredit google and discourage usage.
They are not a QA dept...

------
rryyan
Deja vu, this happened when Google launched the Google Plus iOS app too:

[http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/19/google-plus-iphone-app-
lau...](http://venturebeat.com/2011/07/19/google-plus-iphone-app-launch/)

------
brador
Just what is going on at Google? The past few weeks (since and including the
plus launch) have been a disaster for their brand within the tech community.

~~~
patrickaljord
> The past few weeks (since and including the plus launch) have been a
> disaster for their brand within the tech community.

Why exactly? I love google+ and tons of hackers are using it too.

~~~
ryanbraganza
brador may be referring to the nym wars?

------
saturdaysaint
To me, the worst thing is that it preserves the strange scrolling lag of the
web app. Also, it's really annoying that the only way to go from the folder
selection/left column back to the mail view is to select a folder/inbox. In
their similar layout, Facebook wisely lets you go back to the main column (the
news feed) by tapping that column.

But, yeah, these apps are mediocre. Compare their search app with Dragon Go!,
compare Google Plus with Facebook. Heck, Facebook's ancillary Messenger app
blows away anything Google's put on any other platform. Why? Far smaller
companies with far less talent are delivering far superior experiences on many
platforms. The ability of these devices is so great and the tools have
advanced so much that having apps of this caliber is like being the company
with crappy web 1.0 website well into the 00's.

------
da5e
This should make the guy who left out the var during his product's launch feel
better. No one is too big to fail.

------
charnigill
It also broke my GV app notifications. As soon as I logged into Gmail iOS app,
I started getting TXTS forwarded to my email (forwarding is OFF). I'm not sure
if the 2 are related but thats the only change I made since morning.

------
jemeshsu
Seems that Google has some QA issue for making series of similar mistakes.
Appaling from a hugh company. I guess their app development process is similar
to their web development, where for web any error can be quickly fix without
much fanfare. Too bad they couldn't or did not stick a "beta" label onto their
native apps.

------
zrgiu_
Google: Here's our app to put on the AppStore

Apple Employee: thank you, we'll review it and put it up there

.. 2 days later ..

Apple Employee to Tim Cook: boss, this app is crashing a lot, but it's from
Google. What should we do ?

Cook: publish it!

------
mtkd
We've all done it.

I'm happy with the occasional step back when the pace of change is as fast and
progressive as Google have accomplished this year.

Keep it up guys.

~~~
guywithabike
What's progressive about a thin wrapper around their existing web interface?

 _Keep it up guys._

Judging by their unfortunate string of broken iOS releases, they have been.

------
aggarwalachal
all iOS owners should use the Mail.app. it takes a little extra battery but
Apple did it right...

~~~
bgentry
They did not "do it right" if you're a heavy Gmail user. List of things that
suck or are missing from the Mail.app Gmail experience (in no particular
order):

1) 1-click archiving

2) stars

3) labels

4) priority inbox

5) aliases

6) spam marking

7) filtering

8) searching through message archives (messages not downloaded to iOS device)

9) drafts

10) proper conversation threading

There are probably a lot more. Those ones came to mind in <30 seconds.

I sincerely hope Sparrow for iOS will address these issues so that I can get
push notifications without missing Gmail's best features.

~~~
aggarwalachal
Sparrow for iOS is something I have been looking forward to myself. I
understand the issues you mentioned about Mail.app, but at least Push works if
you setup Gmail as exchange.

I use Sparrow on the MBP and hope we get Sparrow iOS soon enough.

------
clobber
Confused. Wasn't MG Siegler telling us how much this app would rock?

Seriously though, why hype something one has never used? Egg on his face.

------
diptanu
And it's not available on the Indian App Store :(

------
DrHankPym
I didn't know Apple's App Store sold apps with bugs in them. Don't they have
some type of review process?

~~~
zitterbewegung
This is a joke right? Since a bug can be a infinite loop and proving that you
have no infinite loops in your program is uncomputable this would be an
impossible task.

~~~
DrHankPym
No. I remember reading a year or so ago about how tedious it was to submit an
app to the Apple App Store, and how you also have to submit your source code
or something.

I don't have an iPhone. I'm just going off what I've understood from iPhone
users and developers over the years.

~~~
xsmasher
You do not submit your code to Apple. They do run some automated scans on your
binary for calls to undocumented API's, and they do run your app and check for
certain issues that are important to Apple. It's an approval process, not a
testing process.

~~~
DrHankPym
Again, I haven't touched an iPhone in my life, but this was the reason I've
heard apps in Apple's App Store is better than apps in Android's App Store.
There could be other reasons, but I thought it had to do with Apple's
involvement.

Keep downvoting me; I don't care. I'm asking honest (and I guess dumb)
questions.

~~~
tedunangst
Don't believe everything you read on the Internet. Times two if its a blog
post about a rejected app.

------
HamMan_0
Gmail on my Android works great though.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

~~~
itg
Tons of apps work great on my iPhone. Says more about the app than the phone.
Sorry, I couldn't resist either.

