Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

Google’s standard problem is that they don’t even use their own products. Their Pixel and Android team rocks iPhones on the daily, for example.




You cant buy an iPhone without a director approval. And it's like 3 gen behind as well. So no, they don't use iPhones.

Google tells its employees what products they're allowed to buy for personal use?

Seems like they meant for a work device.

lots of googlers use BYOD iPhones and the corp suite for this use case is fairly well-supported

Which makes tons of sense because iPhone users are higher CLV than Android users. If Google had to choose between major software defects in Android or iOS, they would focus quality on iOS every time.

that explains why their ios gemini app is so ridiculously bad. in private they probably use iphones and just chatgpt instead.

you have to get premission from director for your presonal phone? wtf

For the work phone.

I would think this is not true

You'd be wrong (source - worked in the Android org).

Yeah, I've heard that Sundar Pichai dogfoods the latest Pixel at least once a month and sometimes two or three times.

That's inexcusable.

That’s because they will be bullied out of the dating market if they have a “green bubble”.

What is a green bubble? iPhone's carbon footprint?

iMessage renders other iMessage users as blue bubbles, SMS/RCS as green bubbles.

People who can’t understand that many people actually prefer iOS use this green/blue thing to explain the otherwise incomprehensible (to them) phenomenon of high iOS market share. “Nobody really likes iOS, they just get bullied at school if they don’t use it”.

It’s just “wake up sheeple” dressed up in fake morality.


As someone who switches between platforms somewhat frequently, iOS perpetually feels like people have Stockholm syndrome.

'Oh, that super annoying issue? Yeah, it's been there for years. We just don't do that.'

Fundamentally though, browsing the web on iOS, even with a custom "browser" with adblocking, feels like going back in time 15 years.


It wouldn't be an issue if they didn't pick the worst green on earth. "Which green would you like for the carrier text messages Mr. Jobs?" ... "#00FF00 will be fine."

I mean there is benefit to understanding competitor well as well?

Outweighed by the value of having to suffer with the moldy fruits of their own labor. That was the only way the Android Facebook app became usable as well.

There certainly is.

To posit a scenario: I would expect General Motors to buy some Ford vehicles to test and play around with and use. There's always stuff to learn about what the competition has done (whether right, wrong, or indifferent).

But I also expect the parking lots used by employees at any GM design facility in the world to be mostly full of General Motors products, not Fords.


The CEO of Ford was driving a competition EV for months;

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a62694325/ford-ceo-jim-far...


>But I also expect the parking lots used by employees at any GM design facility in the world to be mostly full of General Motors products, not Fords.

I think you'd be surprised about the vehicle makeup at Big 3 design facilities.


Maybe so.

I'm only familiar with Ford production and distribution facilities. Those parking lots are broadly full of Fords, but that doesn't mean that it's like this across the board.


GM has dedicated parking lots for employees with GM vehicles. Everybody else parks further away in the lot of shame.

Of course.

And I've parked in the lot of shame at a Ford plant, as an outsider, in my GMC work truck -- way over there.

It wasn't so bad. A bit of a hike to go back and get a tool or something, but it was at least paved...unlike the non-union lot I'm familiar with at a P&G facility, which is a gravel lot that takes crossing a busy road to get to, lacks the active security and visibility from the plant that the union lot has, and which is full of tall weeds. At P&G, I half-expect to come back and find my tires slashed.

Anyway, it wasn't barren over there in the not-Ford lot, but it wasn't nearly so populous as the Ford lot was. The Ford-only lot is bigger, and always relatively packed.

It was very clear to me that the lots (all of the lots, in aggregate) were mostly full of Fords.

To bring this all back 'round: It is clear to me that Ford employees broadly (>50%) drive Fords to work at that plant.

---

It isn't clear to me at all that Google Pixel developers don't broadly drive iPhones. As far as I can tell, that status (which is meme-level in its age at this point) is true, and they aren't broadly making daily use of the systems they build.

(And I, for one, can't imagine spending 40 hours a week developing systems that I refuse to use. I have no appreciation for that level of apparent arrogance, and I hope to never be suaded to be that way. I'd like to think that I'd be better-motivated to improve the system than I would be to avoid using it and choose a competitor instead.

I don't shit where I sleep.)


I wonder how many apple employees walk in to the office with android phones

Effectively zero.

Disclosure: I work at Apple. And when I was at Google I was shocked by how many iPhones there were.


That doesn’t surprise me at all haha appreciate someone a little closer to the question answering it! I know it still counts anecdotal but I’ll take it

This is flabbergasting, how could such a large proportion of highly technical people willingly subject themselves to being shackled by iOS? They just happily put up with having one choice of browser, (outside Europe) no third party app stores, and being locked into the Apple ecosystem? I can't think of a single reason I would ever switch from an S22-25+U to an iPhone. I only went from 22U to 25U because my old one got smashed, otherwise the 22U would still be perfectly fine.

Because many of them just want to use their phone as a tool, not tinker with it.

Same way many professional airplane mechanics fly commercial rather than building their own plane. Just because your job is in tech doesn’t mean you have to be ultra-haxxor with every single device in your life.


I don't have my phone (a Pixel) because it frees me from shackles or anything like that. It's just a phone. I use the default everything. Works great. I imagine most people with iPhones are the same.

Because it’s better.

I've tried them out and not a single thing about it was tangibly better IMO. They have no inherent merit above Android except that some see them as a status symbol (which is absurd as my S25U has a higher MSRP than most iPhone models)

My bottom of the barrel iPhone SE is absolutely not a status symbol. It’s just the phone I like best.

The MSRP of your phone does not matter.


Cameras, for starters. I’ve never seen another smart phone keep up with the quality color and texture of an iPhone’s photos/videos (videos in particular) since the 4s. Their color science is just better. We’ve intercut footage since the 7 or so with our work and frankly you’d be hard pressed to catch it wasn’t one of our nicer rigs unless we hold the shot for too long. we just can’t get other phone cameras to match footage with the same ease, especially when it comes to skin tones.

I feel like people dance around this a lot because idk it hurts nerd credibility or something. The fact is on a moment to moment basis, the iPhone is just a better experience generally. They also hold their value a lot longer. I consistently trade in my phone or sell it to other people for easily 80% of what I paid for it. Usually this is 3-4yrs out

Remember how long it took for Instagram to be functional on android phones?




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: