And just like that, all G Pay branding on every store window, door, or register is deprecated. I think they forgot how to make products.
There’s a reason Apple sold 7 of the most-sold phones in America last year. They all have the latest OS available, have security patches for years to come, and use the same first-party apps. I beginning to think that Apple isn’t necessarily doing anything specifically innovative, they just aren’t constantly fucking with their customers (though they do still fuck OVER their customers regularly).
yeah. google just isn’t a company you can rely on.
Even their search is going to shit (and with that google ads)
The past year, for multiple times i wanted an app, i couldn’t find it on Google Play. The search is utter crap. I had to bing stuff with “google play” as a keyword to find what I was looking for. Ridiculous. In the original Play Store search they give three results that obviously have my search words substituted for more common ones, e.g. “music” instead of “sound”, and give you a few most popular for that, which is of course bullshit, because of course music apps are more popular than sound apps, BUT I DON’T WANT ANOTHER GODDAM MUSIC PLAYER. Then they show some useless random shit in a carousel, like FUCKING GAMES LIKE HEARTHSTONE AND MINECEAFT, WHICH IS THE LAST THING I NEED NOW … finally there is a “show more” button that triggers the actual search FOR THE SILLY SUBSTITUTED WORDS I DIDN’T ENTER, BUT THIS TIME WITH FUZZYNESS ON MAX SO IT DOESN’T EVEN MATCH THOSE ALL THE TIME.
I’m not a fan of MS, but: bing Play Store when?
Search used to be so useful 😑
It’s even affected YouTube.
At least YouTube is recommending videos by color now
But finding the two uploaders I watch daily is a chore.
Youtube has been a bitch and a half for a while now. It keeps showing me the same suggested videos over and over and over, most of them irrelevant to the search!
Do you pay for premium? I do and I feel like the experience I have on the platform is leaps and bounds better than what people describe on a free account. I wouldn’t put it past Google to actively make the product worse when you aren’t paying.
I pay and still get the color recommendation, garbage search, it auto plays videos when I search on a TV app, and auto plays a second time when I try to back out of the video it just auto played, it recommends the same channel 23 times in my recommended and half the time nothing I’m subscribed to which I still am and have to go hunting in subscriptions because of all the stupid fucking shorts that take up most of my subscription feed now and they raised my price just now because I was one of the first fucking YouTube red subscribers and they can’t even respect their grandfathered plans!
Sorry. YouTube has been pissing me off for a while now. And no I don’t think paying for it makes it better. But I can believe them making it somehow still worse if I didn’t!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/Z3dSkkEr-wk
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Every time I want to search by date I have to open invidious because YouTube search by upload date only sorts like the last week and then past that it’s back to just relevance
Apple doesn’t invent new products; they take good ideas that others did poorly and do them well.
I don’t believe that. I don’t think Apple innovates constantly, or that they are the most innovative, but they have their moments (Touch Bar, gigantic touchpad, one of the first laptop manufacturers to have insane display resolution, one of the first to take mobile audio quality seriously, Apple silicon, Vision Pro - which is NOT the same as Google Glass or HoloLens, AirPods).
That’s how they beat competition: by innovating in small-ways.
They didn’t make the first Laptop, but they innovate in ways like high-quality display and trackpad, and having a touch-bar.
They don’t always do it well. Touch-bar and pressure-sensitive trackpad have been hit-or-miss features.
AirPods weren’t the first Bluetooth earphones, but Apple managed to make them wildly popular.
Vision Pro is … honestly I’m not sure where they’re going with it. I think the most similar competing product is the Facebook/Meta/Oculus “Quest”, but that focuses on running games while the Apple Vision emphasizes anything but games.
The pressure sensitive trackpad has been a home run, nobody has better trackpads. Period.
But yeah the touchbar was pretty meh and poorly supported and ended up being half baked in the long run.
I love the pressure sensitive trackpad but my mom always complains when the force-click pop up appears when she tries to click normally but presses too hard. I’m pretty sure most users don’t take advantage of it.
A related feature was pressure sensitivity in their phones, which the removed because most users weren’t using it.
They really need to ship with the optional “bottom right corner is right click” as default, especially when I believe most people are conditioned to that. Fixes the accidental force-click pop ups imo.
Also one of the firsts to go all in on USBC on a laptop. Sure they spun their wheels on mobile but I gotta give them props for taking the plunge in their computers. Lotta people bitched about it but it needed to happen.
“one of the first to take mobile audio quality seriously”
Is this referring to iPods? If so, then I agree. Hell, the first gen iPods are super sought after because they can use FLAC audio files. Although Apple has their own “lostless” audio codec now, so idk if it’s that big of a deal.
AirPods? Sure it’s impressive the noice canceling features in such a small package, but Bluetooth audio was nothing new and now they’re required because Apple removed the headphone jack.
I loved my 2017 LG ThinQ because it not only had a headphone jack, but it had a built in audio DAC to provide extra power to my Sennheiser studio headphones and it sounded soooo good.
I was referring to their laptop speakers, which are some of the best in class speakers around. But Apple has put a heavy emphasis on audio for a while. Their DACs are pretty good for what they are. The HomePods and AirPods aren’t bad either. They aren’t audiophile-level, but they are pretty good. I do wish they had better BT support, and had AptX on MacOS though.
All examples you mention are just refinements of what others did, proving the point. Except the Vision Pro which is just factually a bad product and rightly getting lambasted by everyone for it. But eh, even Apple has their misses.
It’s true, Apple stole ideas so much there is a term for it among the dev community: Sherlocking .
One of the most famous sherlocking case is Apple removing FlickType citing compliance with apple store guidelines, only to launch a similar app later: https://twitter.com/keleftheriou/status/1437845736951992321
waiting for them to cancel android already
Their business is advertising and Android is how they track an insane number of users. Like Chrome, they’ll never kill it, it’s far too valuable to them.
i was half joking, i’m expecting it to enshittify.
Any Google tap and pay will still work under the Google Wallet umbrella. All they will do is add “Wallet” logos to future signage.
They really seem to have lost any semblance of vision
No, the G Pay logo and branding is entirely separate. It is and has always been the indication that you can pay with the Wallet app. Which sucks as far as naming goes, but at least it has been quite consistent.
…
Over here. I had no idea that in other countries they did all kinds of fuckery with their branding.
Individual phones sure, but much like windows vs Mac . There’s way more android devices sold/out there.
The downside is relying on those non Google manufacturers to update those devices.
android should be like windows or even desktop linux for that matter, google should update it directly.
they look like they are moving in that direction with treble and planning to use mainline linux, but they sure are taking their sweet damn time
I wonder how much of that is because Apple doesn’t compete in the sub-$400 market. I was surprised that my parents had a $100 Motorola Android that provided updates for something like 4 years, but yeah, some of the manufacturer’s just give up on even supporting their flagship devices (I see you, LG G4).
That’s a huge part of it. But it’s like the PC thing all over where anyone can license and produce any kind of android device.
At the very least, manufacturers should be required to make their android build files available, even if they are kept in an escrow until the manufacturer stops selling that model (or they go out of business). Most of the phones going to the dump are because no updates are available, even though the hardware is still fine and any individual person (with a little patience) could build the latest release if they had the hardware bin files available.
For what it’s worth, that’s the goal behind GKI (generic kernel image)
It allows Google to update the phone without the manufacturer’s input
Would that also be available to individuals, or is something that only Google would have access to? There’s at least a couple groups actively keeping maintained images available for various phones. I keep thinking I want to try one but never get around to it before the phone is fully in use.
It should make it somewhat easier for individuals as well
The idea is that you have the vendor image with Qualcomm or Samsung specific drivers, and you can build AOSP for everything else
The structs in the kernel have some extra GKI space so if they change, it can still support the older drivers
The downside is Google is planning on pushing the updates through the Play Store, so it will take some effort to make it work in AOSP for Lineage/Graphene, etc
Well it sounds like it’s a step in the right direction at least. Thanks for the info.
Apple isn’t necessarily doing anything specifically innovative
I don’t think they have really innovated for quite some time. But that said, they do know their market. They’ve got tons of people in the ecosystem and simply have to maintain them. It’s a lot easier than courting new users.
Apple has never done anything innovative. They just take things other companies have done and sell it to people better. They have a fantastic marketing team, but they generally don’t do new ideas.
First, there was google wallet, then came android pay, then google wallet and android pay got merged into google pay, then google pay was split into google wallet and google pay, then google pay shut down in us.
To be continued…
Next: Google Android Wallet Pay
Google Wallet with Gemini.
Gemini will suggest where you should spend your money next, based on AI analysing your spending patterns.
By the way Gemini is going to automatically pay the optimum amount of tip based on Google partnership.
Optimal tips in US is now 35-45%, minimum for not getting kicked in the groin is 20%, plan accordingly.
Suggest? Nah fam, it will decide what you want and make the purchases for you based on your overall profile, browsing patterns, bank account analysis and integration with smart devices in your home such as the fridge.
… And now it’s dead too.
Will it come with its own proprietary chat?
It’s almost as if, and bear with me here this is a truly wild concept, letting every manager run their own little show and paying them based on how many new products they introduce isn’t actually healthy.
Are you sure that you’re not thinking of Duo/meet/Hangout?
Don’t put hangout in the same breath as duo and meet. It was way better than those “two”
So true. I should have said “Allo”, but I’d forgotten it existed.
I have Google Fi and it was fantastic to have that work using Hangouts. I could turn any device into a spare phone. The “replacement” website feature is disappointing.
More like: To be confused…
This sounds like someone trying to describe the women’s legs of that video of OpenAI’s Sora … Tokyo Walk.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/tRSdt5kmeW0?si=dEtq3md0u3phJuv4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/tRSdt5kmeW0?si=dEtq3md0u3phJuv4
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Random as hell.
What is with google and all these apps that get killed or rebranded very abruptly?
So I’ve heard advancement at Google/Alphabet depends on launching new products, not improving existing ones. Which means a lot of continually reinventing the wheel, because crafting truly novel new platforms is actually quite hard.
This is the answer. Rising stars get promo, then abandon it. Google under Sundar is just a corporate advancement simulator.
Money, it is all about money.
It’s about lack of coherent leadership.
I was irked about Google podcasts but that made sense since they were obviously trying to push YouTube subscriptions. This I’m not sure.
Now they will have youtube pay
Or just You Pay
I think most people hated this app though?
FFS I literally use this all the fuckin time
God fuckin damnit Google
What’s next, are you going to kill Gmail‽
How long until they change 8.8.8.8 and break half the internet
I’m just waiting for them to figure out how to inject ads into DNS.
I think they could 🤔
It would be trivially easy.
Request for www.taylorswift.com
Return IP to client for a dynamically created temporary web page that shows a Ticketmaster.com ad with a countdown of 10 seconds and javascript redirect to the actual taylorswift.com IP
But, HTTPS certificates.
Unless they provided overrides for their ads in Chrome, but at that point why do it with DNS.Google is way ahead of you, they are a certificate authority now, so in theory they can do this right now. Take a look at any site’s https certificate and a significant portion of them are now signed by Google Trust Services LLC thanks to Cloudflare using them to generate free https certificates (in addition to letsencrypt). Note that they won’t ever pull this trick though because it’ll irreversibly damage their reputation.
I think they wouldn’t do that, since they could do the redirect within Chrome itself. The only reason they would do this is to grab users on other browsers, but that would mean everyone else stopping to use Google DNS, which means less data to collect or sell.
The only reason they would do this is to grab users on other browsers,
Yes that would be the purpose.
but that would mean everyone else stopping to use Google DNS, which means less data to collect or sell.
I agree, which is why I also agree with you why they haven’t done it yet, but I was speaking to how they could do it, not the fallout from them doing so.
It’s too big to fail now. Advertisers hardcode it into their apps and iot devices to evade DNS adblockers for a while now.
Joke’s on them, I block Google DNS in my router, and a bunch of DoH servers (fuck I hate DoH).
DoH and DoT, originally developed to prevent ISP to tamper with DNS query to inject ads, now ironically used by advertisers to evade DNS-based blocking on their ads sdk and iot devices.
Can we just sunset google altogether
don’t forget alphabet, otherwise they just sunset google to launch gogol or some shit
deleted by creator
Did you not hear?
NGL you had me for a moment
This would give me a straight up heart attack and I’m already trying to get off Gmail.
Don’t be a dumbass spreading blatant hoaxes thinking you’re funny.
Come on, it is funny.
Where is the joke?
You’re still using gmail
Isn’t google wallet basically the same thing?
Yes, and it works better. They said over a year ago that wallet would replace GPay, and remind you that it will stop working basically anytime you open it. I’m all for shitting on Google but being upset over this is dumb.
Why don’t they upgrade the original product rather than create a new one? Answer: fucking laziness
Ironically enough, they actually are going back to the old product, it WAS Google wallet prior to gpay
But isn’t wallet only for tap to pay? I use Google pay to send and receive money between my friends and family literally all the time. Reading the email Google sent me, they only talk about tap to pay still working on wallet.
Idk I’ve never used it for anything other than tap to pay, and that was also true for gpay. I personally would recommend you use something that doesn’t farm your data for transferring money anyway. Zelle is what most people prefer these days, usually goes straight through your bank, no separate app, not invasive, more secure.
Venmo and cash app are trash (especially Venmo) but they are alternatives that work for sending money and have been around way longer than GPay. I still use Venmo for a few things for my parents and father in law.
GPay had tons of bloat to it which I didn’t like. I don’t want Google tracking my spending and tailoring “offers” for me, and I definitely don’t want them sending me notifications about it. I’m not delusional, I know they’re still tracking it and still sending it to advertisers but at least wallet isn’t shoving my face in it.
I have 8 bucks in Google Kajigger, is it moving to the new thing? Do I have to sort out how to move it around? I’m think I had it all hooked up to a bank at one point. Maybe it was a friend that sent me money?
I think I used it to pay for Dunkin Donuts, but both apps list Dunkin Donuts, can I just use the money there?
That’s why this is all so annoying, I have to figure out this whole process, old and new, just for 8 bucks.
That’s all well and good and fair, but this isn’t new news is more my point. Google told everyone, every device, that they were switching to wallet and phasing out GPay over a year ago, in fact I’m almost positive it was when Android 13 released (we are on 14 now). Like the annoyance should’ve passed by now, you know?
Samsung Pay is pretty good if you have a Samsung phone.
Unfortunately I don’t have a Samsung phone
Fortunately, I don’t have a Samsung phone.
Relax dippy. Just a rebrand to Google Wallet. Try to breath for a minute before sounding brain dead.
Literally the only feature I use on it is getting sunset.
Use your bank. Stop giving the world’s largest advertising company more data about you.
US citizens using their bank account to transfer fund to each other [impossible]
This is because sharing bank account and routing number is not safe for many US banks which may allow unauthorized party to pull money from the account. Banks in the rest of the world typically operate in “push” only so they don’t have this issue.
I still use a payment system called “cash”.
It may not be cool or trendy, but the system has never had a server outage or network failure.
I still use a payment system called “cash”.
I can’t find that app in the play store? Where can I download it?
Have you ever seen a check?
Which contains your account number and routing number, which allows the recipient’s bank to “pull” funds from your bank account.
Yes, give your data to the bank where they will spend it on drugs.
Does your bank use Plaid?
Aww how cute, thinking Google doesn’t buy that data from the bank anyway…
Out of curiosity, what’s the benefit of Google Pay for you over Venmo or Zelle?
At the time I started using Google Pay, existing and being from a company I had heard of. Not to mention on Android it was just there for you to use, you didn’t have to download another app.
My roommate and I considered using PayPal but his PayPal account got locked and to this day a decade later, never unlocked.
I’m going to be looking into both Venmo and Zelle now though.
what’s the benefit of Google Pay for you over Venmo or Zelle?
It works internationally.
Those other 2 are USA only
Those other two are so frequently used for scams that my bank has a heart attack every time I try to use them. No matter how many times I call them and tell them to unblock my card, because it was definitely me sending that money, they’ll block it the very next time. I literally bought a checkbook (you have to buy those dumb things now?!) so I could more easily give people money… In 2023…
Google pay worked for me reasonably well for small transactions between friends and family. That’s literally what I use it for 90% of the time. I’m super annoyed that they don’t have a replacement for it.
Google strikes again, killing something I love.
Introducing: Google Pay Meet
Google-Wave your Google-Pay-Meet device over the Google-Reader and we’ll Google-Optimize your purchase so you can get back to Google-Hangouting with your friends faster than you can say “watch Google Play Movies & TV on Android Auto for phone screens”
watch Google Play Movies & TV on Android Auto
Android Auto, not to be confused with Android Automotive
“Overview of Android Automotive vs Android Auto Android Auto is connecting smartphones with the infotainment system via an app installed on the infotainment system, whereas Android Automotive OS is an operating system that’s installed on the vehicle itself, acting as the key enabler for software-defined vehicles.” source
“Android auto for phone screens” is another product they killed: https://www.androidpolice.com/google-kills-android-auto-for-phone-screens/
MAKE IT STOP
This name is reserved for their upcoming hooker service
That’s a little clickbaitey they’re just moving the rest of pay into wallet.
Thank you.
And killing services like sending and receiving payments from friends and family. This is so frustrating, because I remember they made me switch FROM wallet to Google pay and now they’re going back. Google, I’m all for not tying yourself to all your previous decisions, but at some point you’ve got to stand your ground on SOMETHING.
Introducing Google Pay-I.
Revolutionary AI learns from your habits and personality to make payments on your behalf! It will buy things you didn’t even know you needed!
I would probably try an AI version of the XKCD packages script
That’s really clever, you finally got me to dislodge this turd. Thank you!
That is an important part of the plot in the german book Qualityland. Really hilarious
Next week, they’ll announce “Google Money”
“YouTube Money”. Get it right.
Google Play Pay
Google Bank
Google River (both banks)
Google Marketing Dept: You’re hired!!!
This is actually very witty…
Thanks, I spent about an hour thinking of a good enough joke for this.
Google Wallet came out a while ago apparently, they are just condescending Google Pay into Google Wallet. Not sure what the differences are.
I would love a Google purse 👛
Does this company have some kind of multiple personality disorder
Some of its personalities do while others don’t. It’s… complicated.
Another one bites the dust
And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
Hey, I’m gonna get you too
Play it backwards and it says: “Start to smoke Marijuana”
Coincidence?
Ed: for the disbelievers https://youtu.be/TvhCThWWy3Q
And it’s clearly intentional - he pronounces ‘another one’ with an M to make it work
Every company renaming their products:
mv -i oldname newname
Google renaming their products:cp oldname newname ; sleep 5 ; rm -f oldnameWith Google it’s usually just
rm nameOr “mv name dev/null”
Wait, Google Pay still exists? Wasn’t it rebranded to Wallet?
In true Google fashion, they remade the same product, gave it a new name, and made it compete with the existing one.
a manager needed their promotion
Just FYI, it was wallet originally, moved to “pay” then both existed for way too long with not really knowing which did what
Now we’re back to wallet.
🤦♂️
Google drank so much capitalist koolaid they thought the company needed internal competition when the main reason they remain so big is because they have big chunks of monopoly power in several key tech fields
Not the same, you can’t pay friends directly with wallet. The core function that I use weekly is being gutted with no replacement.
Just use zelle it’s built into your bank app
Yeah I saw this news today and literally don’t even understand how it affects me. I don’t know what the difference is between Wallet and Pay.
You can pay friends with Pay. You can’t do that with Wallet.
Was Google Pay US-exclusive?
The fun part is you still can’t transfer out less than $1. I had 81¢. So I tried to transfer in 19¢ so I could transfer a whole $1 out.
Nope, can’t transfer in less than $10.
I was able to transfer in $10 so I can get my $10.81 out. But fuck, Google, if you’re the one shutting shit down, how about you let me transfer my money out regardless of how much/little there is?
You have money on Google? Where I am it just a payment service linked to your card.
I think at some point someone paid me and I just never cashed it out. I think it was the default payment method for Google Play, so app subscriptions and whatnot just got charged against it until there was almost nothing left.
Might wanna check your math there…
Oof. Big dumb. Thanks!
Instead of Alphabet, they should’ve called the company Undertakers, because they’ve got a lot of experience dealing with dead apps and services.
Kind of glad I never bothered to figure it out
Same.
I never really trusted it to continue existing.
Especially not with Google. They have a habit of killing things.
