Thursday, May 16

Geek

Blah

Well, I'm still up, might as well watch the Google I/O keynote.  Just need to occupy myself for a few minutes 'til it starts...


Okay, now it's started.  Blah blah blah...

Blah blah blah...

Oh yeah, that's why I never watch these things, much less go to them.

Blah blah blah...

The music video at the start wasn't bad, but this is better:


Blah blah Android blah blah Chrome blah.

Okay, yeah, they're okay-ish.  Android is Linux, Chrome is KHTML.

Blah blah blah...

Blah 900 million activations blah...  

Blah 48 billion app installs blah...

Using Play as an end-run around manufacturers and carriers who are slack about updating devices. i.e. all of them.  Good thinking.

Location.  Well, people who actually get a chance to leave the house might care about that, so okay.

Cross-platform single-sign on.  Sounds good, until you realise that it leads to cross-platform single irrevocable account suspension, like my situation with Youtube.

Their messaging platform now allows you to send as well as receive.  Well, there's a huge breakthrough. roll eyes

I hate live broadcasts.  You can't fast-forward through the crap.

Okay, here's something good: A new Android IDE called Android Studio, based on JetBrains IntelliJ Idea.  I don't use IntelliJ, because Java sucks, but it's the basis for PyCharm, which I use every day.  It's a nice IDE.  And Android Studio looks really good.

Red boots.  Makes a change from the blah outfits the rest of the presenters are wearing.

Better developer metrics.  Fine.  Not exciting for me, but fine.

Blah blah...

The Play Store on the Nexus 10, huh?  Have you fixed the insane flickering during app downloads yet?  Didn't think so.

"Do you guys want to hear about music?"  <crickets>  "Well, I'm going to talk about it anyway."

Wow, this is stupefying.  They have a music service, just like the other ninety-odd music services that already exist.

Blardly blardly bleep...

Google Samsung Galaxy Nexus S4 $649 unlocked.  Hardly a new device, and they're only selling the 16GB version.  But it's the only Android device sold by Google with expandable storage.  Does this signify anything?  Who knows.

Oh gawd, now they're going to talk about Chrome.  I'm outta here.

Chromebooks.  They've sold dozens of them!  You can just feel the lack of enthusiasm when the presenter pauses at applause moments.

They're porting Chrome to Android.  "Let's dive in deeper."  Let's not.  Next!

WebP and VP9.  Okay, good, get this stuff out there.  Support is pretty much absent outside Chrome right now.

Blah blah....

They're giving away Chromebook Pixels to all attendees, instantly tripling the install base.  That got some applause, because no-one in their right mind would actually buy one.

Gah.  Google Apps.  Bletch.  I mean, fine, if you don't actually care about functionality or productivity.

Oh great, it's the music guy again.

Google get-em-while-they're-young Play for Education.

Something about Malaysia.  Okay, getting 4G internet access in every school in the country and giving the students Chromebooks (though not Pixels).  That's good stuff.

Google+, Search, Maps.  Bleen.  Polite applause.  No-one cares about Google+.  It's not that it's bad, it's just that it's bleh.  Now they've Pinterested it.  Yeah, that's an improvement.

Like Apple moving developers off MacOS to try to get iOS 7 out the door, it's a reminder that you can be one of the biggest, most technologically advanced corporations in history and still flounder helplessly in the face of not having any idea what you are supposed to be doing.

I work for a little startup.  My problems all stem from lack of resources.  The vision part is easy.  But when you have all the resources you could ask for (and Apple could hire another ten thousand developers tomorrow if that would help) you still have to somehow focus those resources on executing your vision.  That's hard.  In fact, it's basically insoluble, which is why we see an unending cycle of boom and bust in hi-tech companies.

Has he stopped talking about Google+ yet?

No.

Oh, now he's talking about photos.  I'm not actually watching the stream any more; it escalated from stupefying to stultifying.  Next year, Google, your keynote is 30 minutes.  Anything that doesn't fit in that 30 minutes isn't worth having in the keynote.  This is ridiculous.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 02:10 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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1 Thanks for the report - I'm glad I decided to skip it.

Posted by: conrad6 at Friday, May 17 2013 01:04 AM (0sXpz)

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