I don't think it is really throwing shade at Google Play in India (other than that luke-warm line). I think the main argument is that they didn't really adapt the app to the US market. It would have been trivial to be able to look up an account by email OR phone number OR username but they didn't even bother. They also could have transitioned user accounts but didn't care enough.
The article mostly seems to be complaining that good in India != good in US and that Google needs to adapt to the different markets.
The app may not be great, but it's pretty good, especially for the vast majority of users. From Google's perspective, I doubt it makes sense to add features that many of their users don't need and won't use.
Having an app per country was unnecessary to begin with. All that Google and Apple had to do is supply the UI and accept government requests to enable the system in their country.
The article pointed out the app just flips some flags to allow you to use functionality built into Android or the search app. Also, Google is just pulling it from the app store. Worst case, we are back to using a third party app to enable it or finding the apk.
That being the case, I have a bit of an issue with it. Despite personally preferring the Google apps, I understand the sentiment.. I just see it in more limited scope than what irks some people.
A huge impediment to developing apps for Android seem to be the absolutely incredible shortcomings of Google Checkout. Most countries cannot even buy paid apps, even fewer countries can publish paid apps. That kills pretty much any incentive for many developers, especially with a new "iPhone devs make bajillions" article every other day. The saddest thing about it is that Google do not seem to be moving about this, at all. Android Apps, E-Commerce sites, etc., lots of people are waiting for worldwide Google Checkout. I don't get why Google don't get it.
I get the idea. Android Market is essentially Google's iTunes now, and they want to push the music/movies aspect. Google Play makes more sense than iTunes branding does (tunes are about 1/8 of what it does these days), but there is some weirdness. Play works well for music/movies/games, but not really for apps/books. I was introduced to the brand with an update to Google Books app saying it was now Google Play Books, which made me think Google was expanding into sports team management or something.
I think the biggest thing, which is something Google can't bring to the table, is that any app that used the native API will now loom like crap. (iirc, that's how it worked)
The parent was clearly alluding to “closer-to-native experiences” on Android. If Chrome will bring that to iOS, there should already be examples on Android.
Google don't want to undermine the Play Store, but they might want to undermine the App Store.
I’ll buy that, but it doesn’t seem like a reason to be optimistic about the way things might go.
I was surprised at first, but as I thought about it more, it makes sense. Google wants to have you using Google's services. Whether that's on iOS or Android, they probably could not care less. The larger the audience, the more their services get used.
No problem as long as it's available elsewhere, is it? As to popularity - this mere news will probably bring more new users than Google store did in quite a period of time.
The article mostly seems to be complaining that good in India != good in US and that Google needs to adapt to the different markets.
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