Comment by MikeCapone

12 years ago

People pay for Apple products, so they expect something that works well and looks good.

The switching costs are also much higher with hardware than software. You don't want to pay for a phone and find out it's half-baked, while if a 'free' web service doesn't work, it's easy to switch.

It's also about branding and culture, people expect different things from each company. That has pros and cons.

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MikeCapone

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what_ever  12 years ago

Just staying with the Google example, I don't remember any major Google product having a major failure. The new Google Maps may be. I know many people complain about the new GMail but it's just about choices of design they made and not about some bugs in the product. So again, Google products are iterative and not buggy irrespective of whether people pay for them or not.

  • Teckla  12 years ago

    Start watching a YouTube video. Pause it. Come back hours later. Hit play. It'll play a few more seconds and then fail to continue. I'd call that a major Google product with a major failure, though our definitions for major may differ.

    Google Chrome for iOS crashes on a regular basis. It also fails to start YouTube videos a lot. Again, I consider those major products with major failures.

    Gchat-in-Gmail has issues on a regular basis.

    Also, non-major Google products have plenty of bugs. Google Groups digest emails have been broken forever. Once in a while one randomly trickles into my inbox, and I think for a second it may be fixed. Nope, still borked. Despite quite a bit of effort, I've never managed to communicate with any actual human Googler about it.

    I've often had to authenticate twice, for unknown reasons, while getting into Gmail from Chrome, when trying to get in via their Gmail app icon.

    I like plenty of Google products and services, and use them daily, but they seem to have their fair share of bugs.