Microsoft Says Google Trying To Undermine Windows Phone 476
First time accepted submitter Bent Spoke writes "In a bit of delicious irony, Microsoft laments Google is not playing fair by excluding access to meta-data on YouTube, preventing the development of the kind of powerful app readily available on Android. From the article: 'In a blog post on Wednesday, Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Dave Heiner said the software giant has spent two years trying to get a first-class YouTube app running on Windows Phone, but to no avail, thanks to the Chocolate Factory's stonewalling.
"YouTube apps on the Android and Apple platforms were two of the most downloaded mobile applications in 2012, according to recent news reports," Heiner wrote. "Yet Google still refuses to allow Windows Phone users to have the same access to YouTube that Android and Apple customers enjoy."'"
What goes around comes around (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft, you have just experienced the concept known as "khama".
User Agent? (Score:1, Insightful)
Doing lots of assumptions here, but I was under the impression that simply changing the user agent string to match a known good/working one solves most hassles with web services. Is there any other reason MS can't make their app work?
Re:User Agent? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing to celebrate if it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
If Microsoft's allegations are true and there is no reasonably technical justification for it then there is nothing to celebrate here.
Of course, my first reaction was "payback's a bitch" like many others, but in the end a monopoly based on Linux is still a monopoly.
Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
but in the end a monopoly based on Linux is still a monopoly.
There's no monopoly, and if MS really wants to bitch about it maybe they should launch their own video service just like they did with Bing. Or work out a deal and have google develop the app for them, just like they did with Apple. Note that the google-made iphone app only was launched a few months ago. If MS had a better phone with a better market share they'd probably be a more appealing target for a native app, but it's not like Google is going to dump time and money into supporting every last bastard child of a device.
And you can still watch youtube using a web browser, assuming that MS actually has a standards-compliant browser on their phone. I've never found anything in the youtube app to be superior to just using the mobile site, in fact personally i never bother with the app and would remove it from my phone if it would let me.
Lawyer? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft VP and deputy general counsel Dave Heiner
What the FUCK is a FUCKING lawyer doing working as a FUCKING VP for a software company?
Re:Irony? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fair for the goose... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but accessible mass storage is an anachronism? So, users are *supposed* to be forced to access their devices through proprietary clients only, forcing them to be tied to single marketplaces, 'approved' OSes, etc? Somebody's been drinking the Apple Kool-aid.
Re:Irony? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why, exactly? You can use Youtube on Woindows phones just fine. They simply don't have an open API for anybody else to write players that interface to it.
Does Twitter have a legal obligation to provide an API for third-party clients? Does Facebook have such an obligation? Does my bank? Does Microsoft have an obligation for its online Word service? Or provide API-level access to Echange servers? Does everybody with a web-facing interface have a legel obligation to provide API-level access for others to use?
And it's not as if Youtube is a monopoly either. My banks online service is as much a monopoly in that case, or Twitter.
A long time coming (Score:5, Insightful)
FAT??? (Score:4, Insightful)
block device level access which basically forces the media to be formatted as FAT to be interoperable
Huh, what? All my USB devices are formatted as ext3 or ext4. I don't need no FAT on my devices, FAT is obsolete, not USB mass storage.
Re:User Agent? (Score:4, Insightful)
Desire to have "Microsoft" or "Windows" in user agent string at any cost?
Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true (Score:2, Insightful)
First of all the mobile version of youtube works on the standards-compliant browser on the Windows Phone.
Second
There's no monopoly
Are you serious? YouTube is not a monopoly? Really?
Re:Nothing to celebrate if it's true (Score:5, Insightful)
Please explain to me how Google has a monopoly on anything, let alone how YouTube is a monopoly.
Something being very popular does not de-facto make it a monopoly. People need to stop throwing around terms like this.
YouTube has a ton of very large and viable competitors who could take it out in a second if Googe let their guard down, like Vimeo, DailyMotion, blip.tv, Viddler - not to metion Facebook and Bing themselves.
Re:Fair for the goose... (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes Microsoft has been using undocumented APIs and they have been taken to court over this and lost. Then they were forced to pay and comply. Same should happen to Google.
Also note that MS is not asking Google to create YouTube app. They are asking to not be banned from using the APIs (it is not even about documentation). If we need to follow the Office analogy it would be like releasing the Office document formats (which Microsoft has done).
Re:User Agent? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not an issue with the web service, but the absence of a native application and Google's refusal to provide the tools by which a thirdparty developer could create one.
That said, it's Google's ball, they don't have to share if they don't want to. I suspect it has more to do with Windows Phone's small installed base than an effort to disadvantage WP. As iOS shows, Google wants to make money off other people's hardware.
Re:What goes around comes around (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. Given what Microsoft has done to undermine other operating systems and their vendors, it is amusing to see the same thing done to them and them crying foul.
I'll admit it's very amusing but I'm morally torn on this one. Is it right to do wickedness to wicked people just because they would do the same to you?
They say turnabout is fair play but they also say be careful when you fight the monsters, lest you become one.
Treating psychopats and corporations ... (Score:4, Insightful)
They say "fight fire with fire". As soon as Microsoft would stop harrasing other Android vendors with their lawyers bringing bogus claims and "don't try this" attitude, I would assume your point valid. Yet I see Microsoft crying foul and AT THE SAME TIME doing way more cruel things to Android vendors than what Google is doing to them.
If you read or hear on how to treat psychopats getting in your way, you discover that first thing is to do (besides avoiding them) set aside ANY moral issues you have. Otherwise you get instant disadvantage because psychopats - like sharks - tend to have no empathy nor moral constraints at all. I'm bringing this up because corporate entities are the ultimate psychopats (and we still hear everywhere that "corporations are people" crap). Especially those built on deception from the start, like Microsoft.
People in the US of A have to learn what people in old communist countries leaned in their time. Double standards are forced upon us and if "we the people" don't adapt, we're in disadvantage. According to corporate executives and wall street money junkies we, ordinary people are all second class citizens. Why should we treat them differently ?
Re:Treating psychopats and corporations ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to mention that Microsoft is restricting the Chrome experience on Win8 Metro by denying access to API's. Exactly the same thing. And disallowing any other apps beyond MSOffice from running in desktop mode on ARM.