I don't think anyone thinks that there was and evil meeting where everyone
sat around laughing about who to piss off next. I do however believe that
for the last few years the true focus has been on JavaScript maps or
something else. Sure fixing one bug may not change the world of development
as we know it but when there are request and bugs that sit there for too
long people lose steam and start looking for alternatives. When people make
a request or submit a bug and there is no feed back after a year people will
leave because they start to wounder if you really do care about it and is
this really a top concern to Google. It didn't seem like anyone was even
there working on the API since items went untouched for years with noe
simple remarks, e.g., we need more people to request this feature. It is
funny how everyone aggrees it is easier to developed with Actionscript 3,
and people agree that flash will be even more efficient in the future but it
is depreciated because there just aren't enough people. I have 3 apps that
use Flash Google Maps API sitting on my computer. I was waiting for Google
to fix the 10 second load time. I wasn't going to send out an app that looks
like it didn't work well enough to even load.

Maybe Google should have looked at it this way. We will lose about 100
developers to Bing maps and if those 100 people create 10 apps that get
viewed by 5000 people a year we will lose 5,000,000 impressions to
Microsoft. Now think what if we lose 1,000 people. Maybe if cost Google
$10,000,000 a year to run Flash Goolge maps but I doubt it was that high or
even close. I look at it as Google thinks of Flash as an enemy and is
turning into Apple everyday. They are not going to be as self centric as
Apple but Google is definitely moving away from its original business model.
When you force people one way or the other you are no better.

On Tue, Sep 6, 2011 at 1:03 AM, Levko Yaskewych <[email protected]> wrote:

> The funny thing is that you haven't allowed the iPhone community to deploy
> the google maps API live using FLASH because the iOS packager for FLASH is
> minus the google maps API. I was forced to use FLASH with STATIC MAPS. If I
> can develop a great app. with the google maps API with features such as
> scrolling touch maps then again you speak without testing the waters
> properly. The global financial crisis contracted resources maybe? Adobe and
> Apple products complement each other so hurting this part of the market may
> not be that wise.
>
> Did your figures on uptake include identification of iPhone FLASH
> interfaces that were using STATIC maps because of this?
>
> I am using FLASH to deploy apps. coded using AS3. FLASH is not a perfect
> application and I have found many little irritating things about FLASH but
> helps develop coded apps quickly and allows me to integrate and manipulate
> objects rapidly. I am not a graphics developer and don't ever want to be.
>
> FLEX should merge technology with FLASH to make FLASH more robust and FLEX
> more useable.
>
> Passing large query strings is bogus.
>
> I guess while google tries to take facebook space then someone can come and
> take mapping space from google and make it better.
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 8:45 AM, Thor Mitchell <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> I'm sorry you feel let down. I can understand that. All I can say is that
>> when I wrote the reply to your email back in July of last year, it was the
>> truth, and we did our best to follow through. We did ship a maintenance
>> release, followed by Styled Maps, and also Elevation and the MaxZoom
>> service. We worked with Adobe on driving awareness, such as adding the API
>> to Tour de Flex, and we waited to see whether Flash would gain traction as a
>> developer platform in the mobile space, where we know maps are important.
>>
>> Unfortunately we saw no impact on adoption. While the JS APIs and Static
>> Maps API continue to grow in use, Flash use has remained low and relatively
>> flat. Consequently it's usage as a fraction of our overall traffic has
>> continued to decline. We try to allocate resources where they will benefit
>> the most developers, and there is a minimum amount of resourcing needed to
>> develop, maintain, test, document, and launch API releases. The usage of the
>> Flash API had declined in percentage terms to the point where we just can
>> not justify continuing to allocate the resources it needs to be developed
>> further. We could have left it undeprecated but unresourced, but I was not
>> comfortable with that. Once we had decided that no further development would
>> occur, I believed it was important to let developers know, just as I said we
>> would in that email last July.
>>
>> We don't take deprecations lightly. It was considered at great length, and
>> a lot of time was invested in considering other options. I've always been a
>> big fan of the API for Flash, and think it offers a great developer
>> experience. But for all my personal attachment to it, the usage just isn't
>> there, and this shows no sign of changing. I understand that many developers
>> have one bug fix or additional feature that they believe would make the
>> difference, but sadly I don't believe any one change (or even five or ten
>> changes) would have turned the tide, and brought the API the adoption that
>> it needed to compete with its sibling APIs for the limited resources that we
>> have.
>>
>> Many thanks,
>>
>> Thor.
>>
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>
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