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After a bit of craziness when the mobile version of Google Maps stopped working on Windows Phone 8, Google has clarified/changed its story. According to reports by The Next Web, Google Maps mobile is coming back after all.
Initially, Google explained the absence of the mobile app on Windows Phone 8 by saying that the mobile app was optimised for WebKit browsers like Chrome and Safari, but not Internet Explorer. Now Google’s saying the redirect was the result of a performance test, and as a result of another one, they’re working towards bringing the app back. Google’s statement on the issue is as follows:
We periodically test Google Maps compatibility with mobile browsers to make sure we deliver the best experience for those users.
In our last test, IE mobile still did not offer a good maps experience with no ability to pan or zoom and perform basic map functionality. As a result, we chose to continue to redirect IE mobile users to Google.com where they could at least make local searches. The Firefox mobile browser did offer a somewhat better user experience and that’s why there is no redirect for those users.
Recent improvements to IE mobile and Google Maps now deliver a better experience and we are currently working to remove the redirect. We will continue to test Google Maps compatibility with other mobile browsers to ensure the best possible experience for users.
It’s definitely a good thing that Windows Phone 8 users will be getting their Google Maps back, but the way this whole thing went down has been profoundly weird and Google’s handling of it definitely shook some people up. Hopefully everything will play nice from here on out. At least for a little while. [The Next Web]
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Google Maps Is Back on Windows Phone
“we are currently working to remove the redirect”
Hold on…. how long does that take them to do? I know that I can remove a redirect on my site in about 20 seconds once I’ve opened the file. And that includes saving it and reuploading it to the server. :/
Large scale services like this are replicated across multiple servers and datacentres all over the world, in order to keep up with the demand of traffic.
Google actually maintain their own datacentres with hundreds of servers which are used to provide their services. Since this content is mirrored across thousands of machines worldwide it can take a little bit of time to push a change across every machine that provides a particular service such as Google Maps.
Facebook Engineering has a really nice tech talk about updating process for large scale services, it is possible that Google is run in a similar way. You can watch the video here:
https://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10100259101684977
They need to deploy the change to all there servers, they also need to test it.
They need to find someone with a Windows Phone to see if the change works, that’s a non-trivial task.