Another one bites the dust, as Google’s enterprise-centric App Maker joins the teeming hordes of expired Google services.
This isn’t quite on the level of, say, Google shuttering Google Photos or pulling the plug on Gmail, but it’s a clear sign that Google isn’t wary about closing what it views as under performing products ” as well as how closely it tracks every one of its services for actual usage.
Chances are you’re not familiar with Google’s App Maker, a tool pitched at enterprises to build in-house apps to, in Google’s own words ” Build apps that fill gaps, like accelerating business workflows or scaling internal operations”. If you are, however, you’re living on borrowed time, with 9to5Google reporting that it’ll be closed down gradually from today.
That’s down to the low number of users for the service, because if it’s a Google product, it’s always looking at user numbers and habits.
[referenced url=”https://gizmodo.com.au/2018/12/google-kills-allo-in-latest-attempt-to-fix-its-shitty-messaging-strategy/” thumb=”https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/t_ku-large/u6udeiplaui1heicjwdo.jpg” title=”Google Kills Allo In Latest Attempt To Fix Its Terrible Messaging Strategy ” excerpt=”Allo is the latest casualty in Google’s long and tired road to building a chat app that can rival Apple’s iMessage. After passing on further Allo investment back in April, Google officially announced this week that it’s pulling the plug on the chat app in March 2019.”]
Specifically, App Maker will no longer be developed (aside from critical bugs) from today, and from April 15 you won’t be able to create new App Maker apps. It’s a time frame designed to let those larger businesses transition away, because from January 19 2021 App Maker apps will stop working entirely.
Google’s got a list of suggestions for affected businesses to take but because the code isn’t easily transferable, they all essentially boil down to ‘use other Google tools to build a version of your app’.
Well, at least until Google kills off those apps, anyway. I could list all the apps that Google’s killed over the years, from Allo to Google Reader and plenty more besides, but that’s exactly what the Google Graveyard is for.