Only referring to consumer products, like Maps, Gmail, Gsuite, YouTube, Chrome, even Search etc. I use these on iOS/macOS.
As a self-proclaimed pro user of google services, product quality has only gotten significantly better across the board in my opinion. The problem is feature deletion. Anyone remember watching and controlling YouTube on a hangouts video call with your friends in 2015?
Wow that's like Netflix Party back in the days!
Across the board is quite an overstatement. I think have to say that (at the very least) Google’s communication (Gmail, Hangouts, Allo etc.) apps have become very sucky. Don’t get me wrong, Gmail still has among the best spam detection, search etc. out there, but experience could be made so much better. Seems like they are spending their resources making enterprise dashboards sigh
Search keeps getting better imo. Those prebuilt apps like the covid one just keep getting better and more comprehensive. In the past year I've typed terms like 'nfl', 'election', and 'spy' countless times.
I agree that search quality and autocomplete etc have become better. But there is more to search then just that. The world has shifted to mobile and tablets, and Google search on iOS feels very clunky to use.
Maps: Sometimes, it’s great, depends on location for directions. Apple Maps has generally been better in sf, particularly when taking public transit. YouTube: their recommendation algo seriously needs some investment. Repetitive cycling of the same content
Yes. this is what happens when leadership is more concerned about equitably looking good in public than their customer needs.