Google Pulls Access To Unsupported But Popular Weather API 168
New submitter drsmack1 writes with news of some bummed out programmers losing access to an undocumented Google API. From the article: "The curious popularity of the Google Weather API appears to be coming to a close. The search giant never officially supported the feature, but developers have used the unofficial feed available from the iGoogle homepage. With iGoogle now set for deprecation in November, developers are reporting that the once simple weather API is no longer returning data."
Seems like the sort of thing you could replace with a tiny bit of XSLT.
I wish Google would have warned us... (Score:2, Interesting)
Even though the API was admittedly unsupported it was a core part of iGoogle and was used by many people as part of embedded scripts. While Google has admirably given a nice long notice for terminating iGoogle, it would have been nice had Google given at least a wee bit of warning of its abrupt termination of the weather API. Even its termination was not clear since the returned error page was an old page dated 2009 that seemed to imply that the user had done something wrong. It wasn't until I saw others encountering the same problem that I realized the problem was not on my mind, resulting in a fair bit of wasted debugging and head scratching on my end.
Is it asking too much of a company whose motto is "Don't be evil" to have given a week or two of warning or at least to have spent a minute or two setting up a meaningful and informative error page? Come on Google, you can do better...
Usupported interfaces? (Score:4, Interesting)
why would anybody use these?
Re:Wait, you're using an unsupported API... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, yeah, there are plenty of alternatives. Just now I went to my igoogle page to see if the weather widget was still working. It was — because I use the NOAA widget, not Google's own widget.
But you know, my igoogle page is going away in about a year. I can certainly live without it (I don't really need to a weather report and the Wikipedia Picture of the Day every time I open a browser tab, and now my daily agenda is also on my phone) but it's part of a trend that I'm really getting tired of. They invent some clever new application, then they get bored with it and pull it. They publish an intriguing new API, then they get bored with it and shut it off. The acquire some interesting new company, get bored with it and shut it down. And so on, over and over. Once or twice is a minor nuisance, but they do it constantly.
Even when they stick with an application for the long haul, they take forever to get it out of beta mode, they tend to skimp on the boring little details that make for mature software (I mean you, Postini! And you Android Emulator!), and they never get round to providing proper documentation or tech support.
I've said it before: I love Google for their creativity and their striving to create lots of cool products. But I wish to fuck they'd grow up already.
Re:I wish Google would have warned us... (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft use of this API exposed? (Score:1, Interesting)
Does this mean Microsoft's desktop weather widgets for 7 and the weather charm for 8 have been using Google for their information??!? Come on, what is this? Bing (http://googleblog.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/microsofts-bing-uses-google-search.html)?
Re:Any alternative? (Score:2, Interesting)
Lets say for the sake of argument it is real. People seem to think that driving a little less, getting 100mpg, slapping a bumper sticker on their car, and yelling at people on websites is going to help.
Largest decrease in co2 emissions in 30 years happened last year. Nearly 20% (putting the US back at 1990s levels). Know what happened? We are switching wholesale over to natural gas. Its spot price on the market went bellow coal. That and the upcoming regulations on mercury emissions made it a no brainier for our power companies to switch over.
If you think for one second though that china and large swaths of the '3rd world' are going to do the same thing you are dreaming. They are just getting started. They are busy getting themselves un-dependent on the rest of the world to live.
People think what they do helps (and yes every bit counts). But what you do is so minor and insignificant compared to the real polluters out there. Did you know most semi-trucks are exempt from any sort of mpg rules? Why? They last 15-20 years they cost 250k+ and have that exception written into law. Same with most coal fired plants. Look at the exceptions in the law and you will see who really is the polluter.