Google Labs is Shutting Down, Roadmap is Light on Future Apps
Our friend at Google have just posted on their blog that Google Labs is “winding down”, meaning they won’t be launching tons of cool apps and products left and right as they have been doing for oh so long. Unfortunately, this also means the end of new experimental Android applications by Google.
The move was made so that Google can focus on existing products and so that newer products get as much attention as they need to be successful. It’s a smart move considering all of the projects that have failed in the past – Google Buzz and Wave were two big ones.
All the Android apps that were a product of Google Labs projects will remain on the market, says Google, but they didn’t clarify on whether or not these would get future updates. Some older apps will be merged into existing Google products. As for new apps, don’t look forward to any of them springing up in the future – the product is pretty much shut down.
Google Labs isn’t completely dead, they’re just putting more resources into core products and other bigger projects in order to ensure they launch with the best chance of success. That means Google will still launch new services, but we won’t get access to them in the early stages as we used to, which means we won’t have new innovations to look forward to each month. And they probably won’t release things just for the heck of it anymore – they’ll be much more selective in what they choose to pursue.
Bummer? You betcha. But we understand – launching experimental products to the mass is dangerous. It’s worked for Google in many occasions, but has also hurt them a lot in others. As I mentioned before with examples of Wave and Buzz, those products left bad tastes in the mouths of users and developers before Google even had a chance to refine the services. As a result, those projects were made obsolete and closed. Not something you’d want to deal with if you were in their position either. [Google, Thanks Vlad!]