Google's dead product this week is Google Trips, let it rest in peace

Google's crazy service race never stops. Google Trips is a very popular travel organization app for frequent flyers. Recently, Google began to inform users of the imminent shutdown directly in the Trips application; a splash screen now appears before the application starts, saying "We say goodbye to Google Trips on August 5th", as well as a link to a Google support document now familiar to all. .

Trips was a well received application with over five million downloads on the Play store and a rating of 4.1. Usually when you are planning a trip, a multitude of booking emails arrive in your inbox for information such as flight, hotel and / or car rental. Google Trips automatically picks up all this information and creates a basic plan for your trip. From there, he leveraged Google Maps information, displaying nearby attractions, things to do, and other planning information. When you had to quickly refer to something, it was much easier to open Google Trips than to start rummaging through your inbox. Trips have also focused on accessing offline information, downloading all of this booking information and even asking you to upload your destination area into Google Maps for offline access.

The death of Google Trips is part of the big redesign of Google Travel. The company recently launched the Google Travel website, which, in addition to most information on Trips, also serves as (wait …) search engine for hotels, flights and combined travel agency style bookings. Google Travel is full ads – the site probably contains 50% ads. These are very badly labeled and look like the main user interface. Comprehensive user interface elements such as "Check Availability" and "Select Room" just have "Ads" next to the main title, indicating that the section or entire page is an advertisement. The information on the points of interest appear to be organic information from Google Maps, but I think every item likely to be the subject of an action (like booking hotels and hotels) of flights) finally leads to a list of ads exclusively paid.

Regardless of its horror and its many ads, Google Travel is only a website and not an application. It does not replace Google Trips. Google's message states that "many", not "all", features of Trips will remain "alive in other Google products". Apparently, these two features are Google Maps and Google Search. In the search, you can type in "My Trips" or "My Previous Trips" and you will be redirected to the Google Travel website, which still contains Trips information. A mobile website is not ideal. Google's support page indicates that, in the future, Google Maps will display travel bookings in the "My Places" screen. This new "coming" section exists on my phone, but it does not show past trips, and I have no future trips. So I do not know if it still works. The support page states that it is a future feature.

This is Google's 13th stop this year, which previously included Chromecast Audio, YouTube annotations, Google Fiber service in Louisville, IoT support for Android Things
Spotlight Stories, the goo.gl URL shortener, IFTTT support for Gmail, Google Inbox, Google+, various Nest items, as well as the YouTube Gaming application and portal. Later this year, we'll talk about the deaths of Google Hangouts and Google Play Music.

Google users are benefiting more and more from the perfectly functional tools they rely on, and I think these quick interruptions are hurting the Google brand and the user base that matters most: today's Google customers. Some of these stops represent the complete abandonment of a user base, while others represent a disruptive transition to a new, different service. Either option is bad for Google and gives its products an unreliable and unreliable appearance. In this case, the integration of Google Maps into the new service is unclear and it is not appropriate to direct users to the busy Google Travel website.

Google's damage potential is not just about its brand. Whenever the company expels its users from one of its services, they are forced to adopt something new. Google hopes that everyone will follow the instructions of the transition assistance page, but if you still need to change your habits, why not take stock of the wider market? Comfortable users with work products stay around. Closing a product requires users to adopt a new service. This new service will not necessarily be a Google product.

Announcement by Google