Creators Update Will Not Fix Windows 10’s Biggest Problem (Premium)

With Creators Update development winding to a close, Microsoft is about to deliver its fourth major version of Windows 10. But it still hasn’t addressed the central problem with this important platform.

Here in early 2017, almost two years in, Windows 10 remains a contradiction.

On the one hand, Microsoft has at a technical level delivered on its cross-platform vision, and has created an operating system—really, a family of operating systems—that does span an amazing array of device types and hardware form factors. But only one of these—the PC—really matters. And of the remaining platforms that Windows 10 serves, only Xbox One has spawned a viable ecosystem. But that product is an also-ran in its own market.

On the PC, Microsoft has achieved a somewhat magical balance in that it works quite well on both traditional PC form factors, in which keyboard and mouse are the primary drivers, and more modern tablet/2-in-1 form factors with touch and pen capabilities. The trouble here, of course, is that most people still use even modern PCs like, well, PCs. Windows 10’s versatility goes unnoticed—and unused—by most users.

The lack of interest in Windows 10 as anything other than a traditional PC platform is not Microsoft’s fault per se. Indeed, Microsoft has done everything it can do to make Windows 10 exciting for usersand developers. It has invested billions in aspirational Surface devices that push the boundaries of what it means to be a PC. And it has created and expanded the single greatest developer ecosystem there is, putting efforts by companies like Google and Apple to shame.

Indeed, every Spring, Microsoft rolls out another set of initiatives to get developers excited by the new possibilities in the broader Windows 10 ecosystem. But nothing changes: Windows 10 remains a platform mostly for PCs, and Windows 10 users, for the most part, continue to use the same legacy Windows desktop applications they’ve always used.

This is a classic “chicken or the egg” problem that I don’t believe is truly solvable. That is, if users only run classic desktop apps, it won’t matter if there are 400 million of them or one billion; they’re still not using the newer-generation Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps that Microsoft is promoting. But the other half of that equation is equally important: If there are no compelling UWP apps to speak of—and to be clear, there are not—users are never going to be interested this platform, let alone in using it on different device types.

And when you look at Windows 10 on PCs, which is obviously my central focus, this is where things really break down. The Windows 10 apps platform—those UWP apps plus the Store through which they are found and distributed—remains this platform’s Achilles Heel.

Here we are, four major versions and almost two years into this product’s lifetime, and the in-box apps that Microsoft provides in Windows 10 are, to a one, still toys. Instead of being compelling to users and aspirational to developers, they instead just highlight the immaturity of UWP and its inability to deliver the professional productivity experiences that users expect from desktop applications.

This is, I believe, the central weakness of Windows 10. And it doesn’t help that apps can and are updated regularly now, and are not bound to the slower release schedule of the OS. So an app like Mail, which is a particular embarrassment, has had ample opportunity for major enhancements. And yet it remains unusable by any but those with the most basic of needs.

And it’s actually worse than I’ve made out here: Remember that this apps platform actually debuted in late 2012 with Windows 8. Mail and most of the other terrible toy apps in Windows 10 have had four and a half years to become more usable and full-featured. That is has not happened is both sad and unbelievable.

It’s not hard to imagine that most people upgrading to Windows 10 try out at least some of these apps as they get to know the new system. It’s also not hard to imagine the average PC user subsequently ignoring all of them because they are toy apps that are not up to the quality and usability standards that years of Windows use have made us come to expect.

Windows 10 has other frustrating issues that I feel will wear on these typical users over time as well, from the constant updates—-Windows as a service—that will hopefully become a bit less painful with the Creators Update to the unbelievable amount of crapware that Microsoft bundles in this system. (Candy Crush? Seriously?) There are advertisements all over Windows 10 now, too, and it’s hard to imagine that situation not getting worse until and unless we rise up as a customer base and demand that Microsoft do better—that Windows be better—than it is right now.

But for me, it all starts with those apps. Microsoft may not be able to do anything directly about customer disinterest in Windows 10 on non-PC form factors. But it can certainly do something about those terrible toy apps. And in doing so, it can excite both users and developers to this otherwise wonderful new platform it has made. It all starts—and ends—with those apps.