Always Connected PC is a Counter to All the Nonsense in Windows 10 (Premium)

The Always Connected PC initiative is the cornerstone of Microsoft’s latest attempt to modernize Windows and the PCs on which it runs. But after many misfires, Microsoft and its partners are on the verge of fundamentally changing how PCs work for the first time in decades.

And I think this one is going to stick.

What I like about this initiative, this new “wave” of computing, as Microsoft will call it, is that it solves real problems. There’s a lot of nonsense in Windows right now—3D, Mixed Reality, and so on—that solves small problems for a limited audience. But Always Connected PC is bigger than any of that. And it will help the broader, mainstream user base in meaningful ways.

Too, Always Connected PC is a concrete step to the future that Microsoft has long known that it much achieve for Windows. When we look at failures like Windows 8/RT and Windows 10 S, we see weak and misguided attempts to force the user base to a simpler, more refined PC platform of the future. But Always Connected PC is representative of the strategy I believe is necessary: A multi-year plan in which we get from here to there in a logical way. It’s what will enable a future of Andromeda and Polaris, to put it in the language of starry-eyed Microsoft enthusiasts.

This is important because PCs have a problem: They are fundamentally too complex. And as a result, they are being overrun in the market by simpler and more personal devices. Mostly smartphones, of course, but also tablets and hybrid devices like iPad Pro and 2-in-1 Chromebooks. One gets the sense that Microsoft’s competitors in this space can smell the blood in the water and see the opportunity that’s presenting itself.

To date, Microsoft’s response to the post-PC world, as Apple calls it, or the “mobile-first, cloud-first” world, as Microsoft once called it, has been marked by missteps. From the focus on pen and not touch in Tablet PC (2002) to the overreaching of the touch-first UIs in Windows 8/RT (2012), we’re still reeling from over a decade’s worth of bungling. All Microsoft has really done to Windows so far has been to add more. And it has simply made Windows even more complex as a result.

It’s not hard to see how and why this happened. Microsoft has long championed the notion that Windows is somehow the most versatile software ever created. And it has survived countless competitive generations—the Mac, the Internet wave, netbooks, whatever—by simply adapting to new needs as they arose. This is historically true, but that model no longer works when the competition is functionally good enough, much less complex, and (usually) less expensive.

But they’re still piling on the crap in Windows 10.

In addition to things like Windows Mixed Reality and 3D, Windows 10 also includes dubious mobile device integration features, both real (Continue on PC) and imagined (Cloud Clipboard), that look like they were cobbled together after someone viewed an Apple keynote. But while Apple users can seamlessly interoperate between, say, their iPhone and Mac, PC users are left with a ham-handed, half-assessed experience because Microsoft doesn’t own the entire stack. Let’s be serious: Making an iPhone interoperate with a Windows 10 PC is always going to suck.

To my mind, these nonsense features are nothing more than treading water. This is Microsoft biding its time and keeping less sophisticated fans happy while it plots more fundamental changes to Windows 10 and to the PC platform. It has tried twice, with Windows 8/RT and Windows 10 S, to force the issue, but has failed both times.

But Always Connected PC is different. It’s a fundamental, platform-level shift to favor seamless connectivity and up-time (battery life plus standby), two features that are innate to the mobile devices we love so much.

Put another way, Always Connected PC is about less, not more.

That is, to take advantage of this new functionality, all you need to do is use the device. There aren’t heavy new UIs to navigate, no stupid new Windows apps or animated arrows from the edge of the screen. You will just use it and it will just be better. These PCs will spring to life instantaneously, like your phone, after sitting idly, on standby, for much longer periods of time than before. They will last longer on a charge, much longer in most cases.

We’ve seen miniature versions of this kind of miracle in the past.

For example, everyone is understandably excited that Intel just pumped up its mainstream U-series processors from dual-core to quad-core, providing the resulting PCs with a nice performance boost over previous versions. But that change is actually minor from a day-to-day perspective: The vast majority of users browsing the web and running Microsoft Office will see no real-world difference.

But Always Connected PC improves some core aspects of the PC experience, and it will do so for most people. There will be a spectrum of devices across both Intel-type and ARM platforms. And they will be clearly delineated between those PCs that offer the utmost in battery life and up-time and those that offer better performance and compatibility. That some will be Intel-based and some will be ARM-based shouldn’t matter to most users: They can simply make a choice based on their needs, not on processor architecture.

As I noted above, Windows is the end result of decades of code additions that have resulted in a messy, teetering tower of unpredictability. Windows, like the PC itself, is a stunning mess of legacy and newer technologies, a confusing array of old and new ideas intertwined together. It’s confusing. Hard to use. It provides multiple ways to do the same things.

Complexity is the enemy. And simplicity will always win in the end … for most people. Always Connected PC is something that makes sense for most people, and it makes sense for the companies—Microsoft, PC makers—who have a stake in the future of this platform. If PCs can be made to be simpler and more seamless, they will be less onerous to use than they are today.

No, PCs will never achieve the simplicity of smartphones, will never be that personal. They are very much just for work, for the most part. But they can improve. And that’s the point: To improve via making things simpler and more seamless. Not just by adding more stuff. Which has pretty much been the primary focus so far.

It would be instructive for any reader, especially those who consider themselves to be Windows/Microsoft enthusiasts, to spend some time investigating what, exactly, Apple added to macOS in the latest release, called High Sierra. It’s not a big list, and there’s certainly very little in the way of big bucket features.

No, I don’t prefer or even like macOS that much, but the one thing I do appreciate from that side of the fence, especially in recent years, is Apple’s focus on fundamentals. (And it’s not just because the Mac is less important to Apple now than its mobile platforms. They’re doing it with iOS as well.) That’s exactly the kind of support that a legacy desktop platform requires from its maker these days. And it’s the type of thing that Microsoft could focus on more itself.

Always Connected PC is a step in that direction. It’s just too bad that it’s happening concurrently with all the other awful crap that the company continues adding to Windows too.