Ask Paul: April 13 (Premium)

Another week, another set of excellent questions from readers.

A follow-up on Thurrott Now

Before getting to this week’s questions, I wanted to provide a quick follow-up to the Thurrott Now news I shared last week. As you may recall, I plan to remove the Thurrott Now widget (which is a Premium feature) from the Thurrott.com home page and begin posting that kind of content directly the (Premium) forums instead.

Given that the majority of the feedback to this change was negative, I will discuss some options with the team and not move forward with what I was planning.

The issue here is many-fold, but one of the interesting things I heard from you regarded RSS/Twitter/basically some way to know when something was posted. So let me talk to Brad and Tim, in particular, and see what we can work out.

Here’s one idea. First, forums do have RSS feeds: Everything in WordPress has RSS feeds. So maybe the best approach is to create a Thurrott Now forum and use that as the replacement instead of putting the posts in other places.

Thoughts?

Microsoft and the future for developers

JaseCutler asks:

Google is getting close to adding the ability to run containers (basically Docker) to mainline ChromeOS. This allows advanced users to do things like run Visual Studio Code on a Chromebook while still having all the benefits of an OS that is always updated and super secure because these apps are all sandboxed. (There is some onus on advanced users to keep their containers backed up and set up correctly).

As a new web developer leaving the IT administration field… I want to switch to just a Pixelbook to code on. I don’t have the desire to go tinker with and pick an Linux variant, and I’m getting super tired of how Windows is treating their OS and all the updates and patches going on. I can take a Pixelbook and never know I had updates installed, perform a wipe at any point, or just move to a new laptop if something happens and just sign in. Windows is in trouble.

Well, yes. Windows is in trouble. 🙂

That said, Microsoft’s positioning here is in good shape, I think. And it stands in sharp contrast to Apple’s position with developers, where you are required to own a Mac to develop for its platforms.

Microsoft already makes Visual Studio Code available on macOS and Linux in addition to Windows (and in both 32-bit and 64-bit versions on Linux), and that positions them nicely for the future, I think. That future is heterogeneous, and from a developer standpoint, you should be able to use the same tools on any platform of your choice. Microsoft recognizes that the user base is moving off Windows. What it wants is for that user base to continue using its tools/technologies/services.

And given that VS Code is so highly-regarded, I think it has a great future on whatever platforms that developers choose going forward. Including Chrome OS. (The PixelBook would be an amazing developer laptop if VS Code and other web-centric editors were available. You can see why Google is working towards this.)

Obviously, “big” Visual Studio is another story. But as with Apple’s XCode, there’s an audience there too.

Science fiction and reality

StevenLayton asks:

What technology did you see in Sci-Fi as a child, and never think you’d see it in your lifetime, but is now a reality? And, looking forward, what technology do you see in Sci-Fi now that you think might just be possible within your (or your kids) lifetime?

I was fascinated by books and short stories from authors like Isaac Asimov (especially the intertwined Foundation and Robot series), Larry Niven (Known Space series), Jerry Pournelle (especially when teamed with Niven), Arthur C. Clark, and others. If I had to pick just one sci-fi conceit that’s coming to life, it’s personal digital assistants, even if they haven’t reached the level of sophistication seen in such things as “2001: A Space Odyssey.” I think the reason is that I’ve spent a lifetime trying to create software, and it’s hard, and the results are often very basic. That we’re developing AI now that can engage in real (or “real enough”) conversations really is magical.

You may be familiar with Clark’s famous saying, “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” We are just about there in this case.

More Audible narrators

StevenLayton also asks:

Can you recommend another great Audible narrator? Looking through my library, more than half are narrated by RC Bray. I think I own most of the books he has narrated. Sci-Fi, fantasy, or horror genres ideally.

I wrote about this over two years ago, but I do have a few more recent suggestions.

Interestingly, wright_is pointed out some narrators—Tom Parker, L J Ganser, Paul Michael Garcia, and Scott Brick—that tied nicely into our previous conversation about science fiction, above. And I really like Scott Brick, too: He does the Jurassic Park narrations, plus some of the Jason Bourne books, Helter Skelter, Ender’s Game, and many others I own. He’s great.

I’m a big fan of Michael C Hall, the actor from Dexter and Six Feet Under, and I am currently listening to his just-released version of Stephen King’sPet Semetary, which I recommend highly. It’s one of King’s best books, and is legitimately scary, and Hall’s reading is excellent. (The King bookSkeleton Crew has short stories read by Hall as well as two of my other favorite Audible narrators, Craig Wasson and Will Patton. Look them up as well.) You could spend half a lifetime just exploring Stephen King on audible.

I’m a big fan of Paul Michael, who reads the Dan Brown books (The Da Vinci Code, etc.). And The Man from the Train by Bill James, narrated by John Bedford Lloyd, is one of the very best audiobooks I’ve ever heard.

A new hope

KingNerdTheThird asks:

Is there hope?

Yes.

PWAs and Samsung

Corey_McCowan asks:

With the big push that a lot of companies have put behind PWAs, is Google giving Samsung a way out of Android? The biggest thing at least in my mind that keeps Samsung on Android is the app selection. If PWA’s become fairly ubiquitous could we see Samsung switch its major phones (the S series and note series) away from Android and what would this mean for Google?

This is an interesting question.

This might be relevant:

I talked to many sources at Microsoft in the wake of Terry’s dismissal a few weeks ago, and Windows phone came up more than once. Two of the people I spoke with arrived separately at the notion that Windows phone failed because Microsoft, at that time, couldn’t move past the Windows licensing model. And the company was worried that a free Windows phone OS would eventually negatively impact the licensing fees it collected for “big” Windows.

One of them wondered, however, what the point of winning this battle was: Had Microsoft made Windows phone available for free and had it somehow magically “beaten” Android to become the market leader, what exactly would Microsoft have achieved? The responsibility for a platform it must continuously update and maintain, across a multitude of devices and device types, but without any way to monetize it effectively. Winning, for Microsoft, would have been losing.

Now, consider Google. Yes, it obtains a licensing fee for the majority of Android handsets sold worldwide. But that is a pittance compared to the advertising revenue that Google gets per device, which is why making and maintaining Android makes some sense for it. This is an advantage Microsoft would never have had.

But in the same way that we talk about a future of heterogeneous devices for Microsoft to target, Google has a place in this future too. Maybe it is better off not being responsible for the platform on which its services/apps run. Maybe that will be more lucrative. Maybe it will care less about controlling the platform now that its services are so ubiquitous. Users will demand access to Google’s offerings on whatever platform they use.

hrlngrv noted that “PWAs won’t replace Google Play for content.” But the availability of PWAs on the web could diminish the need for app stores. And impact the ways in which platform makers can differentiate their offerings. (As hrlngrv notes, “the company with the most to lose from the rise of PWAs would be Apple.” This is also true.)

I guess what I’m trying to say is that the market is moving naturally towards interoperability. And while there will always be the same outlier, Apple, this transition is inevitable. The future Android-less (really, Google-less) Samsung platform that I imagine could be Samsung’s weight to bear, and I don’t understand why they wish to do this beyond their bizarre desire to copy Apple at every step. Anyway, I think the one thing this platform will require is Android app compatibility: Just being able to run PWAs won’t be enough, at least in the short-term. But as this transition unfolds, maybe that will be enough. And among those PWAs that future Samsung customers run, I’m sure, will be plenty of Google web apps.

Not sure if I communicated this very well. But I feel like this whole client platform ownership thing is becoming overrated.

Redstone 5 app/experience changes

hrlngrv asks:

Brad has an article about it, but what do you believe is coming from MSFT wanting to shift bundled app developers/maintainers to the Edge team? Is this related to PWAs? How much longer will MSFT bundle IE with Windows?

It’s interesting that this ties nicely to the previous question, because the origin of Brad’s article was also a conversation I had with a Microsoftie in the wake of Terry’s firing. I was told that various teams working on new Redstone 5 apps and experiences had been dismissed, that those things would not appear in the next Windows 10 version, and that they were all offered the same new job: A position on the Edge team. They all declined, I was told.

Brad came to me about a week later with the same story from one of his sources, and he was unsure if he should write it up. I told him he was good to do so since I could verify the news. My source for this is as trusted as they come.

Anyway, the push for Microsoft Edge is probably tied to a number of things. Edge, whatever its perceived faults, is very much central to Windows 10 and to the future of this platform. I think we’re now a few years past the time I was told that over 50 percent of the activities that users do in Windows 10 occurs on the web, and I bet that number is higher now. But Edge remains a disaster, with single-digit usage share.

We can debate “how” Microsoft might fix this but the reality is, no mass market of users is ever going to adopt Edge: That “e” logo has negative connotations, and the terribleness of IE conditioned most users to just install Chrome and get on with their lives. So Edge usage is going to have to come from users not using the actual browser app. And yes, PWAs will be a major source of that usage: Everyone who runs a PWA from the Microsoft Store will be using Edge whether they use it or not.

I think that’s just fine. Just as I think using the underlying web rendering engine in Edge for iOS and Android is just fine.

As for IE, it will remain in Windows for as long as Microsoft’s enterprise customers require it. I could see it being deprecated to the point where it is an optional install via Windows Features in Windows 10 Home/Pro at first, and then is eventually pulled altogether. But like other legacy and vestigial holdovers like WordPad, it’s not really hurting anyone by being in there.

Windows 10 messaging

will asks:

Do you expect to hear any sort of change in messaging or tone around Windows 10 and its future/direction at Build or will that come later after RS5?

This may prove to be the central story of 2018, from my perspective. And I will be listening intently for a change in direction at Build. But that’s just the first big public stage for this kind of thing. There are other milestones throughout the year, ranging from corporate/financial announcements to future Microsoft shows like Ignite where I expect the evolving strategy to be revealed piecemeal, over time.

Part of the issue is that the new stakeholders are still trying to figure out where they fit into the puzzle and that many future changes are still unknown today. Any regime change like this has a cascading impact that will be felt over time. To put this in perspective, the final major holdover from the Sinofsky era, Michael Angulo, only recently left Microsoft. These changes come in fits and starts.

Chromebook and Windows apps

Daishi asks:

After HP unveiled the Chromebook X2, which seems as though it might be exactly the machine I’ve been looking for for going on two years, just running the wrong OS, I’m at the point where almost the only thing keeping me using Windows is two decades of accumulated software (that and the fact it’s almost impossible to find a Chromebook in Australia). So I’m wondering if you have any information on whether/think it’s likely that we’ll see some kind of Win32 program support coming to Chrome at some point?

Obviously, it would need to be some kind of containered emulation system, because you wouldn’t want it undermining one of Chromes key advantages, but I feel as though something like that would potentially be helpful to shift some of the more embedded Windows consumers like myself.

It’s certainly possible, but I think the more obvious outcome for Chrome is that businesses continue using remote desktop when needed and individuals move past Win32/Windows application compatibility. Between web and mobile apps, there is precious little need for Windows applications on this platform. Those that do need specialized Windows applications should simply stick with that platform.

If you haven’t already, I’d consider looking at the Intel version of the HP Envy x2, which runs (normal) Windows 10. Like the Qualcomm version, it is an Always-Connected PC with a SIM and gets killer (15~ hour) battery life. But it also runs at full speed (and is less expensive). It’s interesting to me that HP offers variants of the same device for Windows on ARM, Windows on Intel, and Chrome OS.

New Surface PCs

briantlewis asks:

It sure would be nice for a Surface Pro 5 with current processors and USB-C to show up. Any idea if/when this will happen?

No, sorry. I agree it’s necessary, and I wrote about this topic a few weeks ago in Microsoft, It’s Time to Bring the Thunder(bolt) (Premium): Microsoft should simply upgrade its existing PCs with 8th generation Intel processors and Thunderbolt 3/USB-C. But I have no information, insider or otherwise, about its plans to do so.

Meltdown/Spectre vs. a gaming PC

Lewk asks:

I built my Desktop Gaming PC a couple of years ago, and my Motherboard manufacturer just released a BIOS update for it that contains the Microcode that addresses the Spectre/Meltdown issues. Do I install this update?

My machine is working perfectly at the moment and I’m afraid about the potential that this kind of update has to kill the performance significantly. Or worse, brick it entirely. I feel I don’t understand the significance of the Spectre/Meltdown issues and question the importance of applying this patch. Is it wise to hold off installing this update for a while and see if anymore developments arise with Spectre/Meltdown; or is it important that I do install it as soon as possible?

I recommend skipping it for now.

To my understanding, there is no known exploit of this vulnerability. But the performance impact of the patches is well-understood, and will likely be a noticeable issue on a gaming PC. Intel has said repeatedly that it will continue improving its firmware updates for these vulnerabilities, in part to improve the performance impact. So I would simply wait on this and keep paying attention to the tech news headlines in case a major exploit does appear. If so, you can install the latest patch(es) at that time.

Some may call this advice irresponsible, I know.

Windows v. macOS

ErichK asks:

Paul, I’d love it if you went into more specifics about why your prefer Windows to macOS. I’m not criticizing; I’m genuinely curious. I own a Mac mini and like to compare/contrast the two operating systems. (My Windows 10 rig is still my main machine, most of the time.)

This might be good fodder for an article. But it boils down to two things: Familiarity and limitations in macOS.

The importance of familiarity can’t be overstated. I spend most of my time in Windows, so I have deeply ingrained muscle memory about how things work. When they don’t work the same way on the Mac or elsewhere it’s confusing and frustrating.

But macOS also doesn’t offer some niceties that I get in Windows. The UI is not completely keyboard-accessible, meaning that you can’t TAB your way through all on-screen controls and must use the mouse to access some. Window management is less sophisticated in a few ways, especially in tab-based applications like web browsers. There’s no Snap utility, though I am using a third-party app to address that particular need.

Ultimately, it’s like everything else I complain about: Little things that add up. It’s not unusable, far from it. But I find myself running into these little roadblocks a lot on the Mac.

Spam comment block on Thurrott.com

stevenlack asks:

How’s the spam filter working?

So far, it’s excellent. I’ve now had two straight mornings where I didn’t waste an hour addressing this problem. Tim and Brad are both very confident that we’ve found something that might actually work. I’m still worried, of course. But hope springs eternal.

Andromeda

stevenlack also: asks:

Any more news about Andromeda you can share? I heard rumors we might see it at BUILD or shortly after at the rumored event on the 15th of May, but it also seems possibly too early.

I have not heard that. But I actually do have a few things to share.

First, Microsoft is still working on Andromeda, according to two of my sources. And that’s the first time I’ve been able to confirm that in several months.

Second, yes it is a two-display solution.

And third, it’s running Windows 10, not some offshoot like Windows Mobile.