Ask Paul: June 11 (Premium)

Woah! Here’s a great collection of excellent questions from readers, so settle in and let’s get the weekend started a bit early.

Google Pixel rumors

crunchyfrog asks:

The big leak this week is that Google is planning on releasing a new Pixel phone that is of the folding ilk. I’m finding this one a bit hard to swallow. While Google makes a decent phone overall, Pixel phones are far from a technical marvels and even if they borrow the screen and other elements from Samsung to build this clamshell beast, there is still the glaring problem of a steep lack of consumer demand and the associated high price tag that comes with such a device. With Pixel sales being somewhat flat or even rather flaccid, what are the odds that this is even remotely possible much yet plausible?

Well, Google is definitely working on a foldable smartphone. Whether one appears this fall is, of course, uncertain.

And, for sure, there is a combination of factors to consider here, including the high price and low sales issues you mention, but also the reliability issues for which Pixels are notorious. I really like my Pixel 4a 5G, but I had to replace its display less than one month after I started using it.

On that note, and I don’t think I’ve written about this yet, I’m still interested in the Pixel 6 rumors for now, mostly because it seems like Google has finally gotten the mix right with components and camera lenses, and will finally offer a high-end handset with the right three lenses (wide, ultra-wide, and telephoto). This, despite the fact that my history with Pixel should give me pause. I guess I’m just used to abusive relationships given my 25+ year history with Microsoft. Or maybe it’s just normal for one to hope that this time, finally, it will be OK.

Hope springs eternal, I guess.

My Sonos story

louiem3 asks:

Hi Paul curious how your experience with the Sonos Roam is going since your last article? I’ve picked up 2 and find myself using them around the house as well as for travel/beach. I’m about to pick up a 3rd one for my 10 year old.

We really like the Roam, but we haven’t had much reason to use it yet (beyond just testing it). What I’ve discovered is that it’s great for its size, but can’t measure up to a Sonos One or Symfonisk, which should be obvious, I know. I tried it in the car during a road trip, but the in-car stereo, which I don’t think of as particularly great, was much better.

But it’s kind of shined in the bathroom. I know that sounds odd, but I listen to audiobooks, podcasts, and music while I shave and shower, and the ability to move the thing around is nice, and it sounds better than a Sonos One when I can bring it into the shower. Which I can because it’s waterproof. And maybe even that sounds like an odd thing to do, but I can play audio at a lower volume level if the speaker is close, so my wife doesn’t have to deal with it from her office or whatever.

Had this thing existed before I bought the Sonos Move, I might never have bought that speaker, though the Move’s sound quality is on another level entirely. Plus, it being smaller, I kind of like the idea of using the Roam in the backyard, since it won’t be loud enough to bother the neighbors. I still haven’t tested that, but I will soon. And I’ll bring the Move with me on trips since I can use it in hotel rooms instead of the built-in speaker in my phone. It’s so portable.

Also I remember you had some connectivity problems with Sonos in the past that were fixed by plugging a speaker into the router to create the Sonosnet mesh network. I stumbled across this old site (The Sonos Web Interface) that documents on how to get configuration/connectivity status on individual Sonos speakers in your home along with a network matrix showing connectivity health. Anyhow, it’s a handy page to troubleshoot network connectivity with your Sonos.

That is fantastic, thanks.

And I will definitely be experimenting with this over the weekend because my reliability issues are still ongoing, though they’re not as bad as before. Part of the reason is the Google WiFi mesh network, which doesn’t let you dedicate a wireless channel to a particular device/service; this is the reason I needed to connect one speaker to Ethernet, as that creates that special “SonosNet” network. But the problem with that network is that I run into the issues that caused me to get a mesh network in the first place: My house is so big that it doesn’t work reliably as you get further away from that wired speaker. And in my case, the speakers I use the most, in the sunroom, are those that are furthest from the wired speaker and the router. Round and round we go.

For the most part, things work fine. I can’t explain this bit, but when we listen to a vinyl record—the turntable is connected directly to a Sonos 5 in the sunroom—and add more speakers, the sound will cut out sometimes, but if we just use the Sonos 5s it seems to work fine. So I decided to add a Sonos Boost into the mix. This $99 device extends the Wi-Fi network used by Sonos, and in my case, that’s now the SonosNet network. So the idea is to improve the quality of the network by bridging the space between the speakers—each Sonos speaker is a node on this new network—and that one wired speaker. I place it in the kitchen, which is between the living room (where the router and wired speaker are) and the sunroom. And I wired it into a Google WiFi node. And … it seems to be working. It’s been in place for about three weeks without any issues.

If there’s a lesson here, I hope it’s not that you can solve problems by just spending more money, but that’s what it feels like. All I can say is that we love Sonos, but it’s expensive, and when we inevitably move, we’ll be downsizing and I hope not to have these issues anymore. Either that or I’ll just wire the entire house for Ethernet and be done with it.

Anyway, thanks for that link. I’ll use this to see what’s up, and what’s connected to what. And hopefully this will tell me, in a roundabout way, that what I did works. I think it will.

A modern Windows

bschnatt asks:

I’m curious about the possibilities of Windows on ARM and Project MAUI. Despite having been stung by the Windows RT bug (I bought a Lumia 2520), I’m still intrigued with the possibility of a folding 8 or 10″ tablet that runs with an ARM chip (for the battery life and cool operation), the ability to run “Metro” apps, plus “full Windows” apps in containers. And there’s no reason they couldn’t target Windows on ARM to even smaller devices, like smart watches – they would just leave the Win32 support out, plus features that don’t make sense (like multi-monitor support, desktops, etc). I think you mentioned that Microsoft might be adding widgets back to Windows – these widgets could become the apps for a smart watch running Windows on ARM! Knowing what you know about MAUI, do you think this is better suited for this “modern Windows” dream than Windows RT was?

I’m also interested in the possibilities for Windows 10 on ARM and Project MAUI, but I think in the former case, Microsoft needs to make sure this platform succeeds as an in-place replacement for traditional x86 Windows before they can even think about new form factors.

And I feel like it’s getting there. Qualcomm modifies Arm’s designs to create its Snapdragon chipsets, and Arm’s latest generation includes desktop-class chips, so that will help. And Microsoft will implement x64 compatibility for Windows 10 version 21H2, and that, too, will help. Together, these advances in performance and compatibility should make WOA viable. That’s job one.

Project MAUI is interesting on a number of levels. As the next-generation version of Xamarin.Forms, it will allow developers to create apps that run on Windows, Mac (through Catalyst, interestingly, meaning via modified iPad apps), iPhone/iPad, and Android, using a single codebase. This “write once, run everywhere” thing has been the dream since, well, Sun invented the term for Java in the 1990s, but modern frameworks like Flutter, React Native, and now MAUI seem to be delivering on this vision.

MAUI, of course, is the cross-platform way forward for C#/.NET/Microsoft stack developers, but the missing piece of the puzzle here is the web. Microsoft is addressing that need with Blazor, which today focuses on web apps—including server-side apps and WebAssembly apps that run in any modern browser—but it is experimenting with creating mobile apps using this framework too. And while I’m not completely up on this yet, I believe there will be (or might) some interop between MAUI and Blazor that could make it more seamless to include the web in the list of application targets.

MAUI apps will run natively on WOA, as will apps created with Project Reunion (not the final name), which we can think of as a more modern version of the Universal Windows Platform (UWP), a mobile app platform that only runs on Windows. The big advantages of Project Reunion over UWP are that features aren’t tied to specific Windows 10 versions (meaning that these apps will work on all supported Windows 10 versions) and that developers can optionally target the desktop specifically. Either way, it all works on WOA.

Long story short, it looks like Project Reunion will be of interest to developers with existing apps that wish to use new/modern platform features that were previously “locked” into UWP or a specific Windows 10 version. And that MAUI is Microsoft’s big cross-platform play, something akin to Google Flutter, and is more viable for new apps. And that Blazor, in its various forms, is Microsoft’s big web app play, and is likewise more viable for new apps.

You didn’t ask about this, but since we’re discussing it, I’ve been investigating what to use for future app projects, and I am very strongly leaning towards Blazor Web Assembly because it’s C#/.NET-based, which I really like, but has universal compatibility with all major browsers across platforms and doesn’t require plug-ins or whatever; WebAssembly is a W3C web standard. I hope to have more information about this soon.

Panosplaining

jheredia asks:

Hi Paul, I’m curious about your thoughts on the genesis of this “next generation of Windows”… is this something that Panos himself pushed for in his new role and managed to convince the rest of the company to get onboard with? Or is this something leadership was considering and brought him in to steer? Or is this just a result of the unexpected pandemic fuelled usage of Windows and has been thrown together relatively quickly?

I don’t have any particular insight into Panos Panay or what his direct influence has been on Windows or whatever—I was much closer with Terry Myerson—but based on my understanding of how things work there, I can hazard a guess. The underlying platform work that I feel is the real benefit to this “next generation of Windows” has been underway for years and is clearly a response to the problems Microsoft inflicted on its userbase with Windows as a Service (WaaS).

That is, the traditional way of updating Windows, which is monolithic and time-consuming, was too unreliable to require customers to install two version upgrades every year. So Microsoft began investigating and implementing changes. First with cumulative updates, and the pretend Feature Updates that were really cumulative updates. And then more recently with “Windows Feature Experience Packs,” which are a way to update Windows features outside of the traditional platform updates process (and, interestingly, outside of the Store as well; with mobile platforms like Android, system updates and new features now arrive through the Play Store, bypassing the carriers and hardware makers that had blocked updates in the past).

We discussed this on today’s First Ring Daily, so this is just a summary. But I believe that Sun Valley will be implemented, essentially, as an enablement package that can be applied to any supported Windows 10 version. And this package will be lightweight and easy/fast to install, unlike traditional Feature Updates.

Do I think Panos Panay triggered any of this? Not exactly. The platform work has surely been in the works for years. But he had to have approved these changes for production, and that’s a big deal. As the person responsible for making the big decisions, there’s a lot riding on this. But it seems like it could work, and if this solves the many problems with WaaS, I have no problem crediting him for making it happen.

Game streaming vs. consoles vs. PCs

erichk asks:

Paul, in your view, if streaming gaming devices become the norm, what advantages would there be for “dedicated hardware?” Just raw speed?

If we pretend for a moment that game streaming doesn’t exist, people are already playing games in various ways. Casual gamers typically use a smartphone, tablet, or web browsers. There’s an audience of about 300 million playing on consoles. And then more hardcore gamer types—not sure of the number, sorry, but it’s a lucrative audience—who use PCs. And when you ask someone, like me, why they choose a console over a PC, the answer is clear enough: Modern consoles offer good to excellent visual quality, terrific performance, big game libraries, and unbeatable ease of use. You can just pick up a controller and go. PC gamers, meanwhile, will correctly cite the technical advantages of the platform, but there’s great cost and complexity, too. And that makes the PC less “mainstream” than consoles. Which are themselves less mainstream than smartphones, tablets, and the web.

The reason game streaming services, especially Xbox Cloud Gaming, are so exciting is that they bridge this gap by allowing gamers on smartphones, tablets, and the web—and soon on TVs and other devices—to play console-class games anywhere. Assuming you have the connectivity, you can get those benefits without having to sit at a particular display and buy a particular console. It’s the ease of use of console, but even better. (Again, assuming connectivity.)

For the short term, I feel like game streaming will be additive, another way to play games. But over time, game streaming should replace dedicated consoles. Games can be upgraded and updates once, in the cloud, as can the hardware on which they run, and users won’t need to do a thing to get better quality. It is possible to sample games from a huge catalog, as we do with music and video streaming services. Etc. Over time, I feel like game streaming just slots into where consoles are now, at least for many people.

But that means that the PC will always retain its place in the mix. Kind of like 4K/HDR Blu-Rays are still preferred by some videophiles over streaming video. PCs will always offer the best graphics and the best performance, and that will be something that that audience will always want. So I feel like PCs are less impacted by game streaming than will be consoles.

The missing piece of the Xbox puzzle

IanYates82 asks:

Hi Paul. The xbox news this week is great – building in to TVs, making a standalone stick, and allowing to run xcloud on an xbox (maybe even the older “one”). Sensible decisions.

Agreed.

Do you think they’ll allow multi-controller connection? So you could do a two player, or even 4 or 8 player game? Many of those rely on speed, but at least all players would be equally laggy… Some are co-op, such as EA’s A Way Out, and would be great on such a service.

There was no hint at all about evolving the controller, but I think this has to happen. I’m sure the Xbox Series X|S was too far along to make thing change for the launch, but when Google launched Stadia in late 2019, one of its biggest innovations was the controller, which supports USB and Bluetooth connections, but also direct Wi-Fi connections to reduce latency. This is key for cloud-based gaming, just for individuals, but also for multiple players hitting the same game streaming to whatever device. Dedicated consoles obviously support some number of simultaneous controller connections, but abstracting that out to the cloud for game streaming will open it right up.

I think we can assume we won’t see that this year, and Microsoft has some weird marketing juggling to do since they just updated their controller. But a Wi-Fi-connected Xbox controller seems inevitable to me.

Industry books

louiem3 asks:

Hi Paul, I finished the book Show Stopper! a while back and enjoyed it. Can you recommend any other books based off the tech industry that are as good?

Showstopper is absolutely one of the best of this type of books, and it’s especially interesting because of the topic. But yes, there are others that are quite good. And I feel like I need to start tracking this.

Two recent selections that I can definitely recommend:

• Amazon Unbound: Jeff Bezos and the Invention of a Global Empire by Brad Stone
• Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier (he has a new book too)

And there are so many classics. This will require some research, and I’m thinking I should make a page for this. But a few I have read and do recommend…

• World War 3.0: Microsoft, the US Government, and the Battle for the New Economy by Ken Auletta
• Console Wars: Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation by Blake J. Harris
• Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution by Fred Vogelstein
• Open: How Compaq Ended IBM’s PC Domination and Helped Invent Modern Computing by Rod Canion
• Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture by David Kushner
• Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
• Googled: The End of the World as We Know It by Ken Auletta

Windows PC management

pherbie asks:

What you see as the future for enterprise management of Win 10 devices?

I’m a few years removed from this stuff now and may have out-of-date views, but I feel like Mobile Device Management (MDM) is the future for better or worse. And that Microsoft being Microsoft, it will continue to offer its customers hybrid solutions that rely on what I think of as legacy hierarchical infrastructure (again, me being out of date) like AD and whatever SCCM is called these days too.

Does this spell the end for inhouse device management of Win 10 devices? is this the direction companies should head in?

It depends on the size and needs of the company, but Microsoft will always address each use case/need. The importance of this audience is too big to try and push them to fully cloud-based management. But it’s definitely moving in that direction, and when you think about the smallest new companies coming on board with cloud-based management, whether it’s Google or Microsoft or whatever else, what changes over time is the number of people managing infrastructure, not so much “where” it is.

WinGet vs. Microsoft Store

hrlngrv asks:

How much overlap do you believe there’ll there be between the new & improved MSFT Store that’s coming and the winget repository?

I hope that Microsoft addresses this at the Windows event later this month. We know that Microsoft has been exploring ways for developers to deploy apps to users in a manner that approaches the trustworthiness of its store but without requiring the store. And it seems like WinGet might be the back-end service that makes that happen and/or literally be the backend for a new store. I’m just guessing here, but I do think it will be one or both.

FWIW, winget search produces 1,952 items. Interesting that Firefox Developer Edition and Firefox ESR appear but Firefox doesn’t. Also, FreeMat appears, version 4.2 which is the latest but also 8 years old. Would such tacit abandonware appear in the new Store?

Unfortunately, yeah. There’s a bit of curation happening on Microsoft’s end, but most WinGet entries are user-submitted, so quality will vary. Perhaps the new store will be a curated front-end to the WinGet repository? That sort of makes sense to me.