Ask Paul: March 25 (Premium)

Happy Friday, and happy Spring! Let’s wrap up a curiously busy week with yet another great set of reader questions.

Steam deck

christianwilson asks:

Steam Deck is one product by a single company but the idea of a portable PC designed for games is compelling. Do you think there’s potential for the Switch/Steam Deck design to become a new PC form factor?

Unless Valve is protecting the design, I don’t see any reason why Dell, HP, Lenovo, or any other PC maker couldn’t make PCs like the Steam Deck. The question, I guess, is whether this form factor represents a big enough potential market. PC gaming is huge, obviously. But this is still new and it’s unclear whether it will resonate with a wide audience. Part of the problem is the interaction model: most PC gamers use a keyboard and mouse today, and it’s easy enough to add an Xbox or PS controller to a PC if you prefer that.

I could see Dell and others producing a Windows 11-based mobile PC similar in design to the Steam Deck. It could function like any other computer when docked to a monitor, keyboard, and mouse but instead of being productivity focused like a laptop, it would be PC gaming focused when on the go.

For sure. But again, the question here is just whether that makes sense. Traditional form factors like laptops and Tablet PCs have large, established audiences. And they serve people interested in portable PC gaming, too.

Traditional Office vs. the future

spacecamel asks:

I know you talked about it a little on Windows Weekly but why doesn’t Microsoft make the paid online version of Office with the same features as the various applications? This is essentially what they are doing with Outlook and would apply them to stop having to update the various different applications on different platforms (i.e. Windows and Mac).

There were periods of time when it seemed like Microsoft was going to, in turn, move Office from its native codebases to the web and then to mobile … and then didn’t. And I think the issue they ran into in each case was the same: the complexity of those codebases and the incredible challenge of duplicating every single feature in apps like Word or Excel to these more lightweight platforms. (I don’t know what this looks like today, but as Bill Gates noted as long ago as 2005, Word 2003 had 35 toolbars and over 1,500 commands. And 19 task panes, which he didn’t mention.)

That said, I could see Microsoft making the web-based versions of Office the standard over time, but that’s sort of hollow given how little these apps are updated. They don’t even support basic PWA functionality, like offline support. But the point of an effort like that would have to be to move Office to a single codebase that would work everywhere. It seems worth it to me.

And Microsoft has done things like this in the past. It moved the Windows codebase from 9x/DOS and it completely rewrote .NET to make it open source. Maybe after this “One Outlook” thing they can move on to “One Office.”

Could you relook at your series of online office products that you did a few years ago? With ads becoming more of a thing in Windows, this would be an easy way to transition to something else or hide Windows under a browser.

I’ve been thinking about this lately for a variety of reasons, but the direction I’m moving is a little bit different. That is, I think the world of productivity apps is shifting away from monolithic legacy apps like Word and Excel to a new breed of lightweight, interchangeable tools. You can see this in the Microsoft space with tools like Microsoft Teams and, soon, Loop (which is more aligned to this discussion). And you can see it in third-party tools like Notion (which I’m using to write this, perhaps not coincidentally), which are clearly the inspiration for Loop.

I’m friends with someone who used to run OneNote, and one of the last conversations we had before she left Microsoft a couple of years ago regarded this shift. She said that the company was looking at moving to more lightweight tools, in this case specifically to replace OneNote, and I wonder now if she was referring to Loop. (And could simply ask her, I guess.)

Anyway, I don’t think Microsoft Office alternatives (Google Docs, LibreOffice, whatever) are all that interesting anymore. But I do think these more lightweight alternatives are fascinating. I’m hoping that Microsoft releases Loop soon—-maybe at Build or perhaps at its upcoming hybrid work event—-so we can see what that looks like. The nice thing about Loop is that you will be able to use Word or Excel or whatever directly in Loop if you need whatever unique features those things have. But you can also just use its more modern creation and collaboration features.

The right smartphone camera

Zeppelyn56 asks:

My first ever question and am in a dilemma as my partner has tasked me with finding an ideal camera for a 12-day Scandanavian Cruise and know that this is something that you prioritise for your own trips. This cruise will involve stops in Copenhagen, Stockholm and Helsinki in particular and me being me knows that she needs a new phone and that my thinking was to combine the two rather than buying a separate camera. Budget is not really an issue but would welcome your views, Apple is not an option but personally am interested in what the OnePlus 10 Pro 5G may offer over, say Pixel.

The OnePlus 10 Pro 5G is launching … soon, I guess. We don’t know for sure. But the camera system is unlikely to outperform the best that Apple, Google, and Samsung provide. Most likely, it will be in the mix but not at the top. I’m hoping to find out for myself soon.

I do prefer the Pixel 6 Pro over the iPhone for photography, so I won’t try to convince you otherwise there. It’s not perfect; the ultra-wide camera isn’t all that wide, and while the zoom is good (and better than the iPhone) for what it is, it’s still only 4x optical. For the most part, it should meet your needs and will deliver great shots in all conditions.

That said, you may want to look at the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra. Samsung flagships take terrific photos too—-my wife often takes better photos than me using a two-year-old Galaxy S20 Ultra—-and the zoom is incredible. The S22 Ultra has 10x optical zoom, which is nuts, and it has that “space zoom” feature up to 30x. That can get washed out at the higher zoom levels, but my wife routinely takes zoomed-in photos of the moon that are so clear they look like they came out of a small telescope. So if that kind of thing matters to you, I’d give that a shot. It would be especially good if you could find one in a store and test the zoom.

But either phone would be great for photos overall.

You could also examine the reviews at Dxomark. From a camera quality perspective, the iPhone 13 Pro, Pixel 6 Pro, and Galaxy S22 Ultra are all within a few points of each other. They haven’t reviewed the OnePlus 10 yet, but the OnePlus 9 Pro is tied at 29th place next to the iPhone 11 Pro and S21 Ultra, so not actually that horrible.

The year of the Android tablet

crunchyfrog asks:

Android tablets seem to be having something of a renaissance lately, especially with Samsung’s updated S8 series of tablets. The power of their new processors, large LCD’s and keyboard docks appear put them on par with laptop power and performance for serious productivity uses. I think it would be a curious read for all of us Thurrott regulars for you to take one of these S8 tablets on a brief trip or just regular use and try to adapt using it as a full-time device instead of a laptop and see how feasible such a feat could possibly be. What say you?

Maybe. I have been thinking about this a lot lately, of course, but I’m still not sure that a full-sized Android tablet with a keyboard—-a Surface Pro-type configuration, basically—-is a better choice today than a Chromebook tablet or convertible. Were I to do this, it would be after 12L is available on whatever the latest Samsung tablet is. (Right. The Tab S8, I guess.) They’re handsome machines. But in their current state, I can’t imagine they match up well to an iPad let alone a Windows tablet, at least for productivity work. I do like the idea of a 14.6-inch display (on the Ultra model) though.

Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux

christophercollins asks:

Paul, I notice so many comments in regards to Windows 11 to the nature of ‘I’m switching to Linux’. 99% of them probably never follow through. Why do you think that is the go to threat since Windows 8? It would be more believable if they said they are switching to MacOS.

I mean, where else are we going to turn? The audience that is attracted to the Mac for whatever reasons—and there are good reasons, especially if you’re using other Apple products like the iPhone—has already gone in that direction. The rest of us prefer the PC for all the usual reasons—-choice, mostly—-and Linux works on the same hardware, so it’s kind of the fallback. Chromebooks are too limited, certainly for anyone who would even consider Linux, but one thing I’m curious about is whether a Chromebook’s ability to run Linux apps could make up for that. Food for thought.

Second question… I use Apple laptops, but all of my desktops are Win10 or Win11. I’m dual platform to keep my mind fresh and I have an iPhone, so the ecosystem is really smooth.

It seems Microsoft is the victim of a double standard. When Apple did Big Sur, everyone complained ‘Why can’t Microsoft do this?”. Then, Microsoft does it and the same people just find something else to complain about. Why do you think that is?

Well, I don’t think that Microsoft did pull that off. The big thing that Apple accomplished there, whether you like the look or not, is to completely overhaul the entire UI consistently. Windows is still very much a mishmash of UIs from several generations of the products. (Check out this thread for a great example of the Windows 3.x Phone Dialer app still being available in Windows 11.)

Also, I’m here to tell you that MacOS is every bit as buggy as Windows. Often times, I think it is more buggy. Apple doesn’t get it right until the .3 or .4 version. I find Windows 11 virtually bug free in my use cases. I also know they will work the start menu stuff out, but I’m okay with that too, as I’ve always used ctrl-shift-esc to get to task manager anyway.

Yeah. I use macOS enough to know it’s not perfect. I think what people suffer from generally—-and to be clear, it’s really easy for all of us to fall into this trap—is the “grass is always greener” effect. The reality is that people who switch from Windows to any platform are just exchanging familiar problems for new problems. If one of these platforms really was perfect, we’d all be using it.

One of my biggest pet peeves on the Mac—-and on the iPhone and Android, actually—is that updates, even the smallest of point upgrades, take forever to install, with the devices offline for an incredible amount of time. We complain about Windows updates, mostly because there are too many of them. But Microsoft has really modernized how that works. It’s no contest.

Just curious about your thoughts on these things. As an aside, thanks for that Programming Windows series. That alone was worth the subscription. It was one of the best article series I’ve seen on the site since it started. Very well done.

Thanks! It’s been fascinating to revisit these eras. Sometimes for good reasons, sometimes not so good. The Sinofsky stuff is hard. He was more horrible than most even realize, and he accomplished so little with Windows 7 and was celebrated for it, and then he destroyed Windows, perhaps forever, with Windows 8. I can feel myself slowing down, just not wanting to deal with it. But I will finish this up. 🙂

Anyone interested in the Linux/Mac stuff should read some of the comments in the original post, by the way. Reading through that, I’m reminded that it’s possible to virtualize Windows very effectively in macOS with Parallels, and I assume there are similar (but probably not as integrated) solutions on Linux too. I should look into that. (Plus things like Wine that let you run some Windows app, which is interesting.)

Ownership

beckoningeagle asks:

I am curious, and keep in mind it is a curiosity and I am not accusing you of anything. When you moved from one web site to another, did you keep the IP for you articles? Have previous companies ever approached you and asked not to re-publish or take-down old articles that were made while you were employed with them (like Penton for example)?

No, I don’t own any of the content I wrote at the previous site. Penton or whatever corporate conglomerate could conceivably tell me to take down articles I’ve republished here, but I try to add to them at least a little bit, and clean them up and edit them. And they’re too f&*%ing incompetent for me to even worry about that. They should have given me the site back when I left, it would still be going strong. Instead, it’s this sad, hard-to-find thing with missing images and broken links. What they’ve done with the site is beyond disgraceful. Maybe I should sue them. 🙂

Session restore

wright_is asks:

I use Windows 10, 11, macOS and Linux every day… Why is it that Windows is still the only operating system that, after nearly 35 years, still hasn’t learnt how to restore the session on boot-up? On the Mac and in Linux, when I turn on the PC and sign-in, the applications I had previously open re-open automatically, with the documents I had open when I shutdown, and in the same positions on the screen.

This is an excellent question.

I can’t explain why this wasn’t ever fixed, of course, and I’m aware of various efforts over the years in this direction. But the only place we really see this sort of thing is Windows 365. I suspect it literally is a hard problem and that Windows doesn’t justify this kind of effort in the minds of decision-makers. Instead, they’re putting lipstick on the pig because that’s what they believe will make users happy and hopefully drive new PC sales.

You know, the more I think about this, it’s not really that hard of a problem. Apps can very easily remember their size, position, and state (maximized vs. floating window), which I know because even I was able to add this functionality to my own apps. Why can’t Windows constantly keep track of what’s running and where? Even if you yanked out the power plug, everything could come right back when you power it on again.

Thanks for ruining my morning, lol. 🙂

Thoughts and prayers

jeroendegrebber asks:

A question more fitting for the beginning of the year: in the context of technology, what are your hopes and fears for 2022 ? What things are you cynical about and what things (unexpectedly?) positive?

It’s hard not to think personally about this one. I often say something along the lines of, “I have high hopes but realistic expectations,” when it comes to technology. And I always think this way when I think about the state of the products and services I use and rely on.

Windows, for example. I hope that Microsoft somehow creates a consistent UI that retains the most important features from Windows 10, but I also know that will never happen. And so I engage in a form of internal bargaining. How much of the terrible can I take? How good does it have to be generally for me to overlook the bad bits?

Pixel is like this too. I keep thinking, even expecting, that Google will get it right someday. But literally every single generation of this product line has had major issues that make it less than ideal (or even endemically bad, like the Pixel 2 XL). I try to have realistic expectations. But Google always finds a way. They are literally the new Microsoft.

So for 2022. Hm.

I hope Microsoft delivers a version of Windows 11 that doesn’t disappoint and stops antagonizing users, be it through unnecessary advertising, crapware, tracking, regressed features, or a comically inconsistent user interface. (Seriously. Windows 11 is the Windows Mobile 6.5 of the PC world.)

I hope that Google releases a Pixel 7 Pro with a flat display, a reliable fingerprint reader, and even better cameras.

More broadly, however, my big hopes and cynicisms for 2022 are all about Big Tech. I hope that Apple and Google, especially, are forced to open their walled gardens and lower fees across the board, moves that would literally positively impact everyone … but them. Who cares? They’re too big and powerful as it is. I’d like to see Meta die in a fire and end up wherever Myspace is today. And Amazon. No company has done more to ruin this world than Amazon.

I’m cynical enough to know that each will push back as hard as possible to whatever legal actions, and be as horrible as possible, to put this off for as long as they can. But I’m also clear-eyed enough to see the cracks appearing one by one, most recently in the EU Digital Markets Act and Google’s trial of external billing systems. These things are happening because Big Tech is terrible and will never regulate itself. And it’s finally getting chipped away.

We’ll see what happens. But here, I think, the outcome will be mostly positive overall. And that’s pretty good. Look at me not being negative!

Beta vs. Dev

madthinus asks:

This week we saw the first build of windows 11 22H2 in the beta channel. I take that to mean that the underpinnings are a lock. driver / kernel changes is complete and that we will just see interface changes forward. This a reasonable assessment. Also, there is not much there in this build yet. Is the Yearly cycle even needed?

Honestly, I’m not even sure what to make of this. The Insider Programs keeps doing things that are unprecedented, so it’s hard to compare with the past.

I do agree that the contents of this build can be considered a lock for the first Windows 11 feature update.

I also believe there is more to come, and that we will see more new features—-perhaps some in Dev that aren’t in Beta—-at the coming Windows 11 hybrid work event and/or Build. This can’t be it. Windows 11 still needs so much work.

But it’s impossible to know for sure. Maybe that’s the point. They over-promised and underdelivered on the first version of Windows 11. Maybe they want to do differently for the second version.