Ask Paul: June 6 (Premium)

Happy Friday! I got off light last week, but that’s not the case this time. So settle in, it’s going to be a long read, and perfect timing right ahead of the weekend.

? The Sonos paradox

helix2301 asks:

I dropped in the forums early this week about an iOS / iPad OS app called Clic App for Sonos. It is supposed to be better than the Sonos app that’s been on life support to get fixed. I was wondering your thoughts. Trying to help, I know you hate the new Sonos app 😉

Two things up front.

First, apologies. I saw your post, installed the app, and figured I could give it a try the next time we listened to music (which should be tonight). But then I never chimed in on that, sorry.

Two, everyone hates the new Sonos app. I think what sets me apart is that I hated the previous Sonos app as well. Sonos makes great hardware, but its software was never any good. This wasn’t a problem for a long time because I could control it with what was then called Google Play Music on Android, and with Apple devices, you can use AirPlay to control the speakers nicely. If you use Spotify, you’re all set as well. The only occasional issue I’d run into was that I use/used Pocket Casts for podcasts, and there’s no way to control Sonos from that app (on Android, on Apple you can use AirPlay for any app).

Anyway. Every time Sonos is in the news, I open the app to see whether it’s better in some obvious. The last time this happened was about a month ago. In the wake of the latest Sonos earnings announcement, its interim CEO did a publicity tour and a series of interviews, and I read several of them. The key takeaways are that he really wants the job permanently, and he feels that Sonos has turned the corner on app quality.

We all have our opinions on that, I guess, but I’m willing to hold it up to the low bar of the previous app version. And my takeaway now is the same it’s been for several months now. It’s … fine. It’s a much nicer looking app than the previous version, but it’s still a bit slow, and that’s true all over the place. But other than that, the biggest problems I had with it originally are mostly fixed. Switching speakers or adding/removing speakers from the now playing group (Sonos calls this “queue”) seems reasonably reliable. You can move the positions of songs in now playing (and do without first entering an edit mode, as with the previous app), and you can browse for music across services and then add one to now playing next or at the end of the queue. It’s fine.

But all I really want is to use the same apps I always use. On Apple, this is easy: I can output to one or more Sonos speakers (and/or sets) from YouTube Music (music), Pocket Casts (podcasts), Audible (audiobooks), or any other app and it just works for the most part. On Android, this is a problem. Thanks to their legal battles, YouTube Music never got the ability to directly control Sonos. (Audible does support this.) Ideally, Sonos speakers would show up in that Cast screen alongside Chromecast/Google Cast-compatible speakers, as happens on Apple devices with AirPlay. I wish Sonos and Google would bury the hatchet.

With regard to Clic, the presence of AirPlay makes this app less necessary on Apple’s platforms, and in some ways, it would have made more sense to target Android first. They are charging for it, and that’s the type of thing that would go over better with Apple customers. I don’t mind paying for something I would use, but it’s also kind of expensive: $59.99 lifetime or $14.99 per year. I guess they’re looking at the audience and thinking that anyone fully invested in Apple and Sonos can afford it. Fair enough. But again, I would just use AirPlay and the apps I prefer anyway.

Clic is a great looking app. I do like that someone is taking this on. And I’m surprised there isn’t more of this.

? One year later, still the same problem

Shane asks:

Have a new laptop. ASUS Ryzen AI 9HX 370.

With the capabilities for the ai side of things now. And I am just delving into the ai world. Is there anything different I could should do. Are there ways to benefit from what the laptop can do. Or am I over thinking (like I do) and this will all happen naturally without me thinking about it.

When I started using the first Snapdragon X-based Copilot+ PCs last summer, it became obvious very quickly that the local AI capabilities were not among the biggest advances there: Efficiency, battery life, reliability, and performance were, to me, much bigger selling points. And as AMD and Intel jumped into the game with their own Copilot+ capable chips, that pretty much continued. The big difference there is that those PCs are surprisingly capable gaming rigs, too, especially those based on AMD chips like yours.

Local AI will likely never tip the scales for a buying decision per se, but the big issue there is just maturity: The initial capabilities that Microsoft built in to Windows 11 were weak, to say the least. And third-party support has been not so much a slow boil but rather very specific to certain use cases. For example, creative apps like video and photo editors are quickly embracing local AI capabilities. The problem is that few will even know or notice the benefit, since they’re usually relegated to individual features in an app with thousands of features. If local AI just made an objection selection in Photoshop (or whatever) some tiny bit faster in real world terms, few would even see it happen.

Flash forward a year and a lot has changed, but also little has changed. What I mean is that Microsoft and third parties are racing to embrace local AI in various ways, via individual features in different apps and services, but to the user, it’s not even clear when and where that happens. It’s a lot of mostly very small things, I guess. Plus, because of the obvious chicken/egg problem, Microsoft is using a lot of cloud-based AI for Windows 11 features, so most of what it announces will work on any PC. But this is why I sort of view Copilot+ PCs as a third SKU for consumers beyond Home and Pro: Each has unique features the lower-end versions lack. On Copilot+ PCs, these are local AI features that utilize the NPU. For example, anyone with Windows 11 can use the Image creator feature in Paint. But only those with a Copilot+ PC can use–or will even see–Cocreator. Which is terrible, because local AI is not as powerful as cloud-based AI.

The biggest use cases for local AI today are still mostly creative apps. But developers who want to experiment or use local AI with a Copilot+ PC have lots of options. Back in February, I wrote about using the Windows Copilot Runtime (now called Windows AI Foundry) to use the PC’s NPU for text creation and rewriting tasks, and those capabilities have gotten much better. I’ve also used the AI Toolkit extension in VS Code to interact with various local AI models in a chat environment similar to ChatGPT or Copilot (on an AMD-based Copilot+ PC, in that case). And at Build last month, Microsoft announced a way for developers to download models locally and interact with them at the command line, again as with a chatbot. You just install the local AI foundry in Windows 11 and can select from whatever models Microsoft offers. I haven’t written about those last two yet, but I did experiment with both.

If you’re not a developer or aren’t interested in these types of command line activities, I would look at two things: The AI Hub in the Microsoft Store, which is reasonably good but makes it difficult to just find apps with local AI capabilities; and the various Windows Insider announcements for upcoming Windows 11 features that are specific to Copilot+ PCs. Recall and Click to Do are generally available now (and the latter is far more interesting), but the underlying platform for App actions is expanding rapidly now and that will only continue. Many of these actions will be cloud-based services, but some/many will be local too, and specific to Copilot+ PCs.

But yeah. The reasons to get a laptop with the AMD chip you got have a lot more to do with performance, battery life, and gaming than AI. I don’t see that changing dramatically.

? Synology and phones

JustMe asks:

EDIT: Had a question regarding your NAS and your phone backups strategy – particularly given you occasionally switch between IOS and Android. Then, after I had submitted my question, I read Online Accounts 2025: Little Tech Remote Access (Premium) which would seem to cover my question.

I’m still sorting through the whole interaction between Synology and my devices, but in particular phones. So this will evolve over time. That article is basically where I’m at as I write this. But we’ll see where it goes.

For my own phone (an IPhone), I use a commercial program called IMazing for a local backup, and whenever I upgrade, I use Apple’s “youre trading your phone in” temporary cloud backup.

I don’t see backing up a phone to Synology, but I pay for an expensive iCloud plan because my kids also use iPhones and they get backed up through that. But I suppose if I weaned myself off the Apple ecosystem in time, I would do something similar. It’s good to know that such a thing is even possible. Synology continues to amaze.

Recently backed up a couple machines myself – I tend to blend an external drive or two and a modest cloud backup for my own needs. On the W11 front, we have two laptops in the house that run W10 and recently upgraded one of them to W11. The other will follow shortly, but I was somewhat surprised that the process went relatively smoothly. It took a while, but I expected it to as this is an 8th gen machine. What I found interesting – when you start the upgrade process, Windows checks for updates. After it booted, I went to Windows Update…and found more updates. I felt a strange sense of …I dont know if peace (as in, all is right in the world, this is normal…) is the right word when, after installing four updates, Windows Update promptly hung. Some time later I rebooted the laptop…and as if by magic, Windows Update started working again.

LOL. That is the Windows 11 experience in a nutshell, sadly. When it works … nice. But it doesn’t work sometimes, seemingly randomly. I can’t say I’ve stopped trying to understand this, but I’ve at least stopped being surprised by it.

I told these stories on the most recent Windows Weekly, but I had two incidents recently that I describe as “peak Microsoft.”

• I was working on two laptops on the bed when my phone rang. I picked it up to answer it but couldn’t hear anything, and then I noticed that it had picked up on the first laptop, via a small Phone Link window. So I clicked its “Switch to mobile device” (or whatever) button and tried to answer it again, but couldn’t hear anything. Then I noticed the second laptop had the same window. So I clicked that “Switch to mobile device” button and tried again. Nope. It would only switch between the two laptops. I finally closed the lids on both and could then interact with my phone like a normal person. The woman on the other end was laughing, but I have no idea why she even stayed on the call. It was ridiculous.
• If I right-click on an image file on the Copilot+ PC that I’m using to write this, I see “Edit with” choices for Clipchamp, Notepad (??), Paint, and Photos, but the first three are direct links while the Photos option has a sub-menu. This would indicate to me that it has two or more actions, but when I open that, I see one. For “Edit with Paint.” Why the F$%# isn’t that in the main menu with the other choices? Microsoft. That’s why.

? Surfacing our collective ire

ianceicys asks:

I’m writing as someone who’s been deeply invested in the Microsoft ecosystem for decades—loyal through the highs and the heartbreaks. But I’ll be honest: I’m feeling seriously disillusioned with the state of Surface, and I’d love your take.

When it comes to self-doubt and regret and the Microsoft ecosystem, I’m right there with you, of course. Each of these platforms, current or gone but not forgotten, has triggered some soul-searching over time. And it’s interesting, perhaps, that when I think about things like Surface and Xbox, which are “not dead yet,” or Media Center, Zune, or Windows Phone, which are, the same themes keep coming up. I’m in a weird spot because I have to at least try to think rationally about this stuff because God help me if someone spends $2000 or whatever on some hardware device I recommended and they don’t have a good experience. But I also have what might accurately be described as an unhealthy attachment to some of this stuff. I have to fight this all the time.

Point being, I hear you.

I spent over $4,600 on a fully loaded Surface Laptop Studio 2. On paper, it should be a powerhouse: top-tier specs, NVIDIA 4060 GPU, premium design. And yet, like Richard Campbell, I’m haunted by the constant fan noise and the sense that, under the surface (pun intended), the silicon just isn’t where it needs to be.

The real disappointment? It’s still an Intel machine.

Yep. I discussed this purchase with Richard before he pulled the trigger, and you may not know he actually purchased two of those laptops, one for him and one for his wife. She works in a very technical field and has specific requirements for PCs that include a powerful GPU, but like my wife, she’s not really into personal technology. So the theory there was that he would get the same PC for himself so that he could more easily help her if necessary if something went wrong. And for whatever its worth, his previous PC was a Surface Book 3, also with the GPU, and the Laptop Studio was, of course, the successor to that product line.

In any event, he knew then that there would be better/more efficient laptops coming in the next year, but Snapdragon was still an unknown in real world terms, and wouldn’t ship for several more months. And the reality of these purchases is that you need a new laptop or you don’t, and if it’s time to buy something new, you have whatever the selection is at the time. There’s always something better around the corner.

To be fair to Microsoft, Surface Laptop Studio 2 is still unique in that it is, to my knowledge, the only laptop that ever took advantage of what was then a unique Intel capability to add a discrete NPU on the motherboard. And so this was an early peek at what a proto-Copilot+ PC might be. But with a weaker NPU than Microsoft eventually realized it needed (or that Intel could supply, at the time). And this laptop provided a way forward for Surface Book fans in a form factor that is/was more reliable and more sense because the tablet/touch/pen experience isn’t used as much as the clamshell laptop form factor and so it’s optimized for that use case. These hybrid designs are never perfect, but it eliminated the complexity and reliability issues from Surface Book at least.

And while Apple has been five years deep into its M-series journey, with unmatched performance and 3nm efficiency, Microsoft’s hardware story feels… stuck and falling further and further behind (I picked up a Copilot+Surface at Costco back in March and after almost 2 months and plenty of patience…I ended up returning it…Qualcomm against M-Series just isn’t a winner).

Some of this is just timing. It took Qualcomm a $1.4 billion acquisition (of Nuvia), a years-long legal battle with Arm, and several years of development to get to the first-gen Snapdragon X, which is an entirely new design unrelated to its previous Windows on Arm chips. And while it was waiting for all that to happen, Microsoft plowed ahead by improving the platform (Prism emulator, Arm64EC, etc.). And then it finally did happen. But it took a while.

The way I think of Snapdragon X-based Copilot+ PCs vs. a MacBook Air hasn’t changed: It finally got Microsoft, Windows 11, and the PC in the ballpark when it comes to performance, reliability, efficiency, and battery life. It will never be as good, per se, but then Mac doesn’t have to deal with the backward compatibility stuff like Windows does. Remember: Apple’s Rosetta solutions are temporary, but the emulation work Microsoft did is permanent, or at least very long-lasting. It doesn’t just have to fill a gap, it needs to work great forever going forward. So here, too, I feel the need to give some credit to Microsoft and Qualcomm.

I was a Windows Phone believer, and I remember watching that platform wither—not from lack of vision, but lack of execution and momentum. And frankly, Surface—despite all its promise—feels dangerously close to that same cliff.

There are differences. Windows Phone was innovative, but also late to market and rushed to get there. And while everyone has their pet excuse for why it failed, the biggest reasons are that the market spoke that it only needed two platforms and the companies that control big brands were never going to buy into the integration functionality that was Windows Phone’s big advance.

To put that latter bit in perspective, it’s helpful to remember that this happens everywhere. Apple’s goal for Apple TV is to provide a single, agnostic interface to all the services that any given customer subscribes to, but for that to work, all the services have to buy in. Some have: You can see the next episode of a Hulu-based TV show right at the top of the Home view in Continue Watching, alongside whatever content from Apple and other services. But Netflix, the most important service, will never do that. And so Apple is forced to let users choose their primary UI: The Apple TV+ app, which offers this integration, or the old-fashioned icon grid view. Which I choose because I use multiple services that don’t care about Apple’s user-centric goals (in this case). Apple has the same issue with Apple TV that Microsoft had with Windows Phone. But this is a much smaller market and it’s not crucial to people all day, every day, like a phone is.

Even with the Qualcomm push and Copilot PC launch, it seems clear the market isn’t biting, and let’s be honest—NVIDIA isn’t betting big on Windows on ARM either (if they were this year’s Build Conference would have had an announce).

I’m not sure what to say to this. Snapdragon X is an astonishing achievement, and I very much prefer using those PCs over anything with an AMD or Intel processor. I am a bit surprised that the second generation is taking so long, but I chalk that up to Qualcomm’s desire to get this superior platform on its phones too. Now that they’ve done that, we’ll see. And the fact that AMD, MediaTek, Samsung, and Nvidia have all expressed interest in creating Windows on Arm chips is very telling. The industry knows this is the right direction. And it is.

So here’s my core question: Should I finally accept that Surface just isn’t a viable alternative to what Apple’s doing with M-series chips?

No. You have to use a Mac or an iPad with those chips, and those systems are both deeply flawed. This is a situation Apple could fix, and I keep waiting for that. But so far, it has not. But this is Apple. They do things in peculiar ways, too.

What I would ask you to consider, and what I believe, is what I said above. With Snapdragon X in particular, but also with the new AMD and Intel chips, PCs, Surface included, are in the ballpark in ways that they were not when Apple first announced the M1. These things can’t happen overnight. Again, what Microsoft and Qualcomm accomplished with Snapdragon X is amazing. It almost killed Intel (literally) with Lunar Lake to get its own inefficient chips just partway there.

Are you still bullish on the Surface…or do you too have the feeling that we are quietly living through SurfaceGate 2.0, just without the headlines (and yes I owned an original Surface Book — what the tech community and frustrated customers dubbed the serious reliability and quality control issues for Surface Book—because it signaled a major breach of trust in the Surface brand. The Surface Book line was ultimately discontinued, replaced by the Surface Laptop Studio—arguably a reboot after the Surface Book’s failed promise…and now in mid 2025 Microsoft announced it has discontinued the Surface Laptop Studio line)?

It’s almost not worth going through all the permutations of Surface tried and failed at. But this was never going to be a blockbuster bestseller and I feel like where they are now, focusing on two core product lines, each a popular form factor, and each with several model choices is correct. They did too much, and got too cheap, over too much time. Where they are now feels right to me. (I wrote about this topic in What’s Next for Surface? (Premium).)

If I don’t want to jump ship to macOS (though Tahoe looks like Aero Glass reborn–and done right with all the Apple polish and attention to detail –WWDC next week might just push me over the edge), and I’ve already been burned by Dell, HP, and even ThinkPads—is there any PC OEM that holds a candle to what Apple is doing in silicon and user experience? Or is a MacBook with an M-chip in my inevitable future?

Look. We all have to do whatever is right for us. And if a MacBook is what does that for you, there’s nothing wrong with that. There is that “grass is always greener” effect (I wrote the heading below before writing that, if that matters), and my experience with the Mac has been frustrating. I love the hardware. I do not love the software. But you may grok right on to it. Many do. Most stick with Windows. It doesn’t matter.

Right now, my favorite laptop is still the Surface Laptop 7, and it’s the laptop that maybe comes as close as is possible to the MacBook Air 15-inch experience. But I like big screens. The laptop I’m writing this on, which is a 14-inch Lunar Lake-based Lenovo laptop, is great too, though. For me, the efficiencies that I get with Windows vastly outweigh the extra battery life I may see on the Mac. When are we away from power and for how long? Is this really a serious issue? Have you seen how thick and heavy MacBook Pro laptops are? And is a thin and light form factor like you see with Air more important than what you’re doing on the device? This is all up to the individual.

In my opinion, what I’m calling SurfaceGate 2.0 isn’t about one bug or one device—it’s about the fragility of Microsoft’s hardware reputation and the underwhelming nature of Windows on ARM. When you’re charging Apple-level prices but can’t guarantee Apple-level reliability or long-term support, you’re walking a razor-thin line.

All I can say is that I disagree completely on Windows 11 on Arm, but I understand why anyone would think that Surface may not have a future. Objectively, Surface makes no sense as a business. I write that loving the product line and my laptop in particular. But again, none of this matters if you feel otherwise and would find peace getting a Mac. There literally is nothing wrong with that. Just know what you’re getting into. And if that’s great for you, that’s great.

Appreciate your insight, and thanks for continuing to be one of the most grounded voices in this space.

Thank you, but I spin out of control on a daily basis. I see where you’re coming from because these issues are bubbling inside me as well, and I think about this stuff all the time. I probably spend too much time just thinking. But it’s OK. If its easier to give advice than to follow it, that’s what I can do. I’m curious where you land. And one could make a good case for either direction.

? Mine still only goes to 11

simont asks:

I know it can’t/won’t happen, but October of this year would be the perfect time to release Windows 12. With a large percentage of people possibly going to buy a new PC/laptop, consumers could get the latest version of Windows when they buy a new PC/laptop.

As I write this, it’s June 6. Looking back, I can see that Microsoft announced Windows 11 on June 24, 2021, though we had seen the first leaks a few weeks earlier. The first Windows 11 post on this site is from June 15 that year. So we have at least a week. 🙂

Kidding.

This kind of thing is tricky and for all kinds of reasons. One is the support life cycle. I will always be amused and amazed that the goal for Windows 10 was to support it “for the lifetime” of the device and yet the actual support lifecycle will be 10 years, exactly, just like previous versions. Looked at another way, when Microsoft announced/released Windows 11, Windows 10 was 6 years old. And 6 years from mid-2021 is 2027. But even that isn’t really a pointer, because each Windows version is influenced by what came before. Windows 10 was important because Windows 8 was rejected by users, so only a few years had gone by. The big story there is similar to the situation we see today where most users are on some previous version that’s stable, well-understood, and even well-like (Windows 7, previously, Windows 10 now). And yet time marches on. So it has to head for the exit at some point.

Of course, we have to factor in the extended support period for Windows 10. And unless something changes, the real date to think about is a year from this October, since consumers only get a year (where businesses can go as long as three years). So maybe that’s the right time for Windows 12.

I’ve heard nothing recently about Windows 12. You could argue that what will likely be Windows 11 version 25H2 could be called Windows 12. And I hear that. But all I can really see for now is that the window, ahem, for a Windows 12 reveal is between this moment and one year from now. And if I were betting real money, I would bet on one year from now.

Ensuring that it will happen as soon as today. Because I’m always wrong about this kind of thing.

? Sometimes, the grass really is greener on the other side of the fence

simont asks:

OneDrive for Mac seems to be a much better cloud storage solution compared to the Windows. All it does is sync files, no nag screens, no syncing other folders whenever Microsoft feels like changing things, and the settings stay the same when the app is updated.

There is a colorful and NSFW idiom about treating your closest relationships with respect that Microsoft seems to have forgotten. In the good old days, so to speak, Microsoft would afford its users with the best experience on Windows, not on rival platforms. Under Satya Nadella, however, the Windows team has had to deal with two contrary edicts, and its response is similar to that in HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey, meaning that it ceased functioning correctly. In this case, Windows, like other product groups at Microsoft, had to exist in a company that was focused on cloud computing/subscriptions and meeting customers where they were (often not on Windows), while also justifying their existence financially. The result was enshittification, a series of initiatives in Windows to make this business make sense as a subscription/online service-type thing. A compromise. And so we see ads, and bad behaviors, and whatever else.

Microsoft can’t do this on the Mac. So this is either ironic or hypercritical, or both, but the net effect is a cleaner experience that respects your choices. It shouldn’t do this on Windows, either. And thanks to the EU’s Digital Markets Acts (DMA), it doesn’t. It shouldn’t need that prodding.

The thing that kills me about this is that it’s unnecessary. In my case, I was loyal Microsoft customer paying for a Microsoft 365 subscription. I was using OneDrive extensively. It works great, and it being integrated with Windows and not requiring an app install is ideal. There was no reason for me to ever think about not using OneDrive. Until Microsoft gave me those reasons. It’s just so pointless.

? Rich person, poor person

MichaelMDiv asks:

What is your take on Microsoft charging non-profits for Microsoft 365? They were giving away 10 licenses for free to small non-profits, but with only a month’s notice, they changed it to be the same price as all non-profits (which to be fair is a 75% discount over what businesses pay). Part of me thinks so few non-profits actually use Microsoft 365, the money is nothing to Microsoft, but obviously it does matter to them, or they wouldn’t have made the change. Is it extra money to pour into AI? Or is this more evidence that Microsoft is going to be a very different company going forward?

I meant to write about that when it happened recently, but I guess it got lost in the mix. In some ways, this might be seen as part of a series of steps backward that might include such things as Action Pack and whatever else. But yes, I do also see this as one of a growing list of changes that seem to be unique to this era, and that the Nadella business justification thing I noted above is going into overdrive. There were more layoffs this week, among them the person who led the MVP program, if you’re looking for other cuts that are surely coming. And again, I’ve heard about massive changes, bad changes, coming soon to Xbox. This has the feel of Amy Hood as a financial hatchet person of a sort. Nadella and the SLT seem to be out for blood.

? The nice thing about Android

MichaelMDiv asks:

Do you think OneUI will ever be as good as Pixel software? I agree with you that Samsung hardware and a Pixel UI is the best of both worlds, but since they are such strong competitors, I don’t think we will see Samsung stop trying to have their own ecosystem.

No, Samsung has its own competitive priorities. So it will always have some advantages and some detriments. The Pixel experience isn’t just about the front-end user interface, of course. Oddly, Samsung seems to come out ahead there. But it’s all the helpful services that pop-up all over the place on Pixel, from call screening to spam protection and a million other things. I really do prefer it overall for those reasons. I miss them when I use an iPhone, in particular.

Oddly, I just saw an article about making any Android phone more like Pixel this morning in my feed. Not sure if that helps per se, but this doesn’t really address the things I like most about Pixel.

? The problem with passkeys

OldITPro2000 asks:

In my quest to move from Authy to another TOTP authenticator, I wound up enabling Passkeys for a variety of sites where it made sense for me. The UX for Passkeys is still very inconsistent. Some sites allow you to save multiple keys, some only one. Some allow you to save a key to a password manager, some force you to save to the platform you are currently using. Often there are multiple UIs presented, some from the browser, some from the OS, and others from the password manager.

I can see this getting very confusing for anyone not paying attention. This could lead to a disaster later. For example, it would be easy for someone to log in to a site, get prompted to create a Passkey, and save it to Windows Hello. It will be stuck there. Later on, their laptop dies taking the Passkey with it…and that was the only way they know how to get in to that site. I’m curious how you are handling Passkeys, if at all, with your move to Proton Pass.

My experience is similar: Inconsistent implementations remains the biggest issue with passkeys and it’s a source of confusion even if you know what you’re doing. For example, one of the things I really like about Proton Pass–which I assume is the same or similar with other password managers with this type of portable passkey support–is that I can bring up a new browser, sign in to Proton Pass, and then go to a passkey-protected site like Gmail (or anything Google), Amazon, GitHub, or whatever and all I need to do is type in my email address. But with some sites, it’s even better: It will prompt me with the two Google accounts I have before I even type that, and I’m in. That kind of thing is amazing.

But sometimes when I go to a Google site for the first time in a new browser, it will prompt me with a QR code so I can sign in from my phone. This does work, but it’s an extra step and it takes time. And why doesn’t this work the same way every time? I have no idea.

When passkeys work, they’re the best. But yeah. Inconsistency is the worst. Saving a passkey to a particular device is not great–you cited one great reason–and that’s why this notion of portable passkeys through a password manager like Proton Pass is so crucial. You only need the one, but you can access it from multiple places (mobile devices, PCs with the app and/or web browser extension). And of course, it should be protected with a 2FA authenticator app, which ideally also works everywhere with sync. But this is all evolving. And change is hard, especially for typical non-technical users. It will get there. When this works, you can really see the future.

Also, I’m sure you sure the news about Microsoft’s Source magazine. When are we getting a print version of Thurrott.com?!?

So many thoughts.

Microsoft is doing more than any other company to kill the environment with its AI datacenters and now it’s killing trees, too? Smart.

You’re laying off valuable employees who did nothing wrong and … you’re starting a paper magazine?? Is this a joke?

Someone should tell Microsoft that no one reads anymore.

Someone should also tell Microsoft not to let the children that oversee its social media accounts get anywhere near this or any other real publication.

Why isn’t this available digitally from Windows 11 or whatever? This company spams us with crap all the time and now they’re putting out what I assume is a reasonable quality publication and … it’s on paper? Where does one even find this thing?

This company makes less sense to me every single day. Maybe that’s the only point that matters here.