Native Apps? It’s a Trap! ⭐️

Maybe it's because I've been covering Microsoft professionally for over 30 years, I don't know, but when it comes to this company and its promises for Windows, I have these out-of-body experiences sometimes, these flashes that take me out of the moment. I had one when it announced Recall at the Copilot+ launch event in May 2024, knowing that enthusiasts were going to over-react when the company dialed down the privacy concerns, as if we suddenly all just trusted it to do the right thing. And I had one when Windows head Pavan Duluri claimed last month that Microsoft would focus on the "pain points" in Windows 11 in 2026.

Here we go, I thought.

I like Pavan Duluri, and I'll even go so far as to say that I trust the man. But I also knew from his previous hinting about the focus this year that Windows fans, buried deep in enshittification and AI bloat that's never lived up to the hype, were going to see what they wanted to see. And that's exactly what happened. As I discussed in Trust But Verify ⭐️, Davuluri not only ignored most of the instances of literal enshittification in Windows 11, but enthusiasts started anticipating changes that he never promised.

This is a big problem, and for once, it wasn't because of Microsoft's historic inability to communicate effectively. The best example, perhaps, is Copilot and AI: Most seem to have come away from this promise believing that Microsoft was going to remove most if not all Copilot and AI features from Windows 11. But what Davuluri promised was so much less. Microsoft will continue integrating Copilot and other AI features into the system, he admitted, but it would do so "more intentionally," providing Copilot and AI experiences that are “genuinely useful and well‑crafted.” And Microsoft is not removing Copilot/AI features from Notepad, Paint, and whatever other apps; it might instead remove the Copilot icon that so many enthusiasts find so grating. For some reason.

The disconnect here is two-sided. On the one hand, we have this vocal minority of AI-denying enthusiasts who don't represent mainstream users needs in the slightest. And on the other, we have a man, Pavan Davuluri, who wants to do the right thing for customers but must do whatever Microsoft's senior leadership requires of him. And what they require of him hasn't changed: Windows will continue getting new AI features this year and into the future.

With Davuluri's promises made public, other, less-well-known members of the Windows team and other teams that are, at best, Windows-adjacent, have started engaging with customers. But they're doing so on Twitter and other social media networks, ensuring that most of that engagement will be with the enthusiasts who, again, don't represent mainstream users at all, and who, as importantly, Microsoft desperately needs to shut up. To Microsoft, this crowd is passionate, if you want to sound positive, but it's really just a noisy rabble distracting from what really needs to happen. And...