Thurrott Daily: November 16

Here’s what else is happening today.

11/16/2015 10:55:36 AM

Reminder: I’m heading the UK tomorrow

As you may recall, Mary Jo Foley and I will be recording Windows Weekly live this week at the sold out Stacked 2015 conference in Manchester, England. And then we’re hosting a Windows Weekly meet-up at World’s End Camden in London on Friday evening from 5-8 pm local time.

See you in the UK!

3 Moves Microsoft Corporation Is Making to Help Xbox One Beat PlayStation 4

Motley Fool chimes in on how Microsoft is attacking the growing gap between PS4 and Xbox One sales.

1. Expanding media features and Windows connectivity.
2. Deliver a strong exclusive lineup.
3. Opening up the platform (EA Access, Xbox 360 games)

Oddly, I think they’re missing the biggest improvement: An incredible lineup of price-friendly Xbox One bundles that provide additional storage, additional games, and/or consoles that are customized for particular games. But however you slice it, Microsoft is clearly doing what they can do.

How Apple Is Giving Design A Bad Name

This is a fascinating article from Fast Company:

Once upon a time, Apple was known for designing easy-to-use, easy-to-understand products.

No more … Gone are the fundamental principles of good design: discoverability, feedback, recovery, and so on. Instead, Apple has, in striving for beauty, created fonts that are so small or thin, coupled with low contrast, that they are difficult or impossible for many people with normal vision to read. We have obscure gestures that are beyond even the developer’s ability to remember. We have great features that most people don’t realize exist.

Apple is destroying design. Worse, it is revitalizing the old belief that design is only about making things look pretty.

I actually agree with this. One of the big tips I have for iOS users—and think about it, why would I ever be coming up with iOS tips?—is to use the well hidden Accessibility tools, which many believe are only for the handicapped, to enable larger text and bold text. Why? Because in iOS 7+, the fonts are so thin they’re hard to read.

The thing is, Apple has long suffered from this kind of problem, which is best and most simply described as “form over function.” In making something beautiful (which is subjective anyway), they are making it likewise unusable (which is objective, and true generally).

“Apple will not ‘converge’ iPad and MacBook lines, says Tim Cook”

Which means, naturally, that they will in fact do that. Because. Apple. Lies.

Huawei can quick-charge your phone without hurting its battery

That headline hides the real news. Which is this:

With a 3,000mAh of the sort you’d find in a larger phone, Huawei can give you a 48 percent charge in just 5 minutes.

“Walmart’s $10 Smartphone Has Better Specs Than the Original iPhone”

That is actually not that impressive. The original iPhone is over 8 years old, which is about 100 years in smart phone age. What is impressive is that any smart phone could sell for as little as $10. Here it is.