Thurrott Daily: October 22

Thurrott Daily: October 22
Up and running on the Surface Book (i7) and Surface Dock today.

What else is happening today?

10/22/2015 5:04:28 PM

Mint is dropping support for Windows phones

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Shouldn’t be a shocker, but bad news nonetheless. Here’s the emailI just got from Mint:

Hello,

We are writing to inform you that we will be discontinuing support and development for the Mint Windows Phone mobile app.

We’ve promised to hold ourselves to the highest standard of quality in our products, and strongly believe that shifting our efforts to the Mint Web, iOS and Android applications will help us deliver above and beyond that promise. There’s so much about the Windows Phone app that we love – and it’s hard for us to say goodbye to it – but we are confident that this change will help you get even more out of Mint.

What’s next? All of your information will continue to be available to you across the Mint ecosystem, so it’s super easy to continue to stay on top of your finances. Simply log in to your account via the Mint Web application.

We are extremely grateful to have you with us on our journey to transforming how to spend smarter and save more. If you have any questions or comments along the way, please submit them here.

Best,
The Mint Team

 

10/22/2015 9:14:22 AM

Joe B. is taking a sabbatical, triggering worries

In recent years, Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore (or “Joe B” as we all call him) has become the public face, sort of, for Windows 10, thanks to his enthusiast, energetic demeanor. But when Joe didn’t appear at this month’s epic Windows Devices event in New York … I thought that was pretty odd. And both Mary Jo Foley and I were wondering if he hadn’t silently left Microsoft now that Windows 10 was complete.

And then Joe broke the silence via Twitter:

@joebelfiore: in other news.. I’m gonna be taking a little break from tweeting Windows info 2 all of you for a little while. 🙂

And he linked to a Facebook post that supplied a bit more info. Basically the usual family stuff, and Joe and his family will be traveling around the globe for the next whatever amount of time. He says he’ll be back when the year is over. But my understanding of Microsoft sabbaticals is that only a small percentage actually comes back, because they discover during their year off that there is a whole world out there and that the rigors of day-to-day life at Microsoft aren’t as necessary as they once thought.

So we’ll see. Obviously, Joe is huge for Microsoft and for the Windows community, and selfishly I’d love to see him come back. But I get it either way.

Michael Dells rips on Surface … in front of Satya Nadella

This is pretty funny. At a onstage appearance this week at Dell World with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Dell founder Michael Dell (I wonder how many times I can write the word “Dell” in one sentence. Dell) ripped on Surface, Fortune reports.

Dell called the Surface family of products part of an “icebreaker strategy” that will get people excited about an entire ecosystem of Windows products. And then came the dig.

“But the volumes are not very high, and the prices are pretty high,” Dell said.

The audience laughed, and Dell kept talking for a bit while Nadella looked taken aback.

Hilarious. And true. But I think that’s the strategy: Sell aspirational devices so that the entire ecosystem—including Dell—benefits.

Apple releases iOS 9.1

There’s no official announcement over on Apple.com, but the Cupertino super released iOS 9.1 to iDevices late yesterday.

To find out what’s new, I had to search a bit, and there’s not much: New emojis, a refined Live Photos, and a bunch of bug and security fixes.

Google will remove annoying YouTube ads … for a price

Google has announced YouTube Red, a paid version of the video streaming service that removes the ads for $10 a month. But there’s also a very interesting perk in there (highlighted below):

YouTube Red lets you enjoy videos across all of YouTube without ads, while also letting you save videos to watch offline on your phone or tablet and play videos in the background, all for $9.99 a month. Your membership extends across devices and anywhere you sign into YouTube, including our recently launched Gaming app and a brand new YouTube Music app we’re announcing today that will be available soon.

As a special bonus – YouTube Red works with Google Play Music, so subscribe to one and automatically get access to the other.

And starting early next year, YouTube Red will get even better with member-only access to new, original shows and movies from some of YouTube’s biggest creators.

Very interesting.

 

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