Ask Paul: December 1 (Premium)

Thanks to everyone who asked a question this week. There are definitely some great discussions to be had around these topics.

Moto X4

spacecamel asks:

What do you think of the Moto X4? Are you going to do a review?

I would like to, and I will ask. (I do have a Moto Z Force in for review, and haven’t gotten to it yet. I’m behind on hardware reviews, as always.)

But based on what I’ve seen, the Moto X4’s camera, which is only good, not great, leaves it out of the running for me. The price is amazing, and that should make it interesting to many. And it can be had with Project Fi compatibility, which makes it inherently interesting to me.

Ultimately, this falls into a value category I really like. I agree it deserves some attention.

Which flagship

Sarge asks:

I see a lot of Pixel 2 vs. OnePlus 5T comparisons, but I’m kind of interested where the Samsung Galaxy S8 (+) fits into the mix? Isn’t it one of the main flagship units out now? I’ve seen some good discounts recently getting $350 or so off of them…

This is a topic I’ve been meaning to write about. Since I may still do so, let me give you the high-level answer here.

If you accept my contention that the modern smartphone is one with a 6-inch-ish 18:9-ish display, then the Samsung Galaxy S8/S8+/Note8 sit at the top of this market: Unlike the other offerings, like Google Pixel 2 XL and OnePlus 5T, these phones provides incredible curved-edged displays that truly set them apart. On the downside, some may not like those kinds of displays for whatever reason, and some may not like Samsung’s unique take on the Android UX. You could make an argument against Bixby and other Samsung-isms as well. But overall, I’d argue that they are at the top, for most people, regardless.

The Pixel 2 XL and OnePlus 5T are on the next rung down: They both offer that 6-inch/18:9 display, but with non-curved edges. They both offer clean Android experiences, which is a plus. The Pixel 2 XL works with Project Fi, which is a plus in my book, and it has an excellent camera. (The Samsungs do as well.) As for OnePlus 5T, I find the design to be superior to the Pixel 2 XL, but the camera, while very good, is not up to the quality level of the others. That said, at $500-$560, the OnePlus 5T is an unrivaled value. It’s just a tremendous device.

Which to choose? That depends on your personal needs and wants. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but I chose the Pixel 2 XL for reasons that matter to me, and I won’t recommend it to others. And if this helps, my wife’s parents are both due for an upgrade with their wireless carrier and asked for a recommendation: I recommended the Galaxy S8+ to both of them.

Password vaults

Belralph asks:

I don’t recall you or Brad talking about password vaults. As a computer enthusiast who also works in the field it presents the whole personal/work login challenges. Add in the fact my wife is not very tech savvy and it gets even more complicated. Any thoughts on finding the right tool?

The goal here, as I see it, is a combination security and convenience, with the latter including that the solution is available everywhere. The two most highly-rated password managers are LastPass, which I’ve used and can recommend, and 1Password. But I often just rely on browser-based password sync, since I mostly just need this on the web. And both Android and iOS, I believe, have picked up this capability for mobile apps now, too, so we’re seeing it at the platform level finally. The nice thing about, say, Chrome password sync is that it’s tied to your Google account. So that will come through to Android apps too.

Linking a phone to a Windows 10 PC

Simard57 asks:

I am trying to link my Moto Z3 to my Windows 10 laptop. I have Launcher, Edge and Cortana already installed on the phone, I selected the Phone setting on the PC and went through the link phone path. I clicked the link sent in text message on phone. Every app in the Phone settings remains grayed out. Is there something else I am supposed to do to activate the sync between my phone and PC?

So, I’m not sure what’s happening exactly, but once you do establish a link, there are no options to speak of in Phone settings (meaning Settings > Phone in Windows 10). The interface appears to exists solely to let you add and remove linked phones only.

Email me if you want to go through this in more detail, please.

Paul moved to Pennsylvania

wunderbar asks:

Did you move recently? I’ve barely heard anything about this.

You get me. 🙂

Surface usage share

matsan asks:

Related to your articles about Windows 10 usage share from AdDuplex and in there discussing the Surface [usage] share combined with the article “Serious about software? Build you own hardware”: I did some “back-of-the-napkin” calculations that makes me really wonder about those Surfaces sales and if Microsoft can continue the product even though everyone MS-oriented on the Internet sings their gospel.

I meant to do some math around this myself. So let me take a stab at Surface sales estimates.

We now know that there are 600 million Windows 10 PCs out in the world. Looking at only those Surface PCs that have only shipped with Windows 10, we can thus guess how many of these PCs that Microsoft has sold. (This assumes we believe AdDuplex’s numbers to represent the broader Windows 10 user base. I see arguments on both sides, but the short version is that these estimates are, if anything, a bit low.)

According to AdDuplex, Surface represents 2.7 percent of all Windows 10 PCs in use. 2.7 percent of 600 million is 16.2 million. Now, it is obvious that some percentage of older Surface PCs are running older Windows 10 versions. But here’s how the numbers break down for those that have only shipped with Windows 10, given the data we do have:

• Surface Book: 1.15 million units
• Surface Pro 4: 6.43 million units
• Surface Studio: 32,400 units
• Surface Laptop: 324,000 units
• Surface Pro (2017): 1.49 million units
• Surface Book 2: 64,800 million units (just released)

The math: Surface Book, as an example, represents 7.1 percent of all Surface PCs running Windows 10. So 7.1 percent of 2.7 percent of 600 million is 1.15 million units sold/out in the world.

So. Getting to matsan’s actual questions…

Is Microsoft looking at the Surfaces in the same way as Ericsson did, as a portal to the cloud services?

I do think there is a halo element to Surface, meaning that Microsoft is making devices that make its software and services look as good as possible, and that it is creating aspirational choices that lift the whole PC market. Is this a “better business” than doing something else? I don’t know. Surface is one of those things that is endlessly debatable, and I feel like Microsoft may have forever planted a seed of doubt in its PC maker partners and that this may make them more seriously consider alternatives. But what alternatives? Chromebook? Google makes an expensive and aspirational Pixelbook.

Is Microsoft giving away these Surface devices?!?

I don’t believe that is the plan. And while we have no evidence, per se, that Surface is or is not profitable/successful by traditional measures, I don’t think it is a wide-scale financial disaster like the original Xbox and Xbox 360. It’s certainly no Nokia/Lumia.

The plan must be for Surface to make sense financially. That’s Satya Nadella’s Microsoft. And there’s no reason a small PC business can’t be both financially success and inspirational.

How long can this last?!?

I don’t see Microsoft getting rid of Surface in the short term, but I have always wondered about the end game. Does Surface inspire enough PC makers to make better products that it is no longer necessary? Don’t they just run out of new form factors at some point? It’s hard to say.

Why are they not reporting better statistics on this?

I ask this every quarter, and I am astonished that this level of abstraction is legal and acceptable to shareholders. I wish I had answer, sorry.

Call of Duty

KernelBSD asks:

Any chance of you and Brad playing a little Call of Duty match on the live stream sometime?

This is an excellent idea, and I’ve been meaning to do some Mixer streaming. The only issue is timing: We’re away for the next week, so it would have to be after that.

PWA and Microsoft mobile

will asks:

Paul since you have talked about how PWA are going to be a big push in RS4 and future Windows releases, I am curious if this would be the catalyst that helps get Microsoft back into the mobile arena?

That’s interesting, I’ve never thought of it that way.

To date, Microsoft’s big contributions to PWA are that they are making these web apps formally available in their Store—something even Google doesn’t do, though that will change—and are formalizing their use on the bigger screens used by PCs; Google’s efforts, to date, have all been on mobile.

But when you think about it, Google needs to address larger screens, too: It has brought the Google Play Store and Android apps to Chromebooks, after all. So in that sense, I could see Google expanding its PWA platform capabilities to include scalable support for displays of all sizes. Certainly, Microsoft has proven that this works fine.

As for Microsoft, I’m not sure that they—or developers that target Microsoft platforms–have much incentive to worry about smaller screens, which is the obvious path to mobile. The good news is that it’s happening without them, so any PWA that is designed for, say, Android, should run fine on Windows 10. And I’d imagine that we will see phone-sized/shaped PWA apps on Windows 10 as a result, as we see with Android apps on Chrome OS.

(Non-random aside: If you look at the Windows 10 Calculator app, you’ll see a native app that starts out as phone shaped/sized but can be expanded to accommodate the larger screen too. It’s hard not to look at that app and think, that’s a phone app.)

But mobile doesn’t mean “phone,” of course. And I think Microsoft’s “return” to mobile, such as it may be, will have more to do with new hybrid form factors that have more in common with tablets and 2-in-1s than phones. And in that sense, they are ideally situated. PWA certainly helps there, as it does throughout the Windows 10 ecosystem.

Microsoft Edge on Windows 10

DanStorm7 asks:

With Edge on iOS/Android now out of preview have you heard any more about Microsoft de-coupling Edge the app from the OS and updating it more regularly through the Store?

Nothing official from Microsoft, no. As you may know, they’ve gone back and forth on this: At one time, they had said they would do this eventually, but the most recent public statement from the company is that it will not.

That’s a mistake, of course. Most of most popular web browsers, like Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox, are updated far more frequently, and users of those product benefit greatly from that.

Further, it’s weird to me that Microsoft is too aggressive with OS upgrades—two Windows 10 feature releases per yet—but far too slow with Microsoft Edge updates. I hope they change their minds on this: Edge needs to be updated like any other Store app. Hopefully, their experience with Edge on mobile will demonstrate this.

What’s a Store app?

hrlngrv asks:

Windows Services for Linux: different distributions are now distributed through the MSFT Store, but these aren’t Store apps. (Or are they?) If WSL distributions could use the Store as distribution channel, any chance MSFT would distribute non-packaged Win32 programs through the Store? If not, does that imply MSFT loves Linux more than Win32?

They are not UWP apps. But the definition of “what’s a Store app” is obviously evolving. And is, frankly, too vague for my tastes.

For example, if you were to describe Windows 10 S in one sentence, you might say that it is the version of Windows that can only run Store apps. But Windows 10 S cannot run the Linux distributions, which come from the Store. I find this kind of thing frustrating, though I realize that everyone will simply see the content in the Store that they can download on that particular PC.

Anyway, I’ve long wanted for Microsoft to “certify” Win32/desktop applications so that they can be distributed by the Store and, ideally, installed on Windows 10 S too. There are different approaches to this, but the best one, I think, is for Microsoft or the third party developer to wrap desktop applications in an AppX container—e.g. use Desktop Bridge.

We will definitely see some movement in this direction, I think. But this issue speaks to my central problem with Windows 10 S, which is that it’s a hard line when what it should be is a goal down the road. Any user should be able to step through some prompts and install anything on that PC if they want. It’s too limiting right now. And it will alienate users.

Firefox, Windows 10 longetivity, and loot boxes

MartinusV2 asks three questions (cheater!) …

1- Can Firefox take some market share against Chrome or it will take more from Edge?

I obviously love Firefox—I’m using it again, after all—but I have a hard time seeing it move the needle too much on usage share. I bet its low single digits at best, but I’d be happy to see it chip away at Chrome. Google, like Microsoft and IE before it, needs competition to do its best work. Not sure what to say about Edge: It will slowly gain too, if only because it’s what’s in Windows now.

2- How much time to you think Microsoft will keep updating Windows 10? If Microsoft would say that Windows is dead, what OS would you choose to replace Windows?

There are two ways to look at Windows. One, it’s fading. And two, it’s still a huge business. As long as that is the case, Microsoft will keep improving it. The weird bit here is that, should Windows usage suddenly fall through the floor, the last holdouts will be businesses, and those customers are the least interested in Microsoft’s “Windows as a service” scheme. I’m curious to see how that all plays out.

3- Is the gaming industry is going too far for asking for money for loot crates like the fiasco that EA did with Battlefront II if you pay a premium price for the game in the first place?

Loot crates are like smoking. We’re going to look back on this and wonder what the frick we were thinking.

Tech nostalgia

jimchamplin asks:

Favorite era for computing. Early 90s? The XP years? You’ve been in the game for a long time, and it would be cool to know when you enjoyed it all the most!

I’m of two minds here, because I have deep nostalgia for technology over the years, and because things are obviously “better” now than they’ve ever been.

A few moments come to me immediately.

Everyone knows the Bill Gates/Paul Allen moment where they see the Altair on the cover of Popular Electronics and they suddenly realize that they can be part of that movement. I experienced this as a kid, sort of, when I saw the Commodore 64 in a store, and began picking up the paper brochures as my head spun: I just saw the potential in this thing and I wanted to be part of it.

The Amiga, likewise, was a big deal for me. I couldn’t afford a higher-end Amiga, but I decked out my Amiga 500 pretty nicely and was impressed by its multitasking capabilities, and mocked Microsoft and Windows for that system’s relative ineptitude.

In the mid-1990’s, right before I started down my current career path, my wife was working at Computer Prep, a technology training/education company, and she brought home the documentation for Microsoft Word (6, I think; it was probably the version before Word 95). I was blown away, and I could see that this thing was much more powerful than anything on the Amiga. I decided to build a PC.

Windows 95, of course, was a revolution, and the first time that Microsoft put it all together in a way that put the Mac to shame. It changed everything, and I was happy to be a big part of that.

DOOM and other early first-person shooters changed everything too. John Carmack’s ability to do such a thing on a lowly PC, with performance even an Amiga couldn’t match, was magic.

There’s a lot, I guess. More, really. But I have to end this somewhere. 🙂

On a related note, one thing I’ve meant to write about, mostly for myself, because I’m not sure this is even interesting to anyone, is about how my memories of some digital places—like maps in various Call of Duty games—are just as “real” to me as memories of real places. This kind of falls into this category. Sort of.