Ask Paul: March 8 (Premium)

Happy Friday! After a one-week hiatus, Ask Paul is back with some great questions from readers.

My real opinion of Samsung

wolters asks:

Paul, what is your true opinion on Samsung Phones and Devices? When they are mentioned on Windows Weekly, I’ve heard varying degrees of options from you and I’m interested to see what you think. Every year since Note 5, I tend to go with a Note phone but within weeks, I go to a Pixel. My reason is plain and simple…the camera is the most important thing to me. Samsung cameras, on paper, always sound good but tend to also always disappoint. Over-saturation, blurry shots and buggy camera app seem to be the deal breaker for me. I truly believe the Note phone is a powerhouse of mobile productivity but the camera always disappoints.

I feel like this information is out there, but all over the place. Long story short, Samsung is a force to be reckoned with, and the quality of their smartphones—especially the displays—is unparalleled. Like you, I find that camera quality is right at the top of my own little decision matrix, and that’s where Samsung performs well but has never really exceled. (If you look back at my Galaxy S9+ review, I felt that the camera would satisfy most users. But it feel short for me, specifically because I had experience with the Pixel cameras. Most people don’t.)

I’ve not used a Galaxy S10/S10+ but DxOMark rates that camera in the same range as the Huawei Mate 20 Pro, which I’ve found to have the best camera among smartphones. I would need to see this for myself, but it appears that they’ve improved the camera quite a bit in this new model.

There are other issues with Samsung’s phones, like the rampant crapware and app/services duplication, which is more about them out-doing Google than serving customers properly. And the UI, which has always been a mixed bag. They just replaced their UI, however, and the new one is reportedly pretty good. I would like to take a look at it, just to see what’s happening there.

Ultimately, we all need to make decisions that are right for us. And for me, now that Google Fi compatibility is essentially universal, the biggest deal is indeed the camera. That may or may not leave Samsung out of the running. But it’s probably not as big a deal for most people. And it’s certainly understandable to me why so many people do choose Samsung phones.

Which tech giant is most likely to implode first?

christian.hvid asks:

Which, if any, of the tech giants do you believe is most likely to implode within the next five years? (Hint: it’s Facebook).

Yep, Facebook. In fact, I was just collecting links for a premium post about this topic, so that’s all I’ll say about that for the moment. But yes. Facebook.

And by the way – since this article will be published on International Women’s Day – how many women do you count as subscribers or regulars at Thurrott.com? 1%? 0.1%? 0.001%? Mary Jo? 🙂

I don’t believe we have that kind of information, but I think it’s fair to say that Thurrott.com veers dangerously into the “sausage fest” end of the scale.

(I since asked Tim and he tells me that Google Analytics says it’s a 90/10 split, roughly.)

The meaning of Calculator being open-sourced

ggolcher asks:

With Calculator going open source, what do you think it means for other Windows apps or even larger initiatives like Lite OS or even Windows and Office?

This is going to sound cynical, but I really don’t think it means anything at all.

The current climate at Microsoft rewards people for accessibility, openness/open source, AI prowess, and cloud services integration. (Products like HoloLens 2 that hit on all four are magical for Microsoft.) So these things occur whether they make sense or not, and without any context to broader strategies. Someone or some small team at Microsoft open sourced Calculator because they could, because the code was new and clean enough that it wouldn’t be embarrassing, and because they would win points for doing so. It in no way reflects anything else that is happening in Windows.

And that is sort of the problem. Microsoft today is very scattered, and that makes for inconsistency. Consider that Notepad has a “Send feedback” link in its Help menu, a feature that is not available in any other desktop application in Windows. Why is it there? Because someone or some small team that is responsible for Notepad thought it would be a cool thing to do. But that decision, too, was made outside of anything and everything else happening in Windows and elsewhere in Microsoft.

Regarding Lite OS and whether Microsoft will seek to open source it or make parts of it open source, I could actually see that happening. (Windows and Office are too big, complex, and old for that, though it’s possible that discrete sub-systems could be open-sourced.) In fact, it may be inevitable as Microsoft ticks off the competitive check-list against Chrome OS and that becomes one of the sticking points. But that decision would happen at a much higher level than open-sourcing a simple app like Calculator. Even though I’m sure there’s a lot of back-slapping going on in Redmond now thanks to that semi-pointless decision. But it is absolutely possible that this act will inspire others at Microsoft to do the same with their own products. And maybe that makes it worthwhile.

Google Fi data-only SIM

Sprtfan asks:

I was curious if a Google Fi data only SIM would work in a phone? I thought it would be useful for my kids to use. If it will work, would the data only SIM be locked to T-mobile or would it be able to switch to Sprint or US Cellular? T-Mobile is very weak in the area but have great coverage from US Cellular.

Yes, and I do this all the time. In fact, I used my Google Fi data-only SIM in my iPhone during my recent trip to Barcelona. It would be locked to T-Mobile only in the U.S. if it’s not a Google or “Fi-compatible” phone.

Edge/Chromium, Android, passwords, and you

Lewk asks:

In your article “Is Microsoft Edge on Chromium a No Brainer?”, you discuss concerns about how Edge (Chromium) might not work as well for the user as Chrome does by providing passwords for apps on android as well. I use Enpass for password management and on Android it replaces the Google app for the Auto-fill service. So when I go to log into anything on android, be it an app or a website, Enpass provides my account information for the service or app I’m wanting to log into automatically. Just like you describe how Google does in your article. Is there any reason you believe why Microsoft wouldn’t just allow Edge for mobile on android to be used as the default Auto-fill service? Or even the Authenticator or Microsoft Launcher apps? Is this yet another example of a no-brainer software solution available on android that Microsoft is wrongfully neglecting to add to it’s own products?

Brad raised this issue with Keychain on iOS on yesterday’s First Ring Daily, which made me wonder if Google also allowed third-parties to pass-through passwords to Android apps. And if I understand what you’re saying here, it does. So, yes, given that, it is possible that Edge would do the same. I’m going to research this very topic over the weekend. Obviously, this would remove a huge blocker if it works.

Windows Lite

AnOldAmigaUser asks:

Do you think that Windows Lite will be a credible competitor to Chrome from the aspect of system maintenance, or does it contain too much of Windows? From the standpoint of the education market, if it does not have the equivalent of a powerwash, there is not much point.

Windows Lite (or whatever it’s called) will always be a two-edged sword in that it both benefits from and is harmed by its Windows heritage. I appreciate the need for Microsoft to keep trying when it comes to needing to compete with Chrome OS. And that their failure in mobile has made this much more difficult. But it’s unclear if they will ever be able to simplify Windows enough to make it truly competitive in this space.

Think of Microsoft Outlook (on Windows) as an example of the problem: Microsoft can (and has) simplified the user experience a lot in recent years, but it’s still the same old legacy application it’s always been, and it is full of complex and inscrutable user interfaces. (Adding a Gmail account, for example, is like stepping back into the 1990s.) This is semi-related to my old “simple vs. easy” thing from the SuperSite days, and hits on the challenge of turning something complex into something simpler vs. starting over from scratch. Outlook Mobile, for example, is a very straightforward app, but it lacks hundreds of esoteric features that some rely on in full Outlook. It’s hard to make one thing that works for everyone.

All this said, I’m very curious to see Lite and evaluate how well it does compete. And I suspect the move to Chromium in Edge happened, at least in part, because of Lite.

Recent spam on Thurrott.com

Daishi and madthinus both ask:

What is up with the Spammers? I see the spam filters on the forums are struggling to keep up again. It seems like every day recently I’ve come home after work (east coast of Australia time, so wee small hours of the morning for you) and found a page or more of crud offering Green Cards, prescription drugs or pirated movies. Today it was two and a half of what looks to be relationship solutions. Just seems like there’s more work to do on nailing this one?

We’re as confused as you are. I’m not really privy to the actual protections we’ve put in place, but we obviously had a really bad experience last year, amped up the protection, and arrived at something we thought was working, and did work for several months. But now it’s happening again, in waves. And the recent spam is so obvious as to be almost humorous, so I don’t quite get the point.

The one thing that’s changed for me (and Brad) internally is that we can now delete this stuff much more easily. At the time of last year’s spam attack, we could delete a user but that wouldn’t delete their posts/comments and it wouldn’t log them out of the system. So we had to delete spam manually, which was very time consuming. Now, when we delete an account, they’re instantly logged out—so they can’t post anymore—and everything they’ve posted is deleted. So even in instances in which I’ve woken up to 100s of spam posts, getting rid of it was easy because it was just 1-12 accounts (depending on day). This has also helped us stop a few spam attacks as they started.

Why do these idiots even bother? And why do they target this site? I have no idea.

Surface Go v2 with Lite/dual displays

simont asks:

Would you consider getting a Surface Go if/when Windows Lite is released for the device?

Such a change would certainly make Surface Go worth reviewing. But I don’t personally see the point of such a device at all. Windows is already an inefficient consumption platform. Taking features and apps away won’t help.