Ask Paul: March 29 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Here’s a final Ask Paul for March, and another great set of questions from readers.

Apple TV vs. Roku

sabertooth920 asks:

What is your set top box of choice, and what is your take on the Apple TV(device)? It doesn’t have the niche channels that Roku has, but it does offer a lot, and has both Dolby Vision and Atmos.

We have both connected to our TV, plus a Chromecast Ultra. But we use the Roku normally, and I am the only one who uses the Apple TV, and then only occasionally. (Ditto for the Chromecast, which basically is never used.) The reason is the remote: It’s terrible. (I’ve described it as a “crime against humanity,” which is only a slight exaggeration.)

With the Apple TV app coming to Roku and Samsung Smart TVs, I may simply give up the Apple TV as it will then be superfluous. The only reason I use it now is to watch purchased movies and TV shows, and movie rentals (I sometimes go for the 99 cent rentals Apple offers each week). And then only some of them: If the movies are available through Movies Anywhere, I’ll just watch them on the Roku using the Google Movies & TV app instead.

We don’t currently have a TV/home theater set up that support Dolby Vision or Atmos, so that’s not a factor for us. I do agree that the Apple TV interface is much nicer—Roku displays ads, for frick’s sake—and the performance is probably a hair better too. But I just can’t get over the remote.

(We did use a third-party remote with the Apple TV for a while, but my wife and daughter started having problems with it, so moving to Roku just made more sense. It controls the TV, including volume, as well, which is nice.)

Mobile app dev

WP7Mango asks:

If you were a freelance developer, what app would you really like to create? And why? What technologies would you choose in order to create it?

I spend a lot of time reading about and experimenting with mobile app development. And my single biggest issue, literally, is that I do not have a single good idea for an app. It’s what’s held me back more than anything.

That said, I do have some favorite technologies. I would choose between create a Progressive Web App (PWA) and using Flutter, which is an impressive cross-platform native app development solution. That I write about both regularly is not coincidental. (Including Flutter, PWAs, and Xamarin, Oh My! (Premium), from a year ago.)

I would probably use Visual Studio Code for either, but Android Studio is a decent environment for Flutter as well.

I just wish I had a good idea. 🙂

Build expectations

will asks:

What are you looking to hearing from Microsoft at Build this year? What would give you a smile or giggle with excitement?

I’m interested in a number of things at Build this year. What matters most to me, in order:

Windows. I’ve been told that Microsoft has heard the complaints about Windows 10 being a no-show last year and will address it. We’ll see. But I’m very curious, given past mis-steps, if they will discuss future releases like 19H2 and 20H1 in any detail. Microsoft’s public stance on Windows 10 is job one for me.

Lite OS. This is an outlier, but I feel like Microsoft’s developer show is the right place to start the public discussion about this future Windows-ish platform and how it will fit in with real Windows 10.

PWAs. Microsoft’s embrace of PWAs has not unleashed a torrent of new web apps as I had expected. I’m curious how this is addressed at Build.

App platform (other). Beyond PWAs, I’m curious how Microsoft’s broader apps platform will evolve. For example, will we ever see true containerization of Win32 apps?

Azure Sphere. We’ve heard almost nothing about this new platform since last year. My guess is that Microsoft will announce a major milestone, most like general availability (GA).

I’m open to surprises, of course.

Windows 10 19H1 expectations

hrlngrv asks:

Given the AdDuplex article from earlier in the week, where do you believe 19H1 will be in terms of user share 6 months after official release (if that term still has any meaning for Windows versions)? If by March 2020 1803, 1809 and 19H1 all have roughly 1/3 user share, would MSFT be forced to reconsider Windows release schedule at twice a year?

I feel like Microsoft will get this one right, and by “right” I mean “better than 1803 or 1809” from a reliability perspective. The late arrival of 1809 had two interesting side-effects that hopefully will not be repeated going forward: It gave version 1803 time to reach unprecedented levels of usage and it had the opposite impact on 1809 (record low levels of usage compared to previous releases at the same point in time after release).

So what do I expect for 19H1? I think we can look back to 1709 for a clue. One year ago, in March 2018, Windows 10 version 1709 hit 90 percent usage share just as the next release (1803) was being finalized. If nothing goes wrong post-release, 19H1 should be able to see similar usage out in the road by October 2019.

I’m astonished that Microsoft hasn’t backed down from its twice-yearly release schedule, and that was true before last year’s fiasco: Its corporate customers couldn’t be less well-aligned with this schedule. But if 1803 and 1809 didn’t trigger a rethinking, nothing will. And it’s far more likely that what we’ll see is fewer meaningful Feature Updates that offer major user interface and functional changes. So missing one won’t be a big deal.

From Edge to Chredge

MartinusV2 asks:

Since it seems that the new Edge is only missing few features from the old Edge, I have the feeling that Microsoft was playing with Chromium way before their announcement of switching browser engine. Do you think they were working, experimenting at least a year?

That’s an astute observation. And yes.

I’m reminded of the story former Apple and Next executive Avie Tevanian tells about Apple’s transition from Power PC to Intel in an incredible YouTube series. As I described in This is How Apple Will Transition Macs to its A-Series Chips (Premium), Apple had actually laid the groundwork for this transition several years before it was announced. And it was actively, if secretly, working on to make it real for a year before Steve Jobs announced the change publicly. So Apple’s supposedly quick and seamless transition really came about due to years of careful planning.

I don’t know how the switch to Chromium happened yet. But my guess is that an individual or small group on the Edge team began experimenting with this in order to prove the concept to higher-ups and start the ball rolling. And that there was then a skunkworks team of sorts that was able to getting a working, Edge-like browser that could be shown to the real decision makers.

I’m hoping to interview one or more people from the Edge team at Build. I will ask about this if so.

Microsoft and privacy

AnOldAmigaUser asks:

Given that G-Mail Man and Scroogled did not seem to strike a chord, do you think that Microsoft is will push privacy and trust in their ads again? Just saw an Apple advertisement for the iPhone promoting Safari as the browser that will not give anyone your browsing history (the carrier will), and it made its point. Google would seem to be vulnerable to this, but it does not seem to matter to most people unless Google crosses the creepy line with them personally.

Apple’s embrace of user privacy is the smartest marketing the company has done in years, and it pays off materially for its users too.

I did previously write that Microsoft should focus on this as well. In Microsoft, Forget AI. Privacy is More Central to Your Mission (Premium), I wrote that Microsoft should promote the privacy of its offerings above all else.

“In doing so, Microsoft could be to software and services what Apple is to hardware devices: The world’s trusted provider for offerings that protect your privacy,” I wrote. “This is brilliant for two reasons: It’s great theater—with the understanding that both AI and privacy are essentially theater—and it will play well with everyone … promoting privacy will work because it’s so universally appealing. The firm could promise to meet and then exceed the requirements of Europe’s GDPR worldwide, for example. Make all data collection transparent and opt-out. Explain that you pay for Office because you don’t want Google tracking everything you do, every document you create. That the relationship it’s offering is based on trust. Privacy would be the thing that would be baked into all of Microsoft’s offerings.”

You could view this as a refresh of Microsoft’s 2002 Trustworthy Computing initiative. Back then, it was mostly about security. These days, it should be about security and privacy.

(In April 2018, Brad also called on Microsoft to capitalize on data privacy.)

New laptop for a photographer

Shane asks:

I’m looking to purchase a new laptop and yes I am over thinking every part of what I need or don’t. The primary reason for the purchase is photography. Would you go for a Full HD screen or would a 4k screen really be better. My current device is a Surface pro. Is the extra cost really worth the money or would it be better used in other parts of the laptop.

You should look for displays that have a higher resolution than Full HD (1920 x 1080). That would likely be 4K/UHD (3840 x 2160) or, in the case of modern Surface PCs, nearly so, I guess (Surface Book/2 is 3000 x 2000 but Surface Laptop/2 is 2256 x 1504).

I’m not sure what app(s), you’re using, but modern quad-core 8th-generation Core i5/i7 chipsets are perfect for your workloads, and I guess I’d recommend 16 GB of RAM and as much store as you think you need/can afford.

A reader noted the lack of color-calibrated displays and that you could use an external 4K display for final retouching work. That’s worth thinking about.

Also, I assume you are not interested in a MacBook Pro, but those displays are notably good, for whatever that’s worth.

Design languages

christian.hvid asks:

If you had the power to mandate a single, universal design language for every platform (including the web) would you pick Material, Fluent, Office UI Fabric or something else entirely?

This will be subjective, but I feel like Google picked up the Metro mantel with Material Design and has since really improved it to the point where it is professional-looking and consistent, and scales well to different display sizes and form factors.  That would be my choice.

Microsoft quality

madthinus asks:

As we get to the home strecht of 1903 development, what is you feeling towards the quality of the Windows development process. Do you think it is better than before or just more of the same?

We won’t have a complete understanding of how things have changed, if at all, until 1903 is out in the wild, users are installing it, and we can evaluate the install success rate. But two quick thoughts on this.

First, I feel like Microsoft is like the TSA in that it is always fighting the last battle. So while it will most likely fix whatever basic issues led to the disaster that was 1809, new problems are always popping up, and Microsoft hasn’t show itself to be particularly resilient in responding to that kind of thing. So this is a cross your fingers moment.

Second, and troublingly, I wrote recently that Windows 10 build 18362 was basically a release candidate and that it could be the final build of the OS. Not so fast: Microsoft pulled the build from the slow ring due to installation issues and it’s not clear how it will fix that. (Incrementing the build or by issuing a quality update are the obvious choices.) So here we are, late in the game again, and Insiders are suddenly having showstopper problems again.

We’ll see.

Staying informed

helix2301 asks:

I know you said you subscribe to NYT and now the Washington Post, Apple News+, Wired Car and Driver. I know you said you spend morning reading. Your like me in the sense that you want to be informed. How many news services do you subscribe to? How many hours a day do you read only reason I am asking is that is a lot of content to consume?

I read The New York Times every morning on an iPad. And then I move on to some news aggregation app. This changes over time, it was Microsoft News until recently but I’ve been testing Apple News+ this past week.

According to my iPad, I spent 3 hours and 30 minutes in the NYTimes app last week, followed by 3 hours in Kindle (I was finishing up The Lord of the Rings for about the 25th time), 1 hour and 20 minutes in Pocket, and 1 hour in Apple News. (Those were literally my top four apps by usage, followed by Chrome, which is arguably also reading-related.)

One thing I did fairly recently was cancel most of my Kindle-based magazine subscriptions, which involved letting them run out to whatever end-date each had. I still subscribe to Consumer Reports, but I can also recommend The Wirecutter (which is now owned by the NYT) as a modern equivalent that I trust.

But the other magazines I subscribe(d) to are/were a mix of things I want to read about but don’t always do, and inexpensive. They include Maximum PC, Car and Driver, Rolling Stone, PC World, and PC Magazine. And, at different times, some travel magazines as well. What I found is that I wasn’t reading them regularly, especially the tech publications. And though they were cheap—most were roughly $10 a year—I decided to let most of the subscriptions slide over time. Which I think they now have all finally done.

When I think about how I consume content, I guess there are three main areas. Reading, which I do mostly on the iPad, but also on phones if I’m out and about; audio, which includes music (a few times per week), audiobooks, and podcasts; and video, which is TV (which I usually watch with my wife) and movies. I watch more movies when I fly (or bus or whatever) than when I’m home. And my reading habits shift a bit on phone, too, where I stick to the Google Feed and Pocket usually.

I read in the morning, as you noticed, for at least 30-45 minutes every day, sometimes more. I watch one TV show at noon every day when I eat lunch with my wife. I listen to podcasts or audiobooks when I walk, go to the gym, shave, or make breakfast. I listen to music when I’m driving, and with my wife at home in the sunroom about once a week. I watch videos of various kinds (YouTube, movies, TV shows) on the TV at night. Last night, for example, my wife took a class at the gym, so I watched a documentary on HBO Now (relax, I went to the gym at 4) during that. And then we caught up on two Game of Thrones episodes to get ready for the final season. So that’s about three hours in front of the TV, I guess.

How this is split between informational and pure entertainment probably varies.