Ask Paul: May 17 (Premium) (Updated)

UPDATE: I’ve updated the “Software in college” answer after speaking to my son. –Paul

Happy Friday! Here’s another round of questions and answers to get the weekend off to a good start.

But before getting to this week’s questions, I do want to apologize for last week’s mistake. As someone pointed out, and many probably suspected, I originally only answered questions posed by Alpha members. I blame travel-related tiredness for that, but I did rectify that later. And won’t make that mistake again this week for sure. Thanks! —Paul

The direction of Windows

madthinus asks:

Post Build, how are you feeling about the direction of Windows 10? Personally it feels like it is in maintenance mode.

Microsoft will never say it that way, but then a good chunk of my career has been about stating clearly what Microsoft won’t. So, yes, I also believe Windows to be in maintenance mode, essentially. This doesn’t mean we won’t see new features as we move forward. But we all know Windows isn’t a focus for the company anymore. If there are major changes coming, you should view those changes in the context of them making Windows less expensive for Microsoft to maintain.

With regards to the direction, there is none. And that’s based more on private conversations I’ve had with people I know at Microsoft during and right after the show than it is on Microsoft’s public statements during Build. But regarding Build specifically, you don’t need to be an industry analyst to skim through the “Book of News” that Microsoft handed out to journalists and bloggers before the event. How much Windows news is in there? Not much, and most of it is purely developer-focused (which is fine).

Without getting into details, what I can say about my private conversations is that they confirmed something I’ve been saying for a while now, that the Microsoft culture awards “new” and “future,” and not improving existing products. And with the focus shifting away from Windows, the best and the brightest are moving on to other, mostly cloud-based initiatives. So when you do look at Windows, you see two things. An engineering group that is more focused on Azure than it is on Windows. And a UX group, basically, that is focused on Windows but has rarely delivered anything useful or interesting. So we’re kind of pinning our hopes on that.

Don’t take this overly-negatively: I’m honestly mostly OK with all this and given Windows’ age, it pretty much should be in maintenance mode. And Apple is basically treating macOS the same, which also makes sense.

Casper matresses

jchampeau asks:

How’s that Casper mattress treating you? I’m thinking about getting one.

We actually have three of them now: My son and daughter both use them, too. I recommend it.

The State of Firefox

richardbottiglieri asks:

Paul, I’m curious what your thoughts are on the current state of Firefox, aside from their perspective on Edge’s migration to Chromium.  As a daily user of multiple devices on various platforms (Windows 10, macOS, iOS), I was pleasantly surprised to see how well the current version of Firefox actually works across all platforms, and how well it performs (even on the Mac!). For those of us who are a little worried about Google gobbling up our data, it seems like a solid option.

Sure. Firefox has always been a solid option, and they meet the cross-device sync requirements with a decent mobile client. But Firefox has two big problems: It is losing usage share over time and becoming less important for web developers to test on, which will exacerbate the usage issues. And with the rest of the web essentially rallying around Blink/Chromium, they’re the only major cross-platform solution with their own rendering engines, which are hard to keep competitive. And Firefox has never been a great choice if you care about battery life.

I wrote about my concerns for Firefox back in December when Microsoft announced its move to Chromium.

Bonus question: do you think the aforementioned privacy concerns with Google and Chrome are overblown and sensationalized to some degree?

No. Google’s privacy violations are, if anything, worse than most realize. And because so many people don’t seem to care or are oblivious to the data collection, it’s doubly worse; so few are doing anything about this. Using Firefox or the new Edge is a great first step. Minimizing or eliminating your use of Google services, if you can stand to do so, is even better. (I cannot.) But longer term, I expect Google, Facebook, and other firms like that to be heavily regulated, which will hopefully curb this behavior.

Multiple phone numbers

pbakalor asks:

You seem to be keeping several phones on the go, and bounce into and out of Google Fi on occasions. Do you have several numbers, and do you switch in and out of a Google Fi account?

Right now, I only have two phone numbers/mobile accounts: My primary account at Google Fi and a secondary account which I rarely use at Consumer Cellular. I don’t really bounce between the accounts too much. But as you note, I do bounce between phones a lot; all my active usage and testing are on Google Fi.

One of the nice things about Google Fi is that it supports data SIMs and the ability to provision a normal SIM or an eSIM (as in Google’s phones) as data only. So I can have multiple phones using the same Google Fi account at once, though only one is used for phone calls and texts. But I can change that on the fly, which is nice.

SCOTUS app store precedent

Daishi asks:

After this week’s decision from SCOTUS saying that iPhone owners had standing to sue Apple over anticompetitive behaviour around the App Store, I’m wondering what impact you think it could have on plans for a digital only future for XBox consoles?

As I have heard the decision described it seems as if, to date, Microsoft would be safe because users are able to go to a real world store and buy a game for their Xbox on disc, but if future models should follow the path of the recent OneS revision and remove the optical drive, forcing users to buy all of their software digitally from Microsoft, then they would be in a very similar position to Apple and the App Store potentially leaving them open to similar legal actions.

So do you think that the prospect of potentially opening themselves up to future antitrust litigation will be enough to convince them to keep the disc drive going forward or is it possible that, with them bringing the Xbox and Windows gaming platforms closer together, the Xbox could be opened up to Steam et al to provide alternative stores for downloaded games as well?

I’m not sure that the ability to buy Xbox games on both discs and digitally protects Microsoft from the precedent set by this ruling. In either case, the game maker still needs to have the game certified by Microsoft before they can sell it. You don’t see white box Xbox games out in the wild, or web-downloadable Xbox games.

But yes, I do think that the SCOTUS precedent will impact all walled garden app stores and platforms, assuming that the eventual lawsuits against Apple are successful. (I think they will be.) And that will impact Xbox eventually, too, for sure.

Obviously, mobile app stores like the Google Play Store (2.5 billion users) and iOS App Store (~1 billion users) are much bigger targets than Xbox, which has, what? 30 million users at best? 40 million? But this precedent will ripple downstream over time. And yes, the natural outcome there would be Windows and Xbox both offering Store, and non-Store sources for games. And to support third-party stores. Which Microsoft has already pledged to do on at least on Windows 10-based platform.

Software in college

hrlngrv asks:

Curious: how much software does your son use in college which is only available under Windows? How much which is available across macOS and Linux as well? I can answer that for my kids: my son uses Linux at and outside work, and my daughters use Macs, one also uses a PC for some design/CAD software, the other could use a Chromebook because she uses Google Docs and her more stats-based psychology courses use GNU R. Sadly, I don’t know many people a generation younger other than my kids. I don’t discuss software with coworkers, older or younger.

I am not sure, but I’ll ask him and update this here. (Look for an “Updated” addition to the title.) He’s driving home today, so this should happen soon.

But I do know that he’s studying programming and user experience design, that his school is heavily Microsoft-focused (one of his instructors was in a Microsoft accessibility video) and that he uses a Windows PC for schoolwork. I’ll try to get more details than that.

UPDATE: 

I spoke to Mark about what he uses at the Rochester Institute of Technology. As background, he had originally started with a major in Mobile App Development but switched to Human-Centered Computing, which is a mix of programming, user experience design, and psychology.

He says that the school’s computers are a mix of Macs (design classrooms) and PCs. He uses prototyping and design tools from Adobe plus Sketch (which is Mac-only) and Figma Invision. Software development is a mix of JavaScript, C#, C++, Python, PHP, and databases, almost exclusively in Visual Studio Code. He uses a framework called Ionic for hybrid mobile apps, plus Angular components to access the camera, microphone, and other hardware components on devices.

The future of UWP apps

will asks:

What do you think will happen to the current UWP apps in Windows 10 such as your favorite Mail and Calendar apps?

I’m not sure if you’re asking because UWP is dead or because they’ve never been updated substantially and are overdue for that. But my expectation is that they stay basically the same for many years to come. The death of UWP doesn’t mean that it’s stripped out of Windows, just that it is no longer updated in meaningful ways. It will in Windows for a long time, like a cockroach after a nuclear war.

My lungs

Zinger asks:

How are your lungs? You mentioned on WTT this winter you were having tests. It is none of our business but you mentioned the incident on the mountain years ago…

LOL, thanks. They are perfectly normal.

I apologize for not ever formally explaining this. But the short version is that I hadn’t been to the doctor for a while, so when we moved to Pennsylvania, I resolved to not only get a doctor but make sure I got every single test imaginable so that I could see where my health was across the board, and some 1.5 years into starting a low-carb diet.

This wasn’t a mistake per se, but several thousands of dollars—U.S. health care is terrible—and many unnecessary tests later, I might have done things a bit differently if I could do it over. The mistake I made, which is messed up when you think about it, is that I was actually honest with my doctor. I have two good examples of this, one of which regards the lung issue you mention.

First, in a basic fitness survey, I was asked whether I ever got winded when walking up a hill. And I do: As part of my daily walks at that time, I walked—sometimes ran—up a tremendous hill near the house and was winded every time I get to the top. But she ordered an echocardiogram, which was incredibly expensive. At least I found out my heart is perfectly healthy.

The lung thing was similar: I performed a number of tests, including one in which I was basically asphyxiated, after telling my doctor, when she asked about major medical issues, that I had once had High Altitude Pulmonary Adema (HAPE) during a Colorado skip trip. This incident was scary, and the doctor at the time told me he had only seen one patient with a lower blood oxygen level, ever, and that person had died. So, I just have to be careful around high altitudes (over 8800 feet or so) now because it is more likely to happen again once it happens in the first place. But it’s random and unrelated to fitness or anything else; mountain climbers get it, and in the early days many died because they didn’t understand not to immediately come down to sea level.

After those tests, the doctor who performed them asked me why I had gone through that. I told her, and she said that I should never have had to do them and that my lungs are normal and healthy. I guess I’m happy to know that as well. But again, several thousand dollars. What a waste.

New Edge on Windows 7 and 8.1

anderb asks:

Have you heard from MS when they intend making insider versions of Credge available for Windows 8.1 and Windows 7 users? ‘Coming Soon’ could mean weeks or months!

Yes, it definitely could. No, sorry, I’ve not heard. I was sort of expecting the Beta channel to come online at Build, and figure that is when Windows 7/8.1 and Mac will go live too. But the focus, understandably, is on Windows 10 at first.

Xbox and profitability

FullyLoaded asks:

I keep reading on this site in your blog posts and in reader comments that Xbox is not profitable and is in fact hemorrhaging money for Microsoft. I don’t think I’ve ever seen facts to back up those statements though. I get that Xbox is lagging way behind Sony’s and Nintendo’s consoles in terms of unit sales because we’ve seen sales figures to that effect, But does that mean Microsoft is actually losing money on Xbox? After all it is possible to be in 2nd or 3rd place in market share and still be making money. They are just not making as much money as they would like. From what I recall, Xbox hardware, software and services surpassed $10 billion in revenue for the first time last year. That’s a lot of money even to a company the size of Microsoft. People seem to like to hang Xbox around Microsoft’s neck like an albatross. But is it really deserved?

Microsoft’s Xbox business generates big revenues, but it has never been profitable. I’m not a finances guy, but the one thing many forget, myself included, is that the cost of doing business, especially during a period of research and development (say, ahead of a new console release) is not something that hangs over the company’s balance sheet over time: Microsoft writes off that cost (in the case of console, some several billion dollars with each generation) in a quarter or over some period of time and it’s gone.

Microsoft isn’t transparent about this: It can (and does) hide Xbox’s lack of profitability by sticking it in a business unit that delivers big profits elsewhere. But even within the Xbox business, there’s no transparency. It’s possible/likely that certain parts of that business, just as with the PC business, are profitable. But the core business—console and game sales—is not.

From Microsoft’s perspective, Xbox has always been an investment. Within each console generation, and as they move from generation to generation, the goal has always been to reduce costs over time and move closer to profitability. But this has eluded them each time for different reasons. The OG Xbox was always going to be a loss leader, but Microsoft planned multiple stages of cost reductions for the Xbox 360 in a bid for profitability, only to be thwarted by the $1 billion Red Ring of Death warranty problem. The Xbox One has been an outright disaster, and it has sold much more poorly than its predecessor. But Microsoft has still cost reduced it three times and will do so again. (Microsoft did admit that it will never profit from Xbox One X.)

Today, of course, that investment is in a good place because of the cloud. This is the rationale behind my editorial Microsoft Should Have Spun Off Xbox. Good Thing It Didn’t (Premium). This business was always a long-term play, never made sense financially, and is suddenly justified because gaming is heading to the cloud at a time when the firm has unique advantages there.