Ask Paul: June 14 (Premium)

I’m in Washington D.C., so this week's reader Q & A will be served with a side order of some photos from this beautiful city. Most of which were taken with the Huawei P30 Pro.

Stadia Founder’s Edition
yoshi asks:

Paul, did you or do you plan on purchasing the Stadia Founder's Edition? You may have mentioned it already but if so, I missed it.

Yes, I preordered it as soon as I heard about it. Which was inconveniently when I was out and about in Utrecht, The Netherlands with Mary Jo Foley. I’m very interested in Stadia, and would have preordered this regardless of needing/wanting to write about it for the site.

Windows 10 19H2
ggolcher asks:

Wondering about Windows 19H2. Dona and Brandon mentioned that "[Microsoft] will begin releasing 19H2 bits to Insiders later this spring after we get 19H1 nearly finished and ready" on Feb. 14th. Summer in the northern hemisphere officially starts June 21st, so they're cutting it *really* close. As well, 19H1 is very much finished and ready. Have you heard anything?

No, and I agree this is getting a bit weird.

The later it gets, the more convinced I am that 19H2 is just a minor release that will consist of bug fixes and fit and finish work, plus app updates and, maybe, some of the 20H1 features that are deemed ready to go by late summer and/or don’t have dependencies on other 20H1 features.

Would love some clarity on this.

Spotify and podcasts
mmcpher asks:

Paul I saw the post about the Spotify podcast enhancements and was wondering if you had any further thoughts on podcast apps in general? I am still using Google Podcasts and hoping for better. I frequently listen to podcasts while commuting in my car and the "hands free" aspects, and the ease of access generally, leave a lot to be desired. You pull your podcast through Android Auto and it gets even worse. There are hangups and drops, and it is too hard to navigate quickly.

I think about this a lot. I’m using Castbox and really like it. But I’m open to other options, and keep looking at Google Podcasts to see whether the promised auto-download feature has finally shown up. (It hasn’t, at least for me.) So when I saw the Spotify news, I once again began thinking about changing things up again. (Random side-point: Spotify can natively control Sonos speakers, which is desirable to me. Right now I don’t have a way to play podcasts to Sonos, since Castbox is not compatible and Sonos doesn’t work like Chromecast.)

The problem? I don’t have the Spotify update yet, so I can’t test it. I have subscribed (sorry, “followed”) a few podcasts in the current version of the app so I can see what it’s like when I do.

Remember that the new Spotify UX requires Spotify Premium (at least for now).

Xbox Elite Controller Series 2
kshsystems asks:

What do you think of the new Elite V2 XBOX controller ?

It looks like they did what was needed, which is basing the controller on the newer de...