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 design, with both Bluetooth and improved Xbox connectivity. But it’s even more expensive than before ($180), and I’m not impressed by the way my OG Elite controller fell apart. I’ve been using a stock Xbox One Wireless Controller for a while now, and was thinking about maybe just getting the Phantom White Special Edition controller instead. Which happens to be $10 off, or $60, right now, by the way.

Knowing me, I’ll pick up an Elite Series 2 regardless by the time November rolls around.

Apple content, not Apple TV

helix2301 asks:

You made a great comment on WTT about Apples iPhone user base of 900 million users using windows or some other form of desktop operating system since users of macOS userbase is only 100 million. My question or comment is Apple has said you will need the Apple TV app to watch apple content to me that just seems like going backwards. Most all of these TV services have web based desktop versions then apps for certain platforms. I just don’t see the platform ever being competitor to Hulu, Netflix or HBO if Apple does not open this up to a bigger market on Windows and Android. Just wondering your thoughts.

I agree completely, to get that out of the way.

For those unfamiliar with the comment I made about the iPhone user base, I noted that there are approximately 900 million iPhones in use (estimate based on 1 billion iOS devices overall) and that Apple said explicitly that there are 100 million Mac users. So this means that up to 800 million iPhone users also use a Windows PC. (Whatever the number, it’s higher than the Mac number.) Why would Apple provide new Apple TV, Podcasts, and Music apps on the Mac, but not do so on the PC?

It’s possible they will eventually do so: The current version of iTunes works on Windows 7, 8.x, and 10, and that’s fine for now. But with Windows 7 support ending in January, Apple could potentially make Microsoft Store apps for TV and Music, at least, and would target about ~95 percent of the (supported) Windows installed base (since Windows 8.x accounts for about 5.47 percent of all desktop OSes currently in use).

I don’t know why Apple is making native apps, however. All of those apps—TV, Podcasts, and Music—should be web apps, and those apps would work on all desktop platforms. But Apple is Apple. They’re not doing that.

They are, of course, supporting some Smart TV platforms, and I’d be surprised if Apple TV, at least, didn’t show up on Roku and Android TV eventually. It seems pretty obvious. As does Android support. But again, Apple is Apple. They don’t always do what makes sense to us on the outside.

Huawei’s future

WP7Mango asks:

What’s your view on the future of Huawei? Currently, they wouldn’t even be able to ship laptops with Linux because its origin is in the USA. For phones, I was thinking that one solution would be for all Huawei phones to ship with their own in-house bootloader which then allow users to download stock Android (after setting up your wifi connection), which means it’s the user who makes the decision to install Android, and not Huawei.

Two things on Huawei (from a phone/PC perspective, anyway).

One, their brave face comments about being ready for this U.S. ban and having OS alternatives ready to go for both Android and Windows are pure nonsense. And even if they actually ship devices with their own OSes, it won’t matter: No one wants almost-Android or almost-Windows. Those choices will fail.

Two, I don’t think it will come to that. The U.S. attack on Huawei is clearly a trade war ploy and is not national security-related. And I think this ban will end in time for Huawei to just pick up where it left off.

I wonder if the firm is materially wounded in a semi-permanent way. And whether this experience will quicken its development of those mythical replacement OSes. But that’s for the future. In the short term, I think it’s only a matter of time before this craziness concludes and Huawei is allowed again to partner with U.S. companies.

Random side-thought: Huawei should split up into multiple companies. The U.S. hasn’t gone after any other China-based smartphone makers, like OnePlus.

Recent books, TV shows, and movies

SeattleMike asks:

Paul, what books/tv shows/movies are you enjoying these days? Thanks!

I’m going to hold off on the books for now, if that’s OK, since I’ll probably be writing up a mid-year audiobook overview soon.

With regards to TV, the biggest recent change is that we subscribed to HBO GO back in April-ish so that we could watch the end of Game of Thrones. But we’ve been binging a lot of other HBO content since then, as well, and a lot of it is excellent. Favorites include Veep (which just concluded, so we’re rewatching the whole series again), Chernobyl, Barry, and Deadwood (which was a favorite long ago, but it just concluded with a new movie, so we’re rewatching that series again too). We will eventually watch season 2 of Westworld, too.

If you have Amazon, you must watch Fleabag. It’s uncomfortable humor (like Curb Your Enthusiasm) but is amazing.

On Netflix, You, Black Mirror (new season), and the two Ted Bundy shows, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil, and Vile (movie) and Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes (documentary). Speaking of which, you should watch Mind Hunter if you haven’t. Not super-recent, but Ozark and Bodyguard are worth watching too.

The new season of The Handmaid’s Tale is on Hulu, but they’re releasing it over time, so we’re going to wait until it’s all up.

Hm. We seem to watch a lot of TV.

Air, sea, and land

hrlngrv asks:

I come from a Navy family. Most of the games I’ve read about are land-based. Any decent sea-based games, or is it just too boring to simulate a .50 machine gun or dual 40mm guns shooting at Zeros? Any submarine-based games?

Hm. I haven’t played a sea-based game since Silent Service, but I was also a fan of Sea Battle for Intellivision back in the day, too. The land-based stuff lends itself to fast action and first person shooters, I guess. But obvious fighter aircraft games are pretty big too.

So I guess not, sorry. Does anyone know of any good sea-based games?

iCloud and Files On Demand

BigM72 asks:

Do we need the store version of iCloud for the files on demand feature or this will come to the regular ‘desktop’ version of icloud for windows too?

My understanding is that only the Microsoft Store version of iCloud for Windows uses the Files On Demand functionality that’s built-in to Windows 10. I’m not sure if the normal desktop client will be updated to work similarly.

Vladimir adds:

There are other cloud storage services that have a “files on the demand” feature. Dropbox calls it smart sync and box has a similar one too. Is there some unique feature of iCloud and oneDrive that I am missing here?

What’s unique is that Microsoft made its Files On Demand functionality available to third-party cloud storage providers that wish to use it. So this isn’t something “like” Files On Demand. It is literally using the same underlying technologies. When other services implement something similar, they are creating it on their own.

Why no xCloud at E3?

Vladimir asks:

Did you have any other information about why xcloud was not even mentioned by Microsoft at E3? I look forward to cloud based streaming of games by microsoft. I didn’t expect a complete product launch but I was very disappointed that the only mention of the word xcloud was about being able to use the xbox as your own xcloud server. Do you think they were wrong-footed by the stadia announcement and preferred to not saying anything because they are not ready yet in terms of timeframe and costs?

I was wondering the same. Brad heard this week directly from a source very high up in Xbox that Phil Spencer wanted very badly to demonstrate xCloud at E3 but was told not to by marketing. This, I think, matches my theory about Microsoft being constrained by the needs of what I call “the E3 mob,” those gamers who demand that all press conferences and announcements focus only on games. But regardless of my theory, the reality is that xCloud is just Xbox One games streamed. So streaming Xbox One games and showing a person holding a controller attached to a phone isn’t very exciting. I think they still should have done that, but what they did do instead was have hands-on devices at the show for attendees.

I’ve heard that nothing has changed with regards to the schedule—public trials this fall, etc.—but I have to think that Microsoft was a bit surprised by Google’s lowball Stadia pricing, yes.

Hating the cloud

wright_is asks:

Why does everything “have” to be in the cloud? We are subject to GDPR and we have used a support tool for years with a local database of users, machines and passwords for the remote support program. Works a treat… Well, it worked a treat, until they borked an update this week and it suddenly stopped working. The remote support tool accepted the password binary encoded, only it stopped understanding binary encoding.

Log a support ticket and the answer was, the local database is no longer supported, you have to use the cloud management tool. Only, the database isn’t stored within our firewall (which is a no-no for our Data Protection Officer) and the data isn’t even stored within the EU, a complete no-no. But, if we want to continue using their tool, we need to switch to their cloud console… So now we are looking for another solution that doesn’t need a cloudy thing, because we’ve had enough rain this week!

I think this is just a moment of progress thing. When something new fails, the natural reaction is that the old thing was better, but the old thing used to fail too, really, just in different ways.

There’s a great scene in Deadwood, the HBO series mentioned above, which takes place in the Dakota territories in the 1870s, before statehood. The owner of a local saloon is watching people install telegraph poles and he asks his number two what they are. He’s told that the telegraph is faster than mail and it will allow people to get messages immediately, and then respond to them immediately.

After pondering this for a moment, he asks out loud why on earth anyone would want to respond to a message immediately. That type of thing takes time because you want to get the response right. The telegraph, he decides, is unnecessary.

As for the cloud, everything will be in the cloud because the notion of data isolated on a single device will seem not just antiquated but pointless. It kind of already does.

There will be mistakes along the way for sure.