Ask Paul: January 3 (Premium)

Happy Friday, and Happy New Year! Here’s the first Ask Paul of 2020, with another great set of questions from readers.

Thurrott.com in 2020

lwetzel asks:

Any hints of what is to come for Thurrott.com in 2020? Site changes, Paul, Brad, Mahedi changes?

We’ve long plotted a major site re-do for 2020, and hopefully, that will come together more quickly than the similar work that was done to Petri.com in 2019: I feel like the lessons we learned there will inform what we do on this site. But I’m not sure when that work begins, as there are still some things to finish at Petri first too.

At some point, we’ll have our first all-hands meeting of the year, and we’ll talk through our ideas/plans for the site, both the re-do and beyond. I hope I can write more about this soon. I’m not trying to be coy, but there’s just not much to say right now.

Windows phone is still dead

ErichK asks:

Hi Paul. I read an interesting statement made by someone on Reddit in regards to the recent termination of Windows Phone support (I’m sorry to bring this up, but it’s the topic that refuses to die, you know what I mean?). It went something along the lines of, “Now we have two choices left … an advertising company and a premium design brand.” What’s your reaction to that?

It’s true enough. But aside from a small burst of excitement when Nokia adopted Windows phone, the real choice has always been between an advertising company and a premium brand. And the ad company is winning bigtime by volume: About 85 percent of the market to 15.

The iPhone certainly has it’s advantages. But if you are/were a Windows phone fan, Android is the obvious choice because of the sheer amount of device choices, the customizability, and the Microsoft integration stuff.

Mandalorian wrap-up

helix2301 asks:

Was wondering your thoughts on Mandalorian now that the series is over?

No worries, no spoilers.

I did like it overall, but I’d probably have liked it better all along if I could have just binge-watched it from the beginning. It’s slow-moving and kind of meanders, especially in the first few episodes. The music was eh. The storyline was a bit weak. There were way too many insider references; they need to tone that down, because it’s distracting. I’m happy for them to make more shows, both future seasons of this show and whatever else. I will never tire of Star Wars.

Windows Search changes

staganyi asks:

Windows search changes. Can’t remember when, but recently search within explorer changed to some new engine and I know a bunch of people were having issues. Personally, I noticed the “current folder” search option no longer works (it still searches the subfolders). Curious if you’ve heard/experienced anything about this.

No, no issues here: Searching the current folder in Windows 10 version 2004 works like it always has. I know that Microsoft changed File Explorer search in version 2004 so that it can search online (meaning in OneDrive) as well as locally. But it seems to be working properly for me.

Windows Insider changes

will asks:

With the recent changes to the Insider Program for Windows, I am a little confused as to how we will know what is coming in what release going forward. I understand that features being tested might not show up for the general audience for a while, but what do the rings now mean for IT Pros wanting to test and evaluate? Am I the only one that is a little bit in the fog on this one?

No, you’re not alone.

Based on the specious information that we’ve gotten from the Insider folks, we can only speculate. And my guess is that Fast ring is now essentially a place to test new features that may or may not make the next version of Windows or some future release. And that Slow ring will now indicate which features should arrive in the next version. Whether that’s true during the entire course of development is, of course, unclear, but at some point, some ring will have to be representative of the next version. And Slow ring makes sense for that.

Not that any of this makes any sense.

Resolutions

madthinus asks:

Not really tech per sé, but what is your personal big ticket items for 2020? Not necessarily New Years resolutions, but goals / aim / things you want to see or do in 2020. Your plans / focus for the decade? This question is optional 😉

I don’t have any big purchases planned for 2020 per se, but that could change as the situation dictates. From a goals perspective, I always want to spend at least four weeks of the year outside of the United States, so travel is a big part of my thoughts about the coming year.

But this year, my daughter is graduating from high school, so the biggest item is really that: Where will she go to school and how will that impact our futures? I’ve said for a few years now that if she went to college outside of Pennsylvania, we’d likely move again, most likely to the same state as her school. But now I don’t think so. We’ll see. That’s kind of hanging over us right now.

I have health goals, of course. I spent the past eight months (when not traveling) working out, and I now go to the gym 6 days a week on average. In 2020, I’d like to combine that with the weight loss success I had on keto a few years back. (Low-card and lifting weights are somewhat incompatible.)

I can’t really plot out the decade, sorry. 🙂 I like certainty, so once Kelly’s school is figured out, we can start thinking more about the future. Mark should finish up college in late 2020 or early 2021, and we’ll see where he ends up too.

Copy and paste issues

Simard57 asks:

I keep having issues with Windows cut/paste. it seems that too many times it will either paste something earlier than the last cut or nothing at all when the clipboard is empty. Windows V shows that the cut didn’t take place even though the cut happened (for example the URL from a browser window was cut and tried to paste but it pasted something earlier copied/cut). This has been ongoing for a while and I was so hopeful when they modernized the feature, that my problems would go away. is there anything I can do to address this – perhaps reinstalling windows??

Interesting. This was a problem for me (and many others) for several years with Windows 10, but I don’t think I’ve seen it in a while. One thing to try is enabling Clipboard history (Windows Settings > System > Clipboard) and then monitoring what’s in the list by typing WINKEY + V (instead of CTRL + V).

Dead Pool

BeckoningEagle Alpha Member #613 – a day ago

I know you don’t like to make predictions, but, any company on your death watch list for 2020?

I think we will see a lot of consolidation in 2020, and not just in the tech industry. LG and HTC are on the list, at least their smartphone businesses. Some smaller PC makers. Long term, I have to wonder about shipping companies like FedEx, UPS, and the smaller players. Seems like that’s Amazon’s market to destroy.

The bigger issue for me, I guess, is which products and services will disappear in 2020? Google and Microsoft are both obvious culprits here. For the latter, I’d worry about Movies & TV (which is pointless), Cortana, and Windows 10 S (S mode) most obviously.

Google could cancel any product or service at any time. But the big thing I expect from them is to get rid of the Alphabet corporate umbrella and just be Google again.

Tablets

sabertooth920 asks:

Do any tablets exist, other than the iPad, that are worth buying?

No, there really aren’t.

Conversely, what makes the iPad Pro that much better than the Air or the lowest cost iPad?

It depends on what you want to use it for, and they honestly have about one too many iPad models right now. The biggest differences are Face ID (iPad Pro only) and storage choices (the more expensive iPads have more storage available optionally). They’re all compatible with some version of Apple Pencil, if you need such a thing, and with a Smart Keyboard.

For me, I just use iPad as an entertainment/reading device, and I use one every day. If I were buying now, the choice would be between iPad (10.2-inch) and iPad mini.

Future of Project xCloud

Vladimir asks:

Hi Paul. How did you interpret the words of Chris Capossela on WW regarding xcloud? As far as I understood, he said that it will be linked to game pass and there will be no “ownership component”. I’m concerned this means that it will not be possible to play with xcloud games that are not on gamepass. If this is the case, it will be not viable for me at all. What’s your view on this?

I don’t see purchasing/ownership disappearing, but it’s possible that that happens outside of xCloud. Right now, Project xCloud is being positioned as a logical expansion of the Game Pass memberships, where you can expand the places to play (beyond console and PC) dramatically. But that’s just in addition to what you can do already, which is buying games outright. When you do buy most games today, they’re locked to whatever platform (Xbox One, PC, etc.).

Maybe the way to think of it is whether you could survive with just Xbox Game Pass (whichever version). The situation will be similar if not identical with xCloud. But if it’s really successful, more and more games that are purchase-only now will make their way to the service. Otherwise, you’ll need to pick a primary gaming device for purchased games, as you do now.

Netflix is sort of like this is in the video space. They don’t have every movie, not even close. And if you want to buy (or rent) most titles, you have to go elsewhere. But the value of the service is still there because of the content it does have.

The future of ARM on PC

PeterC – 5 hours ago

Hi Paul. Is 2020 the year we get to see ARM based products, in various formats and OS options, make the headway thats been long anticipated but hasn’t materialised yet? Yes there’s been some, and the SPX has my wallet twitching, but I can’t help feel there’s been some false dawns over the last few years.

I’m starting to get a bit down on ARM on the PC side. It’s happening too slowly, and the ongoing compatibility issues won’t be solved for years, if ever. And by the time it happens, who will even care? Doesn’t this whole thing feel like Microsoft forcing Intel to do the right thing on mobile? I mean, we have Intel-based laptops that get ~20 hours of battery life. Why would anyone buy a PC with worse performance, and much worse compatibility, and at high prices?

So what do you think and do you have some info on “products” that we might see this year? Might Apple deliver on their “leaving intel” statement, or huawei deliver on their ARM kungpeng 920 pc chip series they announced, and will MS get lucky second time around?

Apple releasing an A-series MacBook of some kind would be the final kick in the nuts for Windows 10 on ARM because you know they’ll get it right on the first try. Apple can’t completely drop Intel, of course, as its workstation-class products (MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, the high-end iMacs) will all need that processing power, and not just in the short term. But what a moment that will be, if it happens as expected. They’ve been working on it for years.

As for Huawei, I have a hard time believing a lot of their claims because of the fiasco around their internally-developed OS efforts.

So we’ll see. But it’s possible, even likely, that ARM is unnecessary in the PC space, and that Intel will simply get there on its own over time, and will do so without any of the issues we see on ARM.