Ask Paul: March 20 (Premium)

Spring is finally here, though the Coronavirus has dulled the celebration. But here’s a great set of questions to kick off the weekend.

Teraflops

sabertooth920 asks:

Can you explain why or why not the small advantage in teraflops that the Series X has over the PS5 is a big deal? Sony, predictably, claims this doesn’t tell the whole story.

Sony is correct, it’s not a big deal. But for Xbox and its fans, which have lost out to PlayStation for three console generations in a row, it’s a tiny victory. Granted, the Xbox One Series X is technically superior to the PS4 Pro today, and that hasn’t exactly helped reverse the sales deficit.

For those unfamiliar with this issue, Microsoft and Sony both revealed more information about their coming consoles, the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5. In terms of raw graphics horsepower, the Xbox Series X GPU will deliver 12 teraflops vs. 10.28 teraflops for the PS5, an advantage of over 14 percent. Since both consoles use similar processors and what appear to be almost identical GPUs, comparing these numbers seems perfectly reasonable.

But there’s more going on here. For one, the PS5 appears to have much faster I/O than the Xbox, and it possibly has faster storage too.

Overall, I’d say these two consoles are comparable and that the fight, as always, will come down to platform loyalty, exclusives, and personal preferences. And not to spec sheets.

Windows 10 requiring MSA sign-in

Finley asks:

My concern with Windows 10 going forward is the possibility that MS will continue to limit the ability of setting up a PC without a MSA.

On a related note, wright_is asks

What is with the new “log in with a Microsoft account” full screen blockers on Windows 10 PCs that use a local account? … we sometimes get the sort of full-screen blue dialog that you get during initial Windows 10 setup for selecting different options, pushing us to switch to a Microsoft account. As the account is only ever used locally and is shared by all admins, this is not the sort of login that should have or needs a Microsoft account.

Microsoft is suddenly being much more aggressive in pushing it, especially during initial Setup in Windows 10 version 1909 and newer. It’s easy to get stuck, too: If you sign-in to a wireless network during Setup, you’re not able to back out of it (using the GUI) so that you get the local account option. But there are workarounds, which I’m documenting in the book.

That said, it’s not possible for Microsoft to literally require a Microsoft account (MSA) sign-in with Windows 10, though I understand why they’re pushing it on normal users. As power users or whatever, we’ll always be able to work around it.

Android Studio vs. Visual Studio

Usman asks:

I’ve heard you jest about Android Studio when ever it is bought up, what shortcomings did you find?

Mostly performance, but also the application itself doesn’t adapt well to different display scaling settings and resolutions. It seems very old-fashioned to me.

And christian.hvid asks:

I’ve been using Visual Studio for like a million years, but I have finally reached a point where I can no longer get my job done due to the memory limitations that come with a 32-bit application. So I have recently switched to JetBrains Rider, which is an excellent IDE in almost every respect. Still, there are some things Rider cannot handle, forcing me to jump back into VS every now and then. Overall, I think it’s shameful that Microsoft still hasn’t managed to port their flagship IDE to 64 bits. Do have any idea why this is so impossible? Or is VS considered a legacy product, soon to be supplanted by VS Code?

Both of you like Rider, which is interesting. I’ve never used it.

I’m not sure why Visual Studio isn’t 64-bit—I’m guessing because of plug-in compatibility?—but it seems like this should/would have been one of the first Microsoft applications to make the transition. I don’t see VS Code replacing Visual Studio anytime soon because they’re very different products, and most of the workloads one would configure in full Visual Studio aren’t available in Code (especially desktop development). But these days, development has shifted to mobile and web, and Visual Studio isn’t really optimal for either, unless you’re a dedicated C#/.NET/Microsoft developer, I guess. It’s a battleship that can do everything, but if you have different needs, other IDEs (XCode on Mac, Android Studio/Intelli-J) or environments (Visual Studio Code) might just make more sense.

All that said, I really like Visual Studio. But I’m happy to move on to other environments as my needs change and I explorer more frameworks in future projects.

Xbox Series X as a PC

MartinusV2 asks:

After seeing the specifications of the next xBox, I am one of those PC players that are waiting for the new AMD rdna2 type GPUs card for 4k gaming that I know will costs as much as one xBox Series X. I wish I could buy the Xbox and use it as my desktop replacement at home. At day I would use it for programming / desktop work, and later use it for gaming. Do you think it would have been hard for Microsoft to provide those two modes?

I’m not sure if it would have been hard per se, but Microsoft is right to focus solely on gaming with Xbox Series X. Its previous attempt at evolving Xbox into more of a general entertainment device with the original Xbox One was a very public failure, and consoles aren’t designed like PCs where they run many multiple applications simultaneously. Such a thing would likely be an OK console and an OK PC, and not great at either.

Windows 10x vs. quality

MartinusV2 also asks:

Other question. Is Microsoft working so hard on Windows 10x that they are neglecting the quality of monthly patches? Seems they break more things than they fix bugs.

I don’t think the development of Windows 10X has had any direct impact on the quality of patches for Windows 10 for desktop. I also don’t think they’re working all that hard on 10X, which I’d imagine is the product of two pretty small teams on the Azure and experiences sides of things, respectively. But we should all hope that this Windows 10X experiment works, since one of its apparent innovations is more seamless and much faster software patching. If that works out as promised, maybe Microsoft will finally get ahead of the quality issues.

iPad Pro

madthinus asks:

Are you going to review the new iPad Pro, or just pick up the keyboard to see if this changes anything? Or will a standard Bluetooth keyboard and mouse do the same once you get iOS 13.4.

My current plan is to test iOS 13.4 with my current (9.7-inch) iPad and an Apple Bluetooth keyboard and trackpad (I have both for some reason). If that works well enough, I would consider getting the new iPad Pro and Apple’s upcoming Magic Keyboard or a third-party equivalent and see whether it’s a viable laptop replacement. Since that keyboard doesn’t ship until May, I will wait at least that long even if I’m excited by how well it works.

But first things first. I’ve been burned too many times by this kind of thing to get too excited about it yet.

Smart displays

will asks:

Back when Microsoft announced the TabetPC version of Windows XP there was another device type they talked about and I forgot what it was called. It was a desktop monitor that you could detach and take the screen with you. It had a stylus I believe and would sort of work as a portable tablet while in the office. Do you remember what this was called? I only remember ever seeing this in use in one business and that was 3 Day Blinds had them and they would detach the screen and walk around the store with you.

Yes, they were called Smart Displays. I had at least two of these back in the day, and in a weird coincidence, I just saw in my archives that this project was canceled after just one version in December 2003. Here’s the quote I received at the time from Microsoft:

“After evaluating current market trends, including the economic conditions of the LCD market, Microsoft is not at this time working on the next version of Smart Display technology. Microsoft continues to remain dedicated to working with its partners to develop products that both meet the demands of its customers as well as, from a development perspective, make good business sense. We are hearing that consumers are looking for ways to easily access the information that resides on their PCs in more relaxed settings, and Microsoft will continue to evaluate this market and work with partners to determine the best, and most cost-efficient, way to meet this demand. We will continue to keep you updated as we have news to announce.”

Working from home

SeattleMike asks:

How has the Thurrott clan been handling the virus? Are your kids home and safe? Any chance of publishing an article of all the lessons you’ve learned from years of working from home that the rest of us could benefit from? Thanks!

We’re still in the early days of this pandemic as far as it impacting our daily lives, so it’s been mostly OK so far. My wife and I work from home, so most of the day-to-day is unchanged from a work perspective. My wife’s nighttime activities (volunteering at an English language learning center, etc.) are canceled, as is the gym, and that’s been weird since that’s something I’ve been doing for an hour a day, six days a week. Restaurants and bars are closed, so our normal Friday night thing is over, hopefully temporarily.

Our daughter still lives at home, and her school is canceled probably for the year. She’s graduating this year, so the questions are prom and graduation, both of which are probably canceled. She works part-time at a fast-food restaurant, and she’s actually gone to work a few times in the past week, which is good. My wife walks the dog every morning, and she and our daughter started going on a second walk with the dog at dusk.

Our son lives in an apartment in upstate New York and is staying there for now. His college classes are going remote starting Monday and he works on campus and will be doing that remotely soon too.

I am going to be writing an article about working from home, probably for Monday’s Premium newsletter. I’ve been working from home since about 1994, so I’m sort of a pioneer in this space, if inadvertently; my wife started working from home in 2002 too. Obviously, the type of work I do is unique to what I do, but hopefully I have a few ideas that can be generally helpful.

Related to this, I’ve decided that I’ll try to use some of this time to get on top of the clutter in our cellar and get that out of here and/or organized so that we can be more mobile the next time we want to move. It’s something that’s been kind of hanging over me for a while now, and since I can’t control the pandemic, I can at least do something positive with the free time. (I got 15 old computers out of there just this past week and have many more to go, plus an incredible assortment of other junk.) Who knows? Maybe we’ll even save some money not eating out as much or traveling.