Ask Paul: May 15

Happy Friday! With Spring in full bloom here, here’s another great set of reader questions to kick off the weekend.

Skype vs. Zoom

sabertooth920 asks:

How did Skype get passed by Zoom? Zoom seems like a perfect potential acquisition for Google. Would solve some of their failed initiatives.

In some ways, Skype’s failure is similar to that of Windows Phone or Cortana, where there’s no one reason and lots of blame to go around. But Skype differs from those other failures in an important way: It was at one point one of the most popufdlar Internet calling solutions in the world. That’s been chipped away over time, first by Facetime and then more broadly by the rise of mobile and the many popular mobile chat apps we see.

I had a great relationship with one of Skype’s leaders a few years back, and he told me then that Skype hadaaafdsafd lot a fdsfdlot of momentum when Microsoft realized that they needed to completely re-architect the original peer-to-peer design to adapt to mobile. That transition took years, and it lost of a lot ground to faster-moving new competitors. And then Microsoft dramatically changed the Skype UI, alienating a lot of users. Fixing that took years, too, and in the interim, we saw the typical Microsoft backtracking where the UWP app was the future on Windows, and then it wasn’t. And the whole thing is a mess.

And now, of course, we have Teams, which is so successful to Microsoft that it won’t be possible to continue forward with Skype as a brand or product. I bet Microsoft transitions to Teams even for consumers by next year.

As for Google, Zoom would be an expensive acquisition now, given its success during the pandemic. And Google would take a hit from having yet another communications solution. I wonder if they aren’t going to try and go the Teams route and evolve what they have internally rather than acquire a competitor. I guess it depends on how serious they are about needing such a product: If they don’t buy Zoom, whatever they do will always be seen as an also-ran.

Mobile hotspot

Simard57 asks:

What is a recommendation for a mobile hotspot?

I haven’t used such a thing in years, sorry. And anything cellular-related will depend very much on where you live, or where you will use it the most often.

I currently tether my phone with T-Mobile but after using a certain amount of data, it limits connections to 600kbs. I have intermittent need for a mobile hotspot – usually when camping and twice a year for out of the country. I wanted to add a T-Mobile hotspot as another line but they do not offer that. I have to buy a certain bandwidth but my use does not justify going that way. Are there some other solution you have found? a pay as you go service or such thing?

I just tether my phone, and maybe the solution here is a cellular plan that doesn’t limit bandwidth after a certain point.

Does Google offer a mobile hotspot as part of their offering?

No. And getting a Google Fi SIM for this purpose would be expensive ($10 per 1 GB plus another $20 per month for phone/text whether you use that or not). You’d be better off with an MVNO like Mint Mobile or similar.

Anyone else have any ideas here?

Build 2020

BigM72 asks:

With Build round the corner, is there anything you *want* them to say/announce? What, if anything, will be of interest to enthusiasts?

My big concern is Windows and I’m hoping to hear more about the plans for WinUI 3.0 and .NET 5. The former will bring user interfaces that were previously locked in UWP to the rest of the Windows developer world, so that’s a big deal.

Beyond that, there will be information about a new Windows app packaging technology, which should be Microsoft’s solution for deploying what we used to call Store apps outside of the Microsoft Store. WSL 2 and Windows Terminal. Maybe some Edge updates? But most of Build’s content will be directed at Azure, I think.

Office … 2013?

JF-NYC asks:

I decided to wipe out my computer and do a clean install of Windows. I clicked on the pre-installed office app and typed in my work account which has an Office 365 subscription. Then I received a copy of Office 2013. Why would Microsoft set it up like that and not download the latest version?

They don’t, so this must be something your workplace configured. There’s no way to get Office 2013 from an Office 365 subscription that I’m aware of.

So I looked it up. According to Microsoft Support, it hasn’t been possible to even manually download Office 2013 using an Office 365/Microsoft 365 subscription since February 28, 2017. They don’t even offer this. So what you experienced is a bit confusing.

Life-sized Word documents

ryguy asks:

I recently switched to a Surface Studio 2 (it’s incredibly awesome, BTW), and deep in the depths of my failing memory I seem to remember a demo of the original Studio showing Word documents in “life-size” 100% zoom (i.e. 8.5×11 page on the screen is 1-1 with an actual piece of paper). This sure would be helpful for a project I’m working on, but for the life of me I can’t find any way to enable this. Am I crazy? Was this ever a feature? And if so, where’d it go?

I remember them mentioning this, but I don’t think it was a feature, it was just that if the app was full-screen that the document would be literally the same size it was in real life.

But I looked it up. And this is how Anandtech described it:

The 28.125-inch display works out to almost exactly 192 pixels per inch … 192 is exactly double 96. 96 DPI is what Windows was originally built around, so if you had a display with 96 DPI, one inch on the display would be exactly one inch on a printed paper. With the Surface Studio, they have doubled the DPI so that Windows can be run at exactly 200% scaling, but keep the correct dimensions for everything on the display. When the Surface Studio was announced, the head of Surface, Panos Panay, held up a 8.5×11-inch piece of paper to the Surface Studio and showed that it was exactly the same size as the original word document on the display.

ThinkPad Bluetooth wireless keyboard

ryguy also asks:

Have you tried the wireless Thinkpad keyboard with an iPad pro? I’m curious how the trackpoint works with the iPadOS cursor support – that plus a stand seems like it might be a better option than the (surprisingly heavy) magic keyboard.

I don’t have an iPad Pro, but I do have an iPad, and I’m surprised I never tried this, though I did think to try my ThinkPad Compact Bluetooth Keyboard with TrackPoint with the Surface Go 2. (Lenovo makes a newer version of this keyboard, which you can see here.)

And it mostly works. The TrackPoint works immediately with the mouse cursor. Keyboard works, mostly, though a few keys (like Home) don’t work properly in Word. The big issue is you don’t get trackpad gestures, so you can’t do things like move between home screens (at least not that I could figure out). WINKEY + H (which emulates CMD + H) does let you navigate from an app to the home screen at least. I guess it’s mostly there.

Feeling the love

christian.hvid asks:

Not really a question, I just wanted to stop by and say thank you to the team for finally removing the downvote button.

You are welcome. This is something I’ve wanted to change for a long time.

As I’m sure everyone knows, the up/down vote system, while well-intentioned—I imagine we dreamed of a utopia where readers would self-censor terrible comments and that this would magically make sense—was deeply flawed. For one, they votes were anonymous. And more problematically, terrible people are terrible and even the most benign comments were being downvoted for no good reason I can imagine. It just became overly negative.

What I brought to the team was simple: Let’s end the negativity. And let’s turn that upvote into a heart.  I’m glad they agreed, and since I’m scanning the comments every day anyway, I was already policing the nonsense. It just seems to make sense.

Interestingly, though, it seems like you can now upvote your own comments. Not that I’m above patting myself on the back, but it’s a bit unusual. 🙂

I believe that was always the case. Which raises a good point. It shouldn’t work that way. I’ll mention this, but I suspect fixing that problem might be more time-consuming.

32-bit Windows 10

hrlngrv asks:

Given the announcement Windows 10 will in future only be available in 64-bit, has MSFT committed to supporting 32-bit Windows 10 a full 10 years from initial release, so at least to mid 2025?

This is for new PCs running Windows 10 version 2004 or newer only. Microsoft will still make the 32-bit versions of Windows 10 available for download for anyone that does need that. I’d imagine that this usage is low and that it, too, will drop completely off once some future version of Windows 10 only supports 64-bit chipsets. But Microsoft has never committed to supporting 32-bit for a particular timeframe (at least not that I’m aware of).

Inbox tabs

simont asks:

Have you heard anything more about Outlook.com adding the different tabs similar to what Gmail does?

Nothing new per se, but it’s rolling out now. I have the option to add several tabs—Focused Inbox, Promotions, Social, and Newsletters—in my Outlook.com account (on the web) now. You can also just not use this feature, thankfully.

Cloud gaming is the future

helix2301 asks:

When it comes to cloud gaming I have been jumping on the band wagon. I have been using both gforcenow and stadia and have so far been able to play most games I want. Now granted there are better cloud gaming services out there but for me these two seem to handle all my game needs. I know they are not for everyone as well but other day kind really made me want to stick with it the reason you said “people just want to turn on their stuff and play”.

Yep.

I went to turn on my xbox and behold fortnite needs to download 5 gig update then I decide to ok while thats downloading let me play destiny2 look that has 11 gig update. I have 1 gig connection. I got up turned on my surface book fired up gforcenow and started playing fortnite why because its all cloud based so its always up to date. Then I got done with that and pulled up stadia and started playing destiny2 no issues no update needed. By then my xbox was finished. I really can see what the hook is for this online gaming now and what you have been talking about I have 2 small kids so my gaming time is limited and not waisting time downloading updates is a big thing for me.

Yes. What you’re describing is the central benefit of anything in the cloud: The end user doesn’t need to be responsible for, or even think about, installing or updating. It just happens once, in the cloud. Not having to install massive updates—and I’ve seen much bigger Xbox game updates than what you just described—will be one of many benefits of moving to this kind of platform.

I know there are bandwidth issues, etc. It’s not for everyone yet …

And on that note, Vladimir asks:

I also have a question about cloud gaming from a bit of a different angle … there is one big fat problem that applies across the board. The dream for me was to play on the move because I (was) very frequently travelling. However, for now, cloud gaming is really limited to my desk where I have a computer connected to fiber through ethernet. I never found even one place outside of my home where the connection was reliable enough. Even in-home wifi is a significant obstacle. I have a pretty advanced setup with 5 mesh hotspots around my house and even in this scenario performance becomes spotty if i go in other places within my home. It never worked in a hotel, public hotspot or even in friends’ homes. My conclusion is that game streaming in mobility is nearly impossible for now. If I have to play at my desk I am much better off with my gaming PC or a console. What is your view on this? Do you think there is any likelihood it could change in the short term?

I’m not sure how/why you’re having issues like this at home given your set up; that should work fine. I don’t have a particularly good Internet connection here, for example, but Project xCloud performs great.

Generally speaking, the answer now is always that this is the problem that 5G is supposed to solve. That we will have this global, always-on connectivity, and that we won’t even need these wired home connections anymore. This is more science fiction than reality right now, and it will be for the foreseeable future. But the trend in this direction is inevitable. Even rural areas should eventually benefit from this.