Ask Paul: April 24 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Here’s to an early start to the weekend in this never-ending cascade of days that all bleed into each other anyway. Also, an impromptu iPhone SE rant.

Windows Feature Experience Pack

cwfinn asks:

Weird question I guess but what does Windows Experience Feature Pack actually do? Not much in my experience but I’m often wrong!

Not a weird question, at all: This naming just appeared in Windows 10 recently with zero explanation from Microsoft as usual. The Insider Program strikes again, with terrible communications as always.

For those unfamiliar with the issue, those on Windows 10 version 2004 (and possibly other versions by now) started seeing the “Windows Feature Experience Pack” name appear in Settings > System > About, under Windows specifications, back in December. It’s listed alongside the product edition, version, installed date, and OS build number. On my NUC, it says Windows Experience Feature Pack 120.2202.130.0 (I’m running Windows 10 version 2004 outside of Insider Preview, so I’m getting the public cumulative updates (CUs).

As for what it is, we have to speculate. Since, again, no communications.

My guess is that it’s similar to what Google did earlier on Android, where it separated out some system components from the OS so that they could be serviced separately (and more frequently). If you’re familiar with what’s happening with WinUI, where Microsoft is separating the Windows 10 user interface components from the Universal Windows Platform (UWP) so that they can be updated more often than twice yearly (on the Windows 10 feature update schedule) and, in doing so, eliminate some serious versioning issues for app developers plus make this technology available to those who do not write UWP app, this may be related to that. It could also be related to the modularization efforts that led to Windows Core/Core OS and Windows 10X.

But again, we won’t know for sure until Microsoft speaks up or something definitive leaks.

Budget smartphones

davidD asks:

Would/have you considered revisiting the budget smartphone comparison you did about 3 years ago? (with 2020 phones – I remember one phone was a Moto G5+, which I had just purchased at the time by sheer coincidence, can’t remember the other 2 phones) It would be interesting to see how much budget phones have progressed in your view 3 years on, especially in light of increasingly expensive high end phones since 2017.

I’d like to, and this is something I think about a lot. But I can’t do this effectively without actually buying devices and I’ve decided not to spend my own money on new hardware of any kind until this crisis has passed. My wife is currently on unemployment and unless something wonderful happens, I’m sure further financial hardship is on the way. This is not the time to be spending money on things I don’t need, sorry.

 

Wi-Fi issues

davidD also asks:

Ever since our router was replaced a few months ago by our ISP (old one went wrong), we have experienced wi-fi connection issues with our Google Nest Mini speakers – primarily they don’t work in some locations that they used to (unable to connect to Wi-Fi in rooms where they used to), but also occasional brief cut-outs where they didn’t used to happen. Do you have any ideas on why & what to try? (beyond reconnecting & re-adding to app etc which we have already tried). Have looked on Google Help site, with no luck.

I never had interference issues with Google Cast-type systems, but I have had serious interference problems with Sonos speakers and AirPlay-based streaming that’s tied to mesh networking, where the Wi-Fi system is silently and automatically moving between different Wi-Fi channels; those streaming platforms prefer to own a channel and can work erratically otherwise. The solution, in my case and for Sonos, was a wired connection to just a single speaker. But I’m not sure if that has any relevance to Google Nest speakers.

I’m also not sure what kind of system you have, but it seems like adding a Wi-Fi repeater/amplifier or, if you’re using a mesh system, another node, might help.

Storage Spaces

Stoffel asks:

Hey Paul, I have a bunch of USB 3 HD’s, is it worth to put them all in one big Storage Space with parity to store movies and tv shows? Just to create some redundancy, or is working with Storage Spaces still more of a hassle than it is worth?

Storage Spaces. Now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. (Strokes chin like Obi-Wan Kenobi.)

Hm.

My personal choice here would be to go the NAS route and use the HDDs there, assuming you could get the drivers out of the enclosures; USB seems a bit dicey to me for an always-on server-type configuration. (I assume you want to access the content from elsewhere over the network?) And I find it kind of odd that the interface for this feature is still a control panel, but it’s manageable. But it could work in the sense that Storage Spaces can use USB HDDs and would give you that redundancy you want. It certainly doesn’t hurt to experiment with it.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

WP7Mango asks:

Now that Microsoft has released the specs for Flight Simulator 2020, are you planning on buying it? And if so, are you going to buy a top end rig for this? I’m seriously considering getting at least the recommended specs. I’ve never invested in a gaming PC before, but FS 2020 might be what changes that for me!

No, I’m not a fan of flight simulator games, but I certainly understand the appeal. The new FS looks amazing.

Podcast sound quality

jwpear Alpha Member #2194 – 14 hours ago

Paul, how do you and Brad keep down echoes and audio issues during podcasts? Is it just not possible to get decent audio from a moderately priced consumer microphone? My team has been experiencing these off and on for a while when using Teams and sometimes Zoom. It’s gotten worse now that we’re all WFH. On my end, I’ve tried various adjustments, including using different microphones and adjusting mic gain. My primary and favorite mic is a Blue Snowball, which is supposed to support a cardioid pattern for better pickup of sound in front of it. Others have experienced this too.

I use professional equipment based around a HEIL PR-40 microphone and a Focurite Scarlett Solo USB-to-mic interface. Brad uses a Blue Yeti microphone. And neither of us wears headphones, though I did until fairly recently (and actually sometimes still put them on even though the sound is actually coming from the speakers behind the display).

But your issues are common and are probably unsolvable if you’re going to have multi-person remote meetings: Everyone has different equipment and when you add more than a few people there are all kinds audio issues. We experience this every week on work meetings, and I did a four-person TWiT podcast a few weeks back, and even that had serious audio problems. The best you can do in that situation is make sure that everyone is on headphones and is using a dedicated mic of some kind (headset or otherwise) unless their PC is specifically configured with a modern mic designed for teleconferencing.

This seems wrong, but I’ve had the experience multiple times that phones are often better, quality-wise, than PCs.

Sensitive data

Jwpear also asks:

Which would you trust more for sensitive documents and information: 1Password or OneDrive Personal Vault?

So, let’s see. 🙂

These are different types of things, so I guess I’d just say that I’d trust both of them. (And related trustworthy solutions like LastPass.) That said, I happen to not use a third-party password manager at the moment, and use Microsoft Edge (and thus my Microsoft account, I guess) for that. Of course, that doesn’t extend to mobile right now, though I’m hoping that will change. So I just use the Apple/Google platform-based password integration on their mobile platforms. A third-party password manager like 1Password would solve that.

But OneDrive Personal Vault seems like a good choice for photos of passports, licenses, credit cards (front and back), and the like. We’ve been taking photos of those kinds of thing ahead of home swaps and just putting them in normal OneDrive; the theory is, if a credit card gets stolen we have a picture of the card with the card issuer’s phone number so we can quickly cancel it if needed.

The problem with Roku

sabertooth920 asks:

Is Dolby Vision/Atmos the only thing preventing Roku devices from being the best streaming devices on the market?

No. The biggest issue I have with Roku is the interface, which is slow and full of ads you can’t even pay to remove. I’ve switched to a Fire TV this past year for those reasons and find its interface to be superior in every way. Roku is like Xbox: They just can’t seem to get the UI right.

Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G follow-up

wolters asks:

So Paul, after your initial thoughts, review and time spent with the Samsung S20 Ultra, how do you feel about it overall? If you are like me, there is a part of me that wants to LOVE Samsung but the camera usually ends up disappointing me and I head back to Pixel.

The Pixel camera system is better than that in the S20 overall, but I really miss the ultra-wide capabilities when I’m on Pixel. Other than that, the Samsung is a much better phone, and if it weren’t for the fact that my wife really needed to upgrade past her years-old Galaxy S8+, I’d be using the S20 myself now. It’s my favorite phone at the moment. But my wife did switch to the S20 recently and it’s worked out great for her.

I get sticking with the Pixel for the camera though. Using it again, as I did recently, was an instant reminder of how good it is. If Google adds ultra-wide this year, that could do it for me.

Hot ARM on ARM action

BigM72 asks:

What prospect excites you more? The new magic keyboard accessory for iPad Pro or the anticipated ARM-based Macbooks?

If I could generalize this a bit more—the Magic Keyboard thing is far too expensive for what it is—I would say that the addition of mouse cursor and trackpad/mouse support on iPad/iPadOS is far more exciting. It’s not even close.

The ARM on Mac thing is just about Apple; it’s a way to bring more technology in-house, save costs, and keep their margins high while providing no real advantage to customers beyond, hopefully, lower prices (similar to what we’ve seen with iPad and iPhone SE) using cost-reduced parts.

But the iPad/trackpad stuff is a huge step forward for users, and that’s why it’s so exciting. Apple has always promoted iPad as the “post-PC” device but it was always so limited that it never really lived up to the term. Instead, it was just another device. But now it can fulfill that vision, and is, I think, ideally situated to do so. This is huge and it will have a long-term effect on the PC, I think.

Apple vs. Microsoft hardware

will asks:

If Apple becomes more “open” this year with iOS/iPadOS allowing changing the default apps, as well as better multitasking per the rumors, does this put a dammer on the whole Microsoft Surface Duo and Windows 10 X aspirations?

For sure. To be fair, the iPad business was already many times bigger than Surface, but with iPad now offering a more seamless transition for traditional Mac/PC users and providing a much simpler user interface and more reliable, secure, and battery-friendly platform, it’s becoming a no-brainer. I happen to love most Surface products. But the problem is the platform. It’s being edged into a workstation/professional/niche area as these mobile systems mature.

Apple allowing default app configuration would have a big impact on iPhone, too. As goofy as this sounds, these kinds of restrictions today are the blockers for many switchers. I’d be happy to use iPhone right now if I could just put icons where I want them on the home screen, for example. I bet I’m not alone.

Mint Mobile

will also asks:

Unrelated question but how has MintMobile been?

So far so good. In fact, I’m going to switch over to my second month tomorrow, I see.

Aside from one all-too-common issue that’s I brought on myself and has only happened on the OnePlus 8 Pro I’m now testing, it’s worked perfectly. Granted, I’m not actually moving around very much these days: I think the furthest I’ve been from the house in the past six weeks is about 12 miles away, and that was just once. I’ve only use .6 GB of the 12 GB of data I get each month.

That one issue? It may sound familiar: I switched to the Google Messages apps and sometimes I can’t send text messages and don’t receive text messages on time. I’ll get a notification that an MMS message is waiting to download, and if it was part of a group text, it happens outside of the group message. If I try to download the message, or resend a text message that never sent, it fails.

The issue is related to RCS support in the Google Messages app. There’s no fix, beyond using a different text messaging app. But if you turn off Wi-Fi, text messaging works normally. So I’d been working around it that way.

I literally just switched back to the OnePlus messaging app today to see if that does fix it. Looking at it, I’m not even sure why I installed the Google one.

Task View

hrlngrv asks:

Small questions. Do you use TaskView at all? Do you have Groupy still installed on any of your systems?

No to both. Perhaps not coincidentally, I do see the appeal of both, but they just don’t fill needs for me personally.

Xbox Series X controller

Mr_MDavis asks:

Have you heard anything about the controller on the next gen XBox? Will they continue to use the current one with the crappy bumpers that break for so many players that there is a huge market on Amazon for replacement bumpers, or are they going to at least take the bumper design from the Elite 2 and put something like it into the controller for the next gen xbox? (and please don’t tell me I am holding it wrong ;))

Yes, but this is public information: The Xbox One Series X controller will be nearly identical to the current Xbox Wireless Controller, but with a few changes (and cross-console compatibility, of course). You can learn more here.

GroupMe

Maciek asks:

Teams vs Skype vs Zoom seem to be the topic of the month, not without reason. But I wonder if Microsoft remembers (lol), that it owns another messaging app, specifically designed for group conversations, for consumers. It’s called GroupMe, it’s owned by Skype (which is owned by Microsoft) and it’s still being developed and updated (not using it, but I have it installed out of curiosity, it’s updated quite frequently). I’ve heard you suggesting on Windows Weekly, that Skype might be axed in favor of Teams. If Microsoft still didn’t bring itself to kill GoupMe, I think Skype is safe. I realize that’s not really a question, but maybe you have some insight on why the heck GroupMe is still being developed (I suspect its market share is miniscule).

GroupMe reminds me of Yammer. I have no idea why it’s still around and surely the plan is to integrate its unique features into Skype (or, for Yammer, SharePoint) and be done with it. Microsoft does this kind of thing all the time, and then when they suddenly and inevitably announce that they’re killing it, we’ll hear from the 8 people who find it indispensable for some reason.

iPhone SE

madthinus asks:

iPhone SE: Do you think this is good value? A good choice for people looking to buy a smart phone at $400. Design aside, what do you think is the real negative of choosing this phone over any other? What would you rather recommend people buy? Sorry for opening Pandora’s box (not really)

This is a tough one for me. The iPhone SE only exists because Apple can finally release a “new” cost-reduced iPhone that maintains their crazy-high margins without damaging sales of its more expensive devices. It is, to iPhone, what the cost-reduced 9.7-inch iPad is to that lineup. But the issue I have here is that Apple could sell a modern iPhone, with Face ID and an (sort of) edge-to-edge display for the same price. They don’t because that phone would cannibalize sales of the flagships. When you think about the wealth gap issues we have in this country, especially, the iPhone SE is actually pretty gross. It’s like they’re selling a cheap car without airbags that only poor people would buy and then patting yourself on the back for having a cheap car that anyone can afford. Go Apple!

That sounds negative, and it is. But a $400 iPhone, even with all the limitations and the outdated 6-year-old design, is still very much of interest. And that’s what makes this difficult for me. It’s easy and cheap for a reviewer to recommend this thing—it’s SUCH a great value!!!­­—but none of those people would ever use this phone. Ever. And that, too, is gross. Tech reviewers are so entitled and arrogant. It’s no wonder they love Apple so much.

I can’t recommend the iPhone SE to anyone. I see the need for it. And if that is all that you can afford, and you really want to be part of that Apple ecosystem you can’t really afford anyway, then there’s your choice. Enjoy the compromises. Or, get a more modern Android design with a better camera, a better display, and so on, and enjoy whatever those compromises are. There is no such thing as a perfect $400 smartphone.

But in the interests of longevity and not hating yourself for staring at a tiny screen with gigantic bezels three years from now, I’d suggest that anyone seriously considering the iPhone SE also look at the iPhone 11, which starts at $700, or at Apple’s refurbished store. Or at their carriers, which often have even better deals.

Also, since no one who can only afford a $400 phone is actually putting down $400 in cash, think about the differences the respectively monthly payments would really make in your life over 2 or 3 years: At Apple, the iPhone SE starts at $16-ish per month, compared to $29 for the iPhone 11. Yes, the 11 is double the cost, almost. But we’re also talking about $13 each month. That’s, what? Two lattes at Starbucks?

And this conversation is made harder by potential customers deluding themselves, claiming that this is somehow all they need, that they prefer Touch ID to Face ID for some reason, that they like small screens, or even that this phone makes sense now because Touch ID works when you’re wearing a mask because of the Coronavirus. There are all kinds of justifications, but that’s all they are: Justifications, not reasons. They’re an excuse to not do better for yourself. I hate to see this. This is like the story I told recently about the Mac user who preferred that platform over Windows because it was more reliable, but they hadn’t touched a Windows PC in years; they had no idea what they were talking about, and no idea what they were missing. People who move from an iPhone 6/6S/7/8 to the SE and are proud of that are doing the same thing.

And … that is fine, it is. But I can’t recommend it to others. I can only understand it. And wish that Apple wasn’t so terrible and getting so much credit and positive press for that.

You want to save money? Keep using the phone you already own. But if you really need to upgrade, buy for future you, and not to save a buck today. You can space this out. And you can do much better than this dated design. That’s my advice, at least. I know many will disagree with it.