Ask Paul: July 3 (Premium)

Happy Friday and Happy Fourth of July! Here’s a great set of reader questions to kick off the holiday long weekend.

Automatic dark mode

jt5 asks:

Do you think Windows will get the ability to switch from light to dark and dark to light depending on the sunrise and sunset like Mac, IOS, and Android have? In a related note- have you heard anything about supporting background images that change at different times in the day?

I think automatic dark mode is a great feature, and I have started using it on the iOS and macOS betas to test it out. So, yeah, I could see this happening in Windows for sure. I feel like we’ve had dynamically changing wallpaper here and there in the past (and macOS currently supports this with some themes that have light and dark versions of wallpaper for the auto dark mode switch). Not sure if that would make the cut, but in the theme of “Redmond, start your photocopiers,” why not?

Wireless earbuds

Daninbusiness asks;

Any interest in doing more wireless earbud reviews? There’s a flood of them on the market at a variety of price points. For those of us not on iPhones, there’s a lot of choices but it’s hard to appreciate the trade-offs involved.

Not immediately, though if travel ever kicks in again, I’m going to need to figure out something with good noise cancelation. For now, I feel like I’m in a good place with the Galaxy Buds+ set that I’m using.

Windows roadmap

kitron asks:

Why is Microsoft not providing any Windows roadmap? We don’t know what’s slated for next version and the one after that.

“Why” questions are hard, but with Microsoft handing responsibility of Windows to Panos Panay a few months back, I’m hoping for some clarity and transparency. It’s reasonable for him to want/need some number of months to speak with the major players on the team(s), see where things are at, and then plot some way forward. (And fair to point out that his delay/retraction of Surface Neo and Windows 10X was decisive and clear-headed.) But COVID is going to make this more difficult too. So we might not learn anything concrete until later this year.

But we can glean some information from the current testing schedule, where at any given time, Insiders are testing the next version of Windows (Beta channel/previously Slow ring) plus some number of features that may or may not be added to Windows in some future release (Dev channel, previously Fast ring). Given the speed at which new Windows versions arrive, this may be the only way to develop Windows successfully in such a public fashion. (With macOS, for example, if Apple delayed a feature from, say, the 2020 release of the system to the 2021 release, only a few people inside the company would even know about it.)

Consumer Windows vs. business Windows

txag asks:

I keep wondering if it might have been viable for Microsoft to convert Windows 7 to “Business Windows”; the idea being to charge a lot for its annual upkeep but basically freeze the feature set to a plain vanilla operating system that would give business users a stable predictable system. Then Consumer Windows could be the touch-based Windows 10; the operating system for gamers and use at home. I can’t think of any business I dealt with that wouldn’t have liked to just have Windows 7 continue indefinitely.

Yeah, I’ve felt this way about the UX in particular—which is where most of the features anyone would notice are, when you think about it—for years. There’s no reason for the Windows that businesses deploy and the Windows that consumers use to be so similar/nearly identical.

Who knows? Maybe this is/was part of the plan with Windows 10 X.

Mac 1983 vs. Mac 2020

ErichK asks:

Do you think the original vision of the Mac is still intact in 2020? What I mean is, when the Mac was originally introduced, the darn thing didn’t have arrow keys because Steve Jobs insisted that you do things like that with the mouse. Heck, it took a while for them to introduce window resizing on any edge. So is the Mac of today a huge exercise in compromise with the rest of the PC industry?

In a weird way, this reminds me of a car conversation I often have, where you consider a classic like the Ford Mustang and the fact that today’s version of this car—or 1995’s or 1980’s or whatever—in no way shares any real DNA with the original pony car classic. It’s like watching a cover band.

But if you think about the Mac in the same fashion, I think we’d agree that computing platforms, like cars, have to evolve and improve over time. The question is whether the Mac of today in any way resembles the original vision from 40 years ago.

It does not. The original Mac was an appliance that was not user serviceable or upgradeable. It was meant to remove all of the complexity that made the computers of that era so hard to use, but of course it also took away some of the key advantages of the computers of that era. But the Mac evolved. Later models were serviceable and upgradeable. They added expansion slots. Color. Bigger displays. And so on.

What Apple and Jobs wanted for the Mac was for it to become the simpler new standard for computing. And the one thing I’ll say about Apple today is that they’ve sort-of achieved this on different levels with iPhone and iPad, and that the recent changes they announced for Mac bring it in-line with those other platforms.

Jobs saw the GUI and mouse as the big selling points, I’m sure, but where the Mac really took off was when third parties took advantage of those capabilities by creating page publishing applications and the laser printer, setting up the platform for its future as the computer for creatives. That happened after Jobs left and after Apple fixed the limitations Jobs insisted on. But that focus on creatives continues to this day, and is pretty impressive as a legacy. (That the Mac is around at all today is pretty impressive, really.) I’m sure that this audience is part of what drives Apple to make sure the Mac is consistent, professional-looking, and attractive.

Statistics

OldITPro2000 asks:

I’m curious to know where you go for statistics outside of directly from a vendor when you need them for an article. Do you have your own personal sources, do you have a subscription service, or do you do something else entirely?

I assume you mean for things like market and usage share? Sales figures and other facts provided by the manufacturers themselves are always preferred, but not always available. My go-to companies for device sales are Gartner and IDC and I use NetMarketShare for measuring usage online (OS and web browser) because Microsoft told me years ago that their methodology was the most accurate. That’s about it.

iPad and Continuum

will asks:

I was thinking about the whole continuum idea this week with Apples announcements and I could see it being on the iPad sooner than the iPhone. If this happens, and it is like 90% there now, would someone like you consider just using an iPad Pro vs a laptop going forward? Maybe not a full desktop replacement just yet, but for travel, light duty work, and entertainment and then does Surface Neo even stand a chance?

He’s referring to a rumor that I discussed on Windows Weekly (and probably First Ring Daily and What the Tech) that Apple is looking at adding a Continuum-like feature to the iPhone in the future that would let it run macOS when docked to a display, keyboard, and mouse. But I agree this makes even more sense for the iPad, where one could imagine a future in which iPads run Mac apps (or even macOS).

Surface Neo (like Surface Duo) is kind of goofy to me because it seems to be all about dual-screen, and I’m not sure what the point of that is. I still feel like the primary form factors we have now—laptop, tablet, and phone—make sense, but there’s this dream of eliminating one of those because one of them becomes a dual-use device. That makes sense in theory, but I’m not sure it’s ever been done effectively. The iPad Pro, which can sort of replace a laptop, comes pretty close.

Whither Pixel 4a?

anderb asks:

Given the multiple delays, the time of the year, the lack of a release announcement, the scrapping of the ‘barely blue’ color and the $399 iPhone SE, should Google just bury the Pixel 4a units it has managed to manufacture in the desert next to those ET cartridges and concentrate on making an affordable Pixel 5 instead?

I was starting to think that was the plan, that Google would just launch the Pixel 4a (which maybe then should be renamed Pixel 5a) alongside the Pixel 5 and Pixel 5 XL. But the latest rumors suggest it’s about to launch. I don’t understand this company and its approach to smartphones. But given that the 5/5 XL will be mid-range devices, maybe just having the one line each year would make more sense.

The future of Windows

john_m asks:

Given that Microsoft has pivoted to cloud and the business side vs consumer what do you think is Microsoft’s view of supporting/updating Windows? Is it viewed as a core essential product? Do you have any opinions on how their view of Windows may change over time?

It’s pretty clear that Microsoft broadly views Windows as a legacy product line that should be milked as long as possible with as little investment as possible. But Windows has never really fallen off a cliff, revenues-wise, and there are signs that the company finally realizes what a valuable asset it remains, and that it needs care. As I mentioned above, we need to give Panos Panay some time to create and articulate a strategy before we judge what’s happening.

Mac vs. Windows

BigM72 asks:

You have talked about how swapping Windows for macOS is simply trading one set of pros and cons for another. Most tech journalists I find are much more familiar with the Mac side. As someone who writes more about Windows but has experience of both platforms, it would be great to understand your view in some detail on what such a transition would entail for the Windows user and the potential pitfalls.

It’s not like it was 20 years ago when there was a real app gap between Windows and the Mac, any individual who wanted to switch to the Mac could probably do so successfully now. Of the competing platforms, Mac would be the easiest switch for those who typically engage in what I’ll call routine productivity work. The pitfalls would be related to the cost of hardware, the potential cost of some new software, and the time/effort it would take to work around the differences. But most of the apps/services we use work fine on the Mac, including the most important Microsoft solutions like Office, OneDrive, Skype, and Teams.

My own preferences are my own, and they’re based on years of familiarity with the platform I do use most often and a general ambivalence about the Mac that is likewise based on many years of continually trying it. I’ve never understood why so many tech journalist use Macs. I just can’t explain it. It’s like most tech journalists are rich.

Writing a “Living with Mac” series would be anti-climactic because most things would just work fine. But I’m considering writing an article about trying to figure out how to make the thing more keyboard-friendly. To me, that’s the biggest hang-up.

More Continuum

AnOldAmigaUser asks:

As someone who actually used Continuum a bit with Windows Phone, I actually found it useful in a pinch. Is Microsoft still doing anything with that technology? Seems to me it could be useful for Android, Windows on ARM, and possibly Windows 10X. It would be a pity if Apple gets to claim that as yet another magical and heroic technology they devised.

I always thought that Continuum was a good idea, but it was dragged down by Windows Mobile and the lack of decent desktop-style apps past Office. I am curious if Microsoft will try to do something like this with Android, though as I’ve said of Samsung Dex, this seems like the type of thing that should come from the platform maker. Unfortunately, Apple doing something like this with iPhone and/or iPad does make a lot of sense.

Linux file systems on Windows

proftheory asks:

With the push for WSL 2.0 do you think Windows will ever natively support ext2/3/4?

There are third-party utilities that enable this functionality, so I don’t see why not. I’m not aware of the relative benefits of using ext vs. NTFS, but it’s not hard to imagine Microsoft pushing all of Windows in that direction if it makes sense.

Yeah, I got a creepy-crawly down my back too.

4th of July

madthinus asks:

What are we grilling / drinking this 4th?

It’s fair to say that the 4th will be muted affair this year, but we plan to visit some friends who live on a hill overlooking much of the Lehigh Valley, and hope to see whatever fireworks Allentown and the surrounding townships do put on. We’re actually going to get Mexican food delivered instead of grilling, but my wife and I are doing that tonight instead. Nothing special drink-wise. Probably a few cocktails and some local wine.

Next-gen Surface

peterc asks:

I’m looking to find out any news/rumours about the surface pro 8 and what a 2020 refresh might be and when this maybe landing? I suppose one question I have is about its chassis – would it adopt the SPX chassis? or stay as is with maybe slimmer bezels/increased screen size? Might it get 4g/5g connectivity options? or are data connected devices being left to WOA/SPX product lines now?

There are rumors of an “8cx Plus” processor-based Surface Pro X, but that doesn’t make sense to me given that the initial version was an SQ-1 processor, not an 8cx. I’d rather see Microsoft hold off on the Pro X until 64-bit x86 app support is available and/or there is a bigger processor jump.

What I’d like to see is:

• Surface Pro 8 with the Surface Pro X form factor
• Surface Laptop 3 with AMD Ryzen 4000-series processors

The other big question here is Windows 10 X and whether it is even an ongoing concern. I expect we’ll see some Windows 10 X technology appear in mainstream Windows 10 instead. Plus, macOS Big Sur just makes 10X look like amateur hour. Microsoft needs to rethink this.