Ask Paul: August 7 (Premium)

… and then there it is the next day.

Happy Friday, and welcome to August, such as it is. Here’s another great set of reader questions to kick off the weekend.

Lightning 1, Paul 0

Cdorf asks:

First off, so sorry to hear about the lightning strike issue. I am glad that you and your neighbors are all okay. That led me to wonder if there was anything that could have helped prevent the damage in the first place? Since the theory is it came through the COAX would a suppressor on the COAX have helped with absorbing any of that? Or was the lightning just so intense that it wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference?

The cable guys who came and fixed our connection, and found where the lightning had hit, about 15 feet in front of our front door, recommended that we get a whole-house surge protector. This is something we had in our previous house, but never installed here, coincidentally. Whether it would have worked is unclear given how this happened. But we’re looking into getting one here as well.

Hey, Lenovo is Chinese, remember?

christianwilson asks:

The current U.S. regime’s cold stance on companies like Huawei and TikTok in recent years got me thinking about Lenovo. Why isn’t Lenovo viewed the way these other companies are? They seem to be functioning here in the United States the same as ever.

I’ve been wondering the same thing. My only guess is that our president is such an idiot—remember, he thought Singapore was part of China during the Qualomm/Broadcom thing—that it just hasn’t occurred to him yet. Don’t give him any ideas. 🙂

But more pragmatically, Lenovo’s ability to infringe on national security (cough) is limited compared to a networking provider (Huawei) or an online service (TikTok, WeChat, etc.). Those companies impact far bigger audiences.

Also, thanks to the Lenovo PC businesses’ roots, that part of the company has a large U.S.-based operation in North Carolina (a red state) and thus a history in this country. The one thing that Huawei, TikTok, and other companies that concern this administration have in common is that they are “pure” Chinese and arose in recent years.

Other mobile alternatives

bschnatt asks:

I know you’ve owned iPhones and Android phones, but you haven’t said if you ever used some of those other, under-appreciated phones, the Palm Pre and the BlackBerry 10 phones (unless I missed it). Ever play with them?

I owned many, many Palm devices, including the Palm Treo 700w, the Windows Mobile handset. (In fact, I still have it.) I also owned many Palm OS-based devices from Handspring and Sony back in the day. But I’ve never owned a Palm Pre, which was launched about 1.5 years after iPhone and looked amazing, though it had performance problems and Palm was succumbing to financial difficulties. And I’ve never owned a Blackberry handset, mostly because by the time that got interesting, Windows phone was already happening.

On that note, if you haven’t seen it and are interested in the personal computing history, Palm’s January 2009 launch of the Pre at CES is worth watching today. The presentation is very clearly modeled on Apple and Steve Jobs, though ex-Apple exec Jon Rubinstein, who was the Palm CEO at the time, lacks Jobs’ charisma. The other interesting note is that the person who designed the Palm Pre UX, Matias Duarte (he comes onstage at 18:10 in the video linked above) went on to create Material Design at Google. So there’s some really interesting pedigree there.

I would love to see an Android launcher adopt the swipe-up app-switching model [from the Palm Pre], but I’m not sure Google (or Android) would allow that. Thoughts? (Folks, if there’s already one that *does*, let me know!)

I feel like the way that iOS and then Android evolved with regards to swipe-based app switching works pretty well today. There are definitely some third-party (and even bundled) switchers that try to improve on (or at least change) the stock switcher in interesting way.

Mindfulness

Bschnatt also asks:

Many years ago I read an article about “mindfulness”, and the gist of it was that people weren’t nearly as mindful of what they were doing or what was happening around them, so the work they were doing wasn’t thoughtful, leading to poor execution. (Cellphone worship isn’t helping in this regard…) Microsoft seems to be afflicted by this big-time … Is Microsoft ever going to fix this? Is anyone home? Bueller? I’ve asked this before – does Microsoft even use their own products?

This is a big issue, and my notion of “deep work,” where I put aside some number of hours each day to do what I hope to be uninterrupted work (mostly writing) is sort of my take on applying this notion to workflow.

On a semi-related note, I finally watched the multi-part Michael Jordan documentary “The Last Dance” on Netflix, and I was struck by a comment a former teammate said of Jordan’s biggest strength: It was always being in the moment and having a singular goal of winning at all costs. Jordan was never worried about the next game, the next series, or the next year. He was worried about now. And there are multiple clips of him responding to stupid post-game questions or chatting with teammates that bolster that that was his way of doing things. That is truly inspiring. It wasn’t about the gym, or taking shots, or being a leader, whatever that means. It was about focus.

With that in mind, I feel like one of the major issues we face today as a society is an inability to concentrate and focus on a single thing. We’re always looking down at phones, whether we’re watching TV, eating, conversing with others, or whatever, and not just focusing. I actually work on this sometimes, in small ways—I leave my phone in the car when I swing through Dunkin’ Donuts, as I did today—or in bigger ways, like when I try to read long-form fiction just to make sure I still can. Technology is great, but it’s contributing to a mental lack of focus and, I think, to a decline in wellbeing overall.

Expecting technology to solve a problem that was created by technology may be misguided. Platform makes are building focus modes and other digital balance/wellbeing interfaces into their products, and that’s good. But this is like parenting: You gotta do the work. And in an era in which our attention is being pulled in all directions, this is ultimately on us. We just need to learn to say no, and to really work at it.

Windows + Devices

darkgrayknight asks:

With Panos Panay heading Windows and Devices and along with the Windows reorg, Is there a better hope of bringing consistency across the Windows UI?

That’s the hope, and I’m sure that’s the dream inside of Microsoft. Whether Panay has the skillset and ability to make that happen is sort of an open question, but if you accept that Apple products are made better by the deep integration of hardware and software at every level, than doing similarly at Microsoft should at least reap some benefits.

I’ve pointed this out before, but the real problem at Microsoft when it comes to consistency is that it’s contrary to Microsoft’s culture and therefore might be an impossible goal. Microsoft doesn’t reward people for evolving existing products or fixing problems, it rewards them for creating new products and services. And with Microsoft getting bigger and bigger, those new things have to meet the lofty goal of potentially being a billion-dollar business before they can even get off the ground. In this kind of environment, moving on more Control Panel interface into the Settings app in Windows 10 isn’t exactly going to attract the top talent, and it’s just not a priority.

So we’ll see. As always, I have high hopes but realistic expectations.

Linux is number one

ErichK asks:

Paul, is it safe to say that the Linux kernel (repeat: kernel) is the most widely-used piece of software on the planet?

I’m not sure how to measure that. But between datacenters and Android, it’s certainly one of the most widely-used pieces of software on the planet. The ironic thing here is that adding or not adding desktop use of Linux doesn’t move the needle on that measurement at all. So it’s not so much that Linux “won,” but rather that open systems won.

It is weird to me that Linux hasn’t capitalized on this on the desktop, but maybe Windows was just open enough—not so much an open system but a system with open programming interfaces for app makers—that it was just too late to market. I remember when I first encountered Linux in Scottsdale in the early- to mid-1990s and thinking that there was no way Microsoft could beat free.

Windows 10 on ARM

eeisner asks:

Who’s to blame for WOA performance being so terrible? Is it Qualcomm’s chipsets not being fast/powerful enough? Windows bloat/legacy slowing it down? Windows poor optimization for running ARM compiled software? Developers not compiling their Windows software for ARM?

If we are to point the finger of blame at one entity, it has to be Microsoft.

But it’s not really a technical issue: The firm partnered with Qualcomm and they did the hard technical work to get WOA up and running on Snapdragon. And it partnered with PC makers to ship actual devices to end users. But this thing never should have left the lab: The performance and compatibility is still so shoddy that duping someone into buying such a product amounts to consumer fraud.

What Microsoft should have done is keep plugging away privately, fixing the problems, and then shipping it publicly only when the performance was acceptable and the compatibility was near 100 percent, and included 64-bit x86 apps. This is essentially what Apple did with Mac and Apple Silicon.

This is a really hard one for me. I get the point of WOA and think this kind of design is important for the industry. But it’s just not ready, even today.

YouTube Music

eeisner also asks:
How are you liking Youtube Music? I’m incredibly frustrated that YT Music separates streaming music and uploaded music into 2 separate libraries, while Play Music put everything in one place. Are you satisfied with the current setup?

I’m going to write about this separately soon, but the short version is that it’s mostly OK. My Google Play Music playlists all ported over fine, and even though I can still use GPM today I’ve been kind of forcing myself to use YouTube Music just to get used to it. There are some UI changes to get used to, some service-level stuff that is kind of interesting (like my YouTube-based playlists showing up in YouTube Music), and some small annoyances related to reordering song order during playback. But it’s OK overall.

One thing I’m very curious about is how it will handle music uploading. I have dozens of songs in my GPM library that are not available in the cloud, and I’d like to know that I can upload more in the future. But that’s not clear. On the flipside, YouTube has so much great music on the service, including many live sets, that are not available elsewhere, and having access to them in YouTube Music is fantastic. So kind of a mixed bag overall.

Next Sonos

jrthorne asks:

Bought a Sonos Beam after following your “Whole House Speaker” posts. So what should I add to the Beam, a Sub or 2 One’s … primary use TV in family room?

We’ve been discussing the same thing. If the Sub wasn’t so expensive, that would be my next choice. But more likely, we’ll add two IKEA Symfonisk speakers as rears first, since they’re so cheap ($100 each, vs. $150 for Sonos One).

I wish I could easily test the difference a Sub would make. I have a friend who’s really into Sonos, but he doesn’t use them for the TV at all, and he has a Sub paired with two Sonos Fives. That seems like overkill to me—my Sonos Fives pump bass—but I guess you never know.

Anyway, unless money is no object, I’d go with the rears next.  I will likely be doing this myself soon.

Apple Arcade

BigM72 asks:

I work long hours so my gaming these days is occasional at best and casual. I was wondering if you had tried Apple Arcade and thought this was a good option for casuals? Xbox Game Pass and xCloud seems to be for a somewhat more committed gamer?

Yeah, but only briefly. I didn’t find much of interest in their catalog when it first launched, and I’m not really into mobile gaming per se. (In fact, in tandem with that bit about focus and mindfulness above, I very much try to limit my time looking at a phone screen.)

I agree that Xbox Game Pass is for the more dedicated/frequent gamer. I do have an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription now, but I rarely use it beyond some time recently with Halo 3. Right as the pandemic hit, I was planning to start a “Living with PC gaming” series, but I got distracted by the world ending and then eventually just succumbed to the numbing familiarity of just doing what I always do. I will probably revisit that soon, though.

But yeah. Certainly, Apple Arcade is a lot less expensive, and if you’re into more casual mobile games, it’s probably the better choice. Given your situation, you may even be better off with free and paid individual games for now and just see if there’s any interest.

Parallels Desktop for Chromebook Enterprise

hrlngrv asks:

Seriously, what do you really think about Chromebooks with Parallels? Your article was skimpy on opinion.

Well, that was just a news story. I am … curious.

(Coincidentally, I spoke with Parallels just a few days before this announcement (about a new version of the Mac product) and I did ask about the Google announcement. They told me at the time that they couldn’t comment on this further until Google gave the go-ahead. Now they have.)

There are a few variables at work here. The first was simply wondering how Parallels and Google were going to accomplish this. When the firms first hinted at this happening, it wasn’t clear if this would be a virtual desktop solution (Parallels Remote Access Server or Parallels Access) or a local solution. Now that we know it’s the latter, we have a better understanding of how this will work. I’ve used Parallels Desktop on Mac for years and recommend it. So the Chrome OS version is at least interesting.

So a couple of early thoughts. This is a business feature, so it’s not clear if it will even be made available to individuals with normal Chromebooks. And it will require a modern, powerful processor (like a Core i5 or better) and lots of RAM and storage, things that are still pretty rare in Chromebooks.

On the Mac, you can use Parallels Desktop in two ways: First, as a full Windows desktop environment in a window or full-screen, or second, in a Coherence mode in which the Windows environment runs in the background and you use Chrome OS normally but can run standalone Windows apps alongside standard web and Android apps. My understanding is that that latter capability will not be present in v1, and that makes it a lot less interesting, at least at first.

I’m interested in trying it either way. But this will be a lot more interesting once Coherence mode is available. And assuming the Chromebook is sufficiently powerful.

Apple v. the world

peterc asks:

Regarding the current Apple/iOS and MS Xcloud gaming shenanigans – do you think it’s likely what we’re seeing here is Apple trying to delay and interfere with the commercial launch of xcloud and MS duo device. I suspect duo will offer some engaging game streaming options that single screens might not have.

I wrote up my take on this separately, so if you haven’t seen it yet, please check out Hubris, Thy Name is Apple (Premium). Short version is that this company’s behavior is unbelievable and is certainly illegal, and they need to be stopped. This is nonsense.

Be interesting to hear any thoughts or ITK info on such gaming dual screen features that might be emanating from Redmond.

Not sure about the Duo connection if any, but I can’t imagine Apple is worried about Surface Duo per se. Regarding Dual-screen gaming features, I don’t think we’ll see anything for v1, especially given that the Duo is mid-level hardware overall. This seems like more of a productivity play to me.

Microsoft and mobile

will asks:

Simple question: In the wake of Apples polices, and Microsoft doing a major reorganization of everything Windows, do you think there is a possibility they could be or might be looking again at some sort of mobile OS? Surface Duo might runAndroid, but do you think they could do something down the road for their own OS?

You could make an argument for Windows 10X being that platform, maybe. But I think the market has spoken and that the existing platforms are what we’ll have in mobile for the foreseeable future.

There is a question about whether Microsoft will keep making more Android devices, of course, and perhaps even tailor Android to their own vision. I’d like to see that. Microsoft had/has some good ideas around UX, and I don’t see why tablet-sized Microsoft apps on Android couldn’t mature to be just about as good as Windows apps.

Anyway, I expect to see more Surface-branded Android devices. A Surface Pro would be particularly interesting.