Ask Paul: October 16 (Premium)

Happy Friday and Happy iPhone Day! Let’s kick off the weekend with an unusually long Ask Paul thanks to some great reader questions.

New Surface, old dock

cwfinn asks;

Has anyone else experienced the poor performance (keyboard lag, video flicker on external monitor, mouse lag) with Surface Pro 7 and the 1st Gen Microsoft Surface Dock? It was so bad in my case I plopped down $175 for a Surface Dock 2 (needing to buy all new video cables as no more mini-DisplayPort output, “just” USB-C) and everything’s working fine. FWIW, the original Surface Dock works fine with Surface Pro 3, 5 and 6 but SOL with Surface Pro 7

I also have this combination of hardware—Surface Pro 7 and the OG Surface Dock—but I’ve not experienced this, sorry. Hopefully someone else can chime in here.

Different smartphone strategies

davidD asks:

Do you think Samsung range of phones is too many / too complex when you add up all the model in their ranges? (S/Note/A/M (didn’t know there was an m range!) plus others I’ve probably left out), or is this the right strategy? (question inspired by [a Verge video], and also I remember you mentioning on FRD about them possibly reducing some of the S/ Note range).

This has really triggered a lot of strange thoughts, which include such hackneyed phrases as “you go to war with the army you’ve got” (thanks, Donald Rumsfeld) and “you can’t please everyone” (author unknown), the latter of which both Apple and Samsung try to do with vastly different strategies. This is perhaps worth exploring further, but here’s my high-level take on this.

As a more traditional handset maker that predates the modern smartphone age, Samsung is still stuck in a mode in which it feels like it has to please carriers, and that, in doing so, it has to have many, many models, at different pricing levels, to meet their needs and the needs of their collective customers. The problem, of course, is that there are too many carriers, each of which wants exclusive models or at least variants. And the video you mention above only touches the very tip of this incredible iceberg of products.

To literally answer your question, yes, I do think that Samsung has too many models/variants. It’s confusing and it seems unnecessary.

But I also vaguely respect the fact that the firm can compete in this market (“go to war”) in the way that it chooses (“with the army it’s got”). And that the strategy seems to work, as Samsung consistently outsells Apple and is the biggest smartphone maker in the world.

On that note…

Related, do you think the small range of phones that Apple makes in comparison (I know they’ve just announced 4 phones, but that is a lot for them), and the reduced cost this brings (at least in theory) contributes to it’s profitability (apart from the obscene prices obviously!)

There are huge advantages and disadvantages of Apple’s approach, for sure.

To put this in perspective, Apple did create the modern smartphone market in 2007 and they did so with a single model. Apple expanded the iPhone over the years by adding carriers and markets, by adding multiple models (starting in 2013 with the iPhone 5S and 5C), and by continuing to sell older models at lower prices alongside new models. Today, Apple’s iPhone lineup is bigger than it’s ever been but, yeah, it’s a far cry from the Samsung strategy.

One of the things I always run into with Apple fans is that I’ll mention something like marketshare—where iPhone only has about 13 percent worldwide compared to Android with the rest—and they’ll complain that this comparison is unfair. Apple, after all, only makes a small number of iPhone models, they’ll say. They made the same arguments about the Mac.

But that’s why I thought of “you go to war with the army you’ve got”: Apple’s strategy to compete is Apple’s alone, and it’s their decision. They could easily have 127 different models too—they are the biggest company in the world, after all—but they don’t because that’s not how Apple does things. But we’re still going to compare the two products, sorry. And Apple fans will delight in the statistics they prefer, whether it’s the alleged percentage of profits in the industry, the profits per device, the marketshare in western countries like the US (where it’s much higher), or whatever. Again, each company chooses its own path.

Here’s a minor and very recent example of how Apple’s approach has interesting side-effects. Last year, Apple offered three new iPhone 11s, each with different screen sizes: The iPhone 11, the iPhone 11 Pro, and the iPhone 11 Pro Max. This year, there are four, but the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 Pro both have literally identical screens and form factors. And that means that they both accept the same cases. (I noticed this while preordering an iPhone this morning.) That’s good all around.

All that said, given how similar the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro are, we’re getting to the point where Apple may have too many phones now too. It seems like those two models, in particular, could become a single model at this point. But that’s just nitpicking. They’re nowhere near Samsung territory in that regard.

A couple questions and a request…

bschnatt asks:

First, the heavy-duty question: You’ve traveled extensively to the west coast for Microsoft events, etc. The Cascadia Subduction Zone is a major fault-line running from Canada all the way down to Northern California, and it is said (by geologists) that if an earthquake ever happened along that fault, it would make a San Andreas earthquake look like a Chuckee Cheese party. The devastation would be unbelievable, wiping out whole coastal cities from Alaska to California, either by earthquake or tsunami (basically, everything west of I-5). I’ve always been amazed by the fact that no one on the west coast seems to be terribly bothered by this (basing this on population, conferences, movie productions, etc), despite the recorded history of earthquakes there. Have you talked to anyone there about this, and if so, what do they say? (I know we shouldn’t live in constant fear for our lives, but you can’t really discount this!) I’m assuming that Amazon and Microsoft have contingency plans for this…

Yeah, and that is literally what they say, that such an event could happen in our lifetimes, or it could happen in 1000 years. (I think the odds are that the former is much more likely.) But this is the same as with the people I know in the Bay Area. It’s a possibility. In the northeast, we deal with Nor’easter storms, including the one that left 6 feet of snow on the ground outside our house in 2015, and hurricanes. And people in the southeast deal with even more serious and frequent hurricanes. If there was a perfect and disaster-free place, I think we’d all live there. And ruin it in doing so. 🙂

Second, if the quality of a cellphone camera had NO bearing on your decision-making, what would be your other criteria for picking a cellphone platform, and would you already be using an iPhone as your daily driver?

This is a tough thing because it shifts and there are factors that get in the way, turning pros into cons. I could make a list of all the things that matter to me and then order them by priority. But in each case, there could be extenuating issues that are unique to a particular device. For example, I could argue that the Samsung Note 20 Ultra I recently reviewed is in some ways perfect, with high-end specs, a great camera system, one of the best displays I’ve ever seen, and a beautiful UI. But the display is, if anything, too big, and too wide, and because it’s curved, I suffered from regular mis-clicks which tarnished the overall experience.

On the flip side, I’d be happy with an XL version of the Pixel 4a or 5 as long as it had at least a dual-camera system, and that’s interesting because camera quality literally is my most important criteria. But I like other things about the Pixel 4a/5G and 5 enough that they would soften my need for the third lens. It’s kind of a hard, variable thing to quantify.

Looking at the iPhone today, it would need to be competitive from a camera perspective for starters, and I suspect that it is. Beyond that, I want more customizability than Apple is providing in iOS 14, including really being able to put icons anywhere on the screen and being able to set a wide range of default apps. More importantly, I want the apps I use to be full-featured: I want to access the Kindle store from within the Kindle app, for example, and likewise with other content apps. Those changes could be coming thanks to various lawsuits and antitrust cases, but they’re a problem for me today.

The search for the perfect phone continues. But I think it will always continue.

Here’s my request: I recently started using Plex to play podcasts (although it needs some serious work). But I can’t find “What The Tech” on Plex. Can you see if it’s possible to add that (preferably as a Web Show)? I’d appreciate it!

I can’t do this myself, but I have asked Andrew if this is possible. He is looking into it.

LiDAR

BigM72 asks:

Apple seems quite big on Lidar – adding it to both iPad Pros and iPhone Pros. And yet it seems quite a niche component in terms of applications? It feels like it must be related to some master plan (like Apple glasses) otherwise I don’t get why Apple is investing so much in something with narrow range of use cases?

Apple does this sort of thing sometimes where they’ll add a feature, or even a chipset, to a device and not really have any clear use case. But there’s always some long game strategy involved. And while Tim Cook doesn’t get a lot of credit for his products strategy chops for good reason, he’s clearly convinced that AR is the future. And LiDAR plays a big role in that future, real or imagined.

I’m not sure if anyone else had this same reaction, but the LiDAR portion of the iPhone event reminded me of how Microsoft used to market the Kinect for Xbox: It would scan the room and provide a real-time 3D representation of it in software.

AR doesn’t seem like a great bet to me, in the sense that room-mapping scenarios are fairly limited (like when you’re buying furniture and want to see what it might look like in a real room. But in the short term, LiDAR in the iPhone 12 Pro will probably work like a time-of-flight sensor on other handsets and provide better focus performance and accuracy for more traditional photography tasks. And that’s certainly useful, even today.

Windows 10X

peterc asks:

Do you have any update on Win 10X. It seems MS have gone very quiet on this front. We saw the W10X Out of Box experience recently and I read its coming to Windows 10…. Neo was going to run W10X and now its pages been removed from the web, but what about W10X? Am I hanging on for something that’s been quietly cancelled? it was meant to be coming to single screen devices and I would have thought the surface laptop go would have been ideal, or has core parts been re-purposed to Windows? or has android now become the OS of choice for lighter/app driven hardware products upcoming from MS, basically re-using the same hardware chassis which were originally designed for W10X?

I can only speculate because it’s been so quiet on this front. But it’s pretty clear that Windows 10X was nowhere near ready for both compatibility and performance reasons, both tied to its container-based architecture, and that it needs more time to gestate. Whether Microsoft believes that this is the last chance it’s going to have to offer up a modern replacement for Windows desktop is unclear, but I could make a good argument for bringing the Windows 10X architecture and, optionally, its UX, to mainstream Windows instead of releasing it as a separate thing.

That said, if Windows 10X is truly smaller/lighter than traditional Windows, it could be an interesting choice for a class of device that hasn’t really taken off yet either: ARM-based Windows PCs that are thin, light, and fanless and maybe don’t need traditional Windows software as much as do traditional PCs. To date, Microsoft has only discussed 10X on Intel, but I feel like maybe ARM makes more sense, assuming the right device(s).

Whatever they’re doing, I wish Microsoft would be more transparent about Windows 10X. It’s been too quiet for too long.

Your Phone

wright_is asks:

I have been trying to set up Your Phone on my PC to connect to my Samsung S20+ at home and my work PC to my Huawei P20. At work, the phone is on a guest network with direct Internet access, the work PC is on the internal network. At home, the phone is on the wi-fi network and the desktop is on the cabled network (separate subnets, but the subnets are fully open to seeing each other). I can’t get either device to register with either PC. Is there a trick for getting them connected, when they are on separate subnets?

Not that I’m aware of. I find Your Phone to be very buggy and unreliable, and while of course I like the idea, I’ve found it problematic in actual use. I usually end up not using it as a result.

Hopefully someone else has something more constructive to add, sorry.

iPhone 12

yoshi asks:

Were you able to secure an iPhone pre-order? Which one did you end up going with?

Yes, I ended up ordering a base (64 GB) iPhone 12 in black and a case. The phone should arrive next Friday.

Also, will you be getting a Pixel 5 to at least review? I’ve found your reviews to be the most honest so I’m always curious what you think about these devices.

Appreciated. And yeah, I’ll be getting some new Pixel. Not sure which one yet.

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how many times I’ve had a Pixel 5 queued up for purchase in the Google Store. I really like the green color, and while I’d prefer polycarbonate, it seems like the aluminum body and whatever coating Google is using provides a similar experience. I think I’d be OK with the camera system.

The problems I have are the price and the display size. I have no issues with the mid-market nature of the Pixel 5, but $700 is a lot of money for those specifications. So for now, I’m waiting on the Pixel 4a 5G to come out of its “waiting list” status so I can be indecisive about that. It has a slightly bigger display, not quite XL class, but close, and the same camera system as the Pixel 5. I wish it came in that green color. But it’s going to be $200 cheaper too. That’s big, and I’ll be trading in my Pixel 4 XL to help make up most of the rest of the difference.

Office Web Apps

AnOldAmigaUser asks:

With the news that Microsoft is now testing installation of the Office Web Apps with the operating system on insider builds, do you think they view this as a way to add perceived value to the Windows platform? Buy a PC, get Office (ok the web apps) built in. Or is it part of a larger effort to replace the mobile apps and consolidate on a single code base for all versions of Office other than the Windows desktop?

Here again, I can only speculate. Which is fine, it’s fun to speculate.

I do think you’re onto something, that the Office app in Windows 10, which loads the Office Web Apps if there are no native apps installed and/or combined with the Office Web Apps preinstalled are meant to accomplish what Microsoft tried briefly with those mobile Windows 10 apps. Which is to provide consumers with a limited experience for non-paying customers and a reasonable experience for paying Microsoft 365 subscribers.

But that’s the weird bit: If you’re paying for Microsoft 365, why not just preinstall the native apps?

I don’t see Microsoft replacing the native apps with the web apps, maybe ever, just because they can never be as powerful and full-featured. But there are some interesting things about the web apps. They will work well for most people, they often get new features first, and they are much more easily updateable.

Do you think they may add a Microsoft Office Web Home/Personal SKU for consumers, similar to Business Basic or Education A1? These apps are probably more than good enough for a large percentage of users.

Yes.

While Microsoft doesn’t offer a Microsoft 365 product for consumers that costs less but only provides access to the web and mobile apps (as opposed to installable native desktop apps, it certainly could. And it does with Microsoft 365 commercial. So that could be an interesting change if it happens.

For now, however, I just see these apps in Windows as a modern replacement for the mobile apps that are no longer being updated.

Cloud streaming on iOS/iPadOS

Vladimir asks:

Hi Paul, what do you think about the possibilities of Xcloud (and other applications) on safari? If I remember correctly, for obvious reasons, Apple never pushed on PWAs. If developers (including Microsoft with xCloud) will be successful in making PWAs that run around the app store rules, don’t you think that apple will try to break them?

Safari actually does support most core PWA features like Service Workers and the Web App Manifest. (It does not support push notifications or background sync, or background audio playback.) A trusted acquaintance and expert in this area, Chris Love, has written a nice summary of this support on his website. But I’ve also recently tested the PWA experience on iPhone recently by trying a few high-profile PWAs, like Twitter. And they work great: You can save them to the home screen and they look/act like real apps.

Given all this, I don’t see how Apple could prevent Microsoft and Amazon from publishing their respective game streaming services as PWAs. And as some other blogger recently noted (I don’t remember who or where I saw this, sorry), if you’re concerned as a developer by what Apple is doing in the App Store, then PWAs are the solution. I wonder what volume of PWAs would be needed to trigger some policy changes in Cupertino.

Windows on Mac

helix2301 asks:

Paul I was wondering your thoughts on windows on mac. I know boot camp makes it possible the reason I ask is I am a huge Twit fan and all the time at least once or twice a week either chat room or a called on the tech guy hits leo up with how they run linux or windows on the mac hardware cause they like mac hardware. I guess I was wondering what your thoughts are on that subject? How that will be changing with the move to arm? Why do you think so many people duel boot or buy expensive mac hardware to run a different OS? Do you think this is a market that Apple might loose by going to arm? Thanks again for all your work love the site read it everyday.

The biggest lie I’ve ever heard is that Windows runs best on Mac. That’s never been the case, in part because Apple kneecaps Boot Camp to prevent it by providing non-optimal drivers that ensure poorer performance than would otherwise be possible. I understand the desire for Apple’s hardware, but if you get a Mac, run macOS. If you need to run Windows apps too, use Parallels Desktop, which offers a neat Coherence mode in which Windows apps run and work properly alongside native apps.

The move to ARM is going to cement this further because Apple is killing Boot Camp. So the only way forward will be virtualization solutions like Parallels. We’re all wondering about performance, of course, but we’ll find out how well that works soon enough.