Ask Paul: March 19 (Premium)

Happy Friday, and welcome to this earlier- and slightly shorter-than-usual Ask Paul. I’m hoping to head out early for a long weekend away. This will be our first getaway since the pandemic began one year ago, and hopefully is just a fitful start to more travel as 2021 progresses.

Next NUC

wdodwell asks:

Hi Paul – did you get another NUC? What do you think of them? …

Not yet, but based on my past two weeks of experimentation—in which I switched fully to laptops—I will be getting one soon. There’s a lot that went into what I was doing, including my need to finish up on some laptop reviews so that I could return to the Intel Evo/Mac M1 stuff, but what I learned—or, really, confirmed—is that I really do prefer have a desktop-type PC in my office. And that I really enjoy the NUC form factor.

I ended up going back to my older NUC for now (a “NUC 8,” I guess, given its 8th-generation Intel chipset), but it’s just unreliable enough to be annoying. So when I get back from this long weekend trip, I’ll start researching the new NUCs. I have pretty basic needs so I will likely go with the smaller (shorter) form factor and a Core i5.

… And what is the use case for Optane memory?

Optane memory is used as cache for SSDs, so it’s basically just a way to speed up an SSD. That said, Optane may be on the way out since Intel killed off its Optane-based products two months ago.

Intel marketing

matsan asks:

What’s you take on Intel’s #GoPC? Will it work or blow up in their face? Much better than Microsoft’s Surface shot across the M1-bow at least.

I’m happy to see Intel taking a stand here. Too often, big companies ignore and don’t name the competitors that are nipping at their heels, as Microsoft did with Apple, coincidentally, back in the original “I’m a Mac” days. Apple has ridden a mindshare and free advertising high for months now, and Intel is correct to point out that PCs still have material advantages over any Mac, and over M1-based Macs specifically. It’s also being more honest about where its numbers come from when it discusses performance.

Many of the reactions to the new ads, as evidenced in part by the comments on this site, would be hilarious if they weren’t so sad and troubling. I’m not surprised, of course. But I have a hard time understanding why anyone would watch these ads or look at Intel’s other materials and not think it’s the right approach. Intel isn’t “running scared,” it’s simply countering what has been a one-sided conversation thus far. Microsoft and the PC makers should do the same.

Computing evolution

j5 asks:

So I’ve made the switch to the Apple ecosystem; iPhone 12, iPad Air, and M1 Mac Mini. I’m going to have a fun weekend of switching over from my 6-year-old Windows 10 laptop … My question is, what are your thoughts if you look back at how both computer platforms have progressed throughout the years, their battles, each their internal ups and downs, all their products and divisions (that have come and gone and are still here today), and where they stand today next to each other compared to their early days.

So, this could be a huge conversation, of course. But in eyeing the clock, and in keeping with my comments about needing to get out of here today at a reasonable time, I will be brief.

You’re right that virtually any platform—not just Mac, but Linux, Chromebook, and maybe even iPad—could meet the basic needs of many users. On a site like this, we have many technical users with very specific needs and lifetimes of experience that predispose them (and me) to doing things certain ways, and that makes it harder to even consider moving off Windows let alone making the jump. But we need to acknowledge that things have changed, and that our specific needs don’t always represent the mainstream. For example, I’m sure your move to the Mac will be successful and will work out well for you.

Regarding the history of this evolution, there are all kinds of ways to divide up time into different eras. I kind of see things in a Microsoft/post-Microsoft way, in that Microsoft was (literally) personal computing throughout all of the 1990s and into early the 2000s, and that everything that happened was a reaction to what Microsoft was doing, or what it was saying it would do. The combination of antitrust in the U.S. and the EU and the subsequent rise of companies like Google and Apple triggered a shift to a world of mobile- and web-based computing. This world is “better” in that it is more heterogenous and it expands the choice we once had only in PC models to many more and bigger markets and classes of devices. But it’s still something that Microsoft fans struggle with. The Microsoft of the 1990s would have crushed Google. The Microsoft of the 2000s was unable to do a thing about Google. Etc.

The other way to view this, and this will rankle some, I know, is dividing it up into PC and post-PC eras. The issue here is just semantics: PCs still exist in the post-PC world, it’s just that PCs aren’t the only personal computing devices anymore.

We could also look at specific platforms and how their evolution is a byproduct of what was happening at different times in those evolutions. For example, Chrome OS and Chromebooks were in many ways a response to the growing understanding of 10 years ago that most people spend most of their time on smaller, more mobile devices, creating a need for a simpler desktop platform. But Chrome OS has also evolved dramatically since that early positioning and has become quite functional, and it meets more needs than before and can attract a wider audience.

I could go on and on. Maybe this requires a dedicated article, but once I get the Intel Evo/Apple M1 series done, I’ll be moving on to a series about web apps and/or Chrome OS, and that might be a good place to expand on this topic.

Windows 10X vs. Chrome OS

AnOldAmigaUser asks:

Windows 10X…Given that maybe 80-90% of the population would be fine using a Chromebook, do you think it is more important for it to run Win32 apps, or is it more important that it ticks all the same boxes as Chrome for ease of maintenance, battery life, performance on lower end hardware, etc.?

Both are important. And while Microsoft didn’t plan it this way, meeting the latter needs first and then adding Win32 support over time probably the right approach. And running Win32 apps can be handled through a variety of solutions—the container-based approach that we assume Microsoft is still pursuing, virtualization, or Cloud PC or some other remote desktop/app capability—so we’ll likely have more than one choice.

The bigger issue, maybe, is that Windows 10X is sort of superfluous. Is the world—meaning customers, obviously, but also PC makers—really asking for something that’s just like Chrome OS but made by Microsoft? I see the value there, for sure. But many probably do not.

Personally, I think that anything that adds complexity will be a mistake, we have Windows 10 for that.

I agree. This came up on Windows Weekly this week, as well, and there’s no reason Microsoft can’t have both platforms, giving customers more choices. We had both Windows 3.x/9x and Windows NT in the 1990s, after all. NT evolved enough that it could replace 9x, but that took more time than Microsoft initially expected as well. Assuming that’s the goal with 10X, that could take a really long time if it ever happens.

Edge weirdness

staganyi asks:

Question about Edge on iPadOS. When opening a link into a new tab, the first opens to the right as expected. However, all subsequent links opened in new tabs open to the right of the current tab, but to the left of the previously created tab. I don’t see an option to control this behaviour. Makes it weird going through the tabs chronologically from right to left. On the desktop, new tabs always open to the right. Not sure if anyone else has experienced this.

Ha! Ah, man. This kind of inconsistency troubles me. The good news, I guess, is that the mobile versions of Edge should work more like the desktop versions when Microsoft shifts them all to a common code base. Hopefully, at that time, Edge will open tabs in the same order across platforms. Right now, they are completely different apps on desktop and mobile.

My big issue with Edge on mobile is that the address bar is on the top. (I’d like at least the option to move it.) When I pick up my phone, I can type into the home screen-based Google search bar easily with one hand. But if I launch Edge to search there (also via Google), then I have to use two hands because the address bar, with its integrated search, is at the top. This bugs me so much that I just use the home screen-based Google search bar, which of course uses Chrome. (Results launch in the Google app/Discovery feed.)

Future of Windows 10 on ARM

MikaelKoskinen asks:

Regarding Windows 10 on ARM, I found the Qualcomm’s acquisition of NUVIA interesting. Based on Anandtech’s interview, the immediate goals for the NUVIA team will be implementing custom CPU cores into laptop-class Snapdragon SoCs running Windows, and enable the company to offer higher performance CPUs than would have been otherwise possible. If Qualcomm spends $1.4 billion to purchase a company to make SoCs for Windows laptops, that surely must mean that Qualcomm is certain that Microsoft is on board in making Windows 10 on ARM a better product. Any thoughts on this?

I’ve been looking for signs that Microsoft and Qualcomm are slowing down their partnership on this, but I don’t really see it. The only real hiccup was that Qualcomm for the first time didn’t announce a new PC chipset at its annual December event, but I think this acquisition may explain that. (Plus, the M1 had just happened, and Apple hit it out of the park. Qualcomm can’t afford an 8cx-3 debacle.) Qualcomm had long ago divided up its chipmaking efforts so that it has dedicated chips for specific products (PCs, phones, wearables, IoT, etc.) but it’s clear that its PC-based chips just haven’t landed in the right place from a performance perspective. This led to Microsoft designing its own derivatives for Surface Pro X, too. But, yes, I think the NUVIA acquisition is all the evidence we need that Qualcomm is still serious about the PC. (And that Microsoft has certain performance needs that it has demanded of Qualcomm.)

Another question or observation regarding Windows 10 on ARM. There doesn’t seem to be any developer kits/computers for those who would like to do ARM development on Windows. When Apple started the transition to ARM they released “Developer Transition Kit (DTK)” and nowadays they offer a relatively cheap Mac Minis suitable for the Apple ARM based development. But for those who would like to do some development/testing for the the Windows 10 on ARM, the current story seems to be that one should get Surface Pro X. But that is not even a relatively cheap device and using a table-style PC as the developer kit seems backwards. Have you heard any rumors about desktop-style Windows 10 on ARM devices?

No, not since a vague mention back when the platform launched that we would eventually see different form factors. But this, too, is tied to the performance issues noted above: Qualcomm and Microsoft understood that the performance of the first WOA devices would be lackluster and so they’re focusing on thin and light devices where they can tout the battery life gains and hope that makes up for the performance shortcomings. But these devices have always been very expensive, whether they’re from Lenovo or HP or from Microsoft. 64-bit Intel emulation will help, but what we really need to solid performance across the board. If Qualcomm can come through on that, I do expect to see all kinds of ARM-based PCs, including desktops. I’d love to see a silent Snapdragon NUC, for example.