Ask Paul: February 25 (Premium)

Happy Friday! Here’s another great round of reader questions to get the weekend started a bit early.

Site updates

goodbar asks:

How is thurrott.com dark mode coming along?

Short answer: it’s not coming along at all right now, sorry.

More nuanced answer: we only have one web tech guy (Nick) and he’s been working to get the redesigned version of Petri.com, our other site, going. Once that’s done, we have a long to-do list for Thurrott.com that includes this feature. For now, I recommend using the Dark Reader browser extension. (It’s what I use.)

hrlngrv asks:

Since the only thing left on the right side of the top-level window is Forum, why not list more Forum items?

I have asked for this. I agree there’s room for more. The only issue is that the Forum block isn’t the only thing over there for non-Premium users. And I’m not sure if we can have different-sized blocks for different types of users.

Also, is there any plan to sort them by latest comment rather than by original post date+time? That’s the way the Forum section worked a while ago, and the current approach is a regression.

This falls under the note above about site work and Petri. But there’s some debate about the “right” way to display that stuff. Ideally, it could be sorted by the user and saved as a setting. But, yes, this is on the list as well.

Gaming forward

helix2301 asks:

Where do you think Activision and others stand on free to play (example: Fortnite)? Many games over the last year have came out with free version, Call of Duty Warzone, Pubg, Starcraft and Destiny just to name a few big ones.

As a key contributor to Activision’s success with Call of Duty, it’s obvious to me that there are no new ideas there, and that they have been just reacting to what’s happening elsewhere in gaming. When PUBG and then Fortnite swooped in and stole away gamers and e-sports dollars, I figured their response would be to make a battle royale multiplayer mode for Call of Duty, because that’s all those games are: a single mode. But instead, they made a direct competitor in Warzone. It seems to have done well, overall, but it’s just one choice of several.

What do you think this is a better business strategy released the game as paid then once the game sales slow down release it as free to keep getting revenue from in game purchases or release free from the beginning like Fortnite?

I’m not sure if free to play—which relies on gamers making in-game purchases—and subscription gaming are all that different. It’s sort of like streaming music services that have free, ad-based and paid tiers, two different ways to make money. But with Activision and Call of Duty specifically, I’d rather see them go the subscription route, where you pay $60 to $100 per year to play multiplayer and there are some number of seasons each year with content drops and then a huge drop annually. It’s probably what most COD fans want, and it’s no different, financially, from paying for a new game each year.

Do you think Twitch will stay the standard in game streaming FB is really pushing hard and getting pretty mainstream celebritys to stream even for charity. They have even brought over some of the larger COD streamers from Twitch as well. I know this didnt work for Microsoft but FB seems to be making headway. I am not sure what happened to YouTube I know next to no one on Youtubes Game streaming side which kind of shocking considering YouTube is video platform.

I don’t understand the whole celebrity streamer thing, but then there are people who don’t understand traditional sports either and wonder why anyone would spend so much time and energy obsessing over their favorites. But it’s probably like any other market, where it will consolidate down to two major players and some outliers. I will echo what someone else said on the site recently, that it’s too bad Microsoft couldn’t have made Mixer work. It seems like a good fit for their gaming availability push of late.

Windows 11 updates

hastin asks:

Sure is exciting to see so many new Windows features so fast in the Insider builds. Why do you think there’s such a push to test/deploy features in the Windows 11 insider dev builds now? Is “Sun Valley 2” really ramping up, or is it legitimately more of an external testing platform now?

There are likely two things driving this. The first is just normal timing: Microsoft shipped Windows 11 so quickly that it would obviously have to spend the next year fixing problems, adding missing features, and responding to feedback. The second is likely tied to Microsoft’s public messaging on Windows 11, that PCs sales are suddenly up again and they want to take advantage of that. And a truly new version of Windows could help with that.

I’m curious what the cutoff is. This week, Microsoft noted that they won’t always have builds with as many new features as the previous build. But the current build is interesting too, and it’s nice to see things happening after a quiet end of 2021.

Tiny asks:

I can live with Windows 11 except for one thing. Do you think Microsoft will ever let us move the taskbar to the left side of the monitor?

Yes. I think Microsoft will address all of the big taskbar complaints, including that, resizing the taskbar, improving the right-click options, etc. This taskbar isn’t the Windows 10 taskbar with features removed, it’s new code, and so they will need to add all that functionality.

Windows vs. Mac

erichk asks:

Paul, in late 1995, somebody wrote this somewhere on the interwebs: “Windows 95 == Mac 87”. Fair or unfair?

Totally unfair. And that’s true even if you limit the conversation to just the user interface, which is what that was really about. You could drag windows around in Windows 95 and they would display normally as you did so. On the Mac, you got an outline of the window until you let go of it.

But the bigger issue is that Windows 95 was a 32-bit platform with true preemptive multitasking capabilities. The Mac was much less sophisticated and couldn’t really multitask at all. I recall in the mid- to late-1990s having to manually allocate RAM to specific apps like Photoshop on a Mac so they would run correctly. It was like a toy platform, and Apple didn’t have a technical answer to Windows until Mac OS X shipped in 2001.

Microsoft should have advertised that with bumper stickers that said, “Mac OS X 1.0 = Windows NT 3.1.” Which is also unfair, of course.

Exceptions to the rule

christianwilson asks:

I completely forgot about something. If you are an Amazon Prime subscriber, you can open the Prime Video app on an iPhone or iPad and buy or rent a movie using your Amazon 1-click method of payment. Not Apple’s system. Amazon Prime Video is the one and only app I know that does this as it was a deal worked out between Amazon and Apple. Whether Apple is getting a cut of the transaction or not, I have no idea. With all the noise going on about using Apple’s payment system in the App Store, how isn’t this brought up more often?

I feel like this isn’t the only exception, but yeah: Apple has struck at least one deal to circumvent its fee structure. But it’s perhaps not coincidental that it’s with the company that owns the 1-Click patent that Apple licenses(d). (I wonder if that’s still in effect.) Or perhaps this was related to Apple getting its products back in Amazon’s dominant online store. Certainly, deals were made.

But whatever. I suspect that any group suing Apple right now for payment system-related antitrust violations will use that in their arguments.

Defending the defenseless

martinusv2 asks:

Do you know when the Windows Defender service for PC and Android will be available outside US or when it will be out of Preview?

I’m not aware of any announcement for either of these products, so I’m not sure what to say. A new Microsoft Defender app silently appeared in the Microsoft Store recently. And Aggiornamenti Lumia has tweeted various details about it, and about the Android app. But that’s all I’ve heard.

I can’t imagine Microsoft not making this available outside of the U.S. but it’s just a preview right now.

Passwords and mobile

martinusv2 also asks:

On Android, you can use the Microsoft Authenticator to fill password for website and applications. But lately, I have noticed that you can also use the Edge browser for the same use. Wich one should I use? And why have two different software doing the same thing?

Last year, I wrote about what I call Microsoft-based password management because there are these two approaches: on mobile, you use either the Microsoft Authenticator app or Microsoft Edge as your source for password auto-fill. If you are using Edge on mobile, the general advice is to just use that. But if you aren’t, the Authenticator app will work, and you can keep using whatever browser you prefer. The important point is that they both access the same backend password management.

12th-Gen Intel Core performance and efficiency

wright_is asks:

There was some discussion on the Intel Core 12th generation story about efficiency and performance.

As expected. This is a hot button topic for tech enthusiasts for whatever reason.

In Germany, c’t magazine just tested the Core i9-12900HK and found it outperformed the Mac M1 Pro, which made 12,500 points in the Cinebench R23 benchmark, the Core i9 walked away with around 18,000 points. But, when you look into the details, the Intel Core i9 was shockingly bad at actuall getting that score.

The MSI gaming laptop they had received from Intel for testing set some new records for the benchmarks, it being the fastest laptop they ever tested, but also, it ran its fans up to 66 decibels to keep the laptop cool during the test. 66dB!! That is the loudest device they have ever tested! The MacBook Pro, on the other hand never even spun up its fans, the body not exceeding a still comfortable mid-30s Centigrade.

The other thing was, the MSI was drawing around 115W from the power supply to attain that performance. The MacBook Pro was drawing 34W. In battery rundown tests, the MBP still achieved high performance and the battery held 3 times longer thant the MSI, which had to throttle the processor to achieve that – both devices use the same sized battery, the biggest that is allowed by airlines for carry-on.

The thing we need to remember here is that Intel is adapting an existing platform to work differently, and that can’t just happen overnight. The big advance here is that Intel is moving towards ARM with big/little architectures, and it’s now moved its best-selling PC chipset to this model. The year over year improvements are staggering.

Looking at the Core 12th generation, it looks like Intel are still struggling for an answer. They have the raw performance, but, at 115W, you really can’t class that as a mobile chip any longer. The MacBook Pro offers 70% of the performance for 30% of the power usage.

Yeah, and it’s still a Mac. 🙂 But despite all their whatever advantages, Apple still has single digit marketshare in the PC market.  So it’s not like it’s game-over for Intel. They will simply keep improving, close the gaps where they can, and when they can, and we’ll see what the world looks like in a few years.

As far as efficiency goes, Intel now has U-series chips that work at 9- and 15-watts, and that addresses the vast majority of the market. But they’ve also bifurcated the H-series line to include a new P-series line at 28-watts. They’re hitting the gamut. (What’s Apple going to sew up in Europe, exactly? The market for data scientists that need portable workstations that operate at lower than 56 watts? Is that even a market?)

I think when it comes to Intel, we get a little caught up in the “they’re doomed” stuff without really seeing the bigger picture. These chips don’t exist in a vacuum and the benefits of the PC market still outweigh the benefits of the Mac, just based on growth and actual sales data. But Intel is evolving. It won’t happen overnight. And we’ll see where we land. But my prediction hasn’t changed: I’ve always felt that Intel would adapt to meet the ARM/Apple threat. And that’s what they’re doing.

Army of Darkness

spacecamel asks:

Would you rather fight 100 duck sized horses or 1 horse sized duck?

LOL. This reminds me of a Sam Rami “Evil Dead” movie for some reason. Assuming I only had my hands to fight with, I’d choose the 100 duck-sized horses. And a good pair of boots.