Ask Paul: February 20 ⭐

Happy Friday! It's going to be 85 degrees here in Mexico City today, so we're hunkering down for that. But don't feel bad that we're missing out on the winter. Instead, let's kick off the weekend a bit early with some great reader questions.

Note: I'm experimenting with putting Short Takes-style headline quips between each question/answer. I don't know.
"iOS 27 will bring Liquid Glass changes, and I’m excited for one reason"

It's because you're an Apple fanboy.
? I know what you're thinking
helix2301 asks:

Paul, have you used any of the new apps by Stardock that Brad was involved with creating? What do you think?

As I write this, I've not used Clairvoyance yet, sorry.

This is kind of a strange dynamic, but Brad and I are obviously friends and we both perhaps overcorrect sometimes when it comes to not abusing the relationship from a work perspective. We have at least discussed this product extensively, and he gave me a lengthy demo a few weeks ago. He and Brad Wardell, and presumably others at Stardock, see this as a potentially big product and also a new direction, and I get it. It is very interesting.

I did just sign-up for Clairvoyance, so I will write about this in the near future.
"Mark Zuckerberg said he reached out to Apple CEO Tim Cook to discuss 'wellbeing of teens and kids'"

Yes, and Tim Cook reached out to Zuckerberg to discuss 'go f#$k yourself,' Mark"
? Windows Backup to the future
justme asks:

Windows Backup question for you. Its an app I dont use as I tend to backup my PCs offline and not in the cloud. Even if I did backup to cloud, I would be forced to backup to OneDrive and not a provider of my choice (unless something has changed to allow this).

Windows Backup is widely misunderstood and for good reason: It's not a traditional backup app, and it's not even a traditional app. It's really just a front-end to services that, in most cases, have been in Windows for decades. And now there's a work version that's presumably controlled with policy. (Like most, I will ignore that.)

Before there was an app, you could access "Windows backup" in Settings, and it's the same basic interface. The only thing resembling backup is the folder sync capability in OneDrive, also misnamed to Folder Backup. And then there are limited and undocumented app configurations, system settings, and credentials (Wi-Fi passwords, etc.) "back up" (really sync) capabilities.

To me, Windows Backup is borderline pointless. There's no transparency in what you're syncing (beyond the folders, which happens in OneDrive anyway). no granularity in what you sync (again, beyond the folders), and no way to manage this data in the cloud. And despite the appearance of this front-end in recent years, the amount of data this thing does sync has only gone down over the years. With one exception: Microsoft has integrated the backend of this into Windows Setup for restore purposes. Whatever. It's many years later and this is still...