Windows Weekly 556: 90% Cacao, 10% PWA

Leo, Mary Jo, and I discuss Windows 10’s transition year, Progressive Web Apps, Microsoft’s quarterly results, and much more.

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Tips and picks

Tip of the week: Two ways to get Cortana on your Android device’s lock screen

In the past week or so, Microsoft has provided two different ways to get Cortana all over your phone: Microsoft Launcher and the Cortana app.

Plus: Games with Gold!

App pick of the week: Opera 51

Opera 51 is faster than Firefox Quantum but it uses Google’s rendering engine.

Enterprise pick of the week: OneDrive for Business switch offer

After months of partner love, Microsoft finally takes the gloves off and starts going after Box, Dropbox and Google Drive with a new business offer.

Codename pick of the week: The other “Polaris”

Polaris is the codename for an evolving Desktop shell for Windows. But it’s also more, as reader/listener Scott Dynes recently informed me. Polaris also is a cross-platform, minimalist web framework for PowerShell. It’s built on .NET Standard and you can find it online.

Beer pick of the week: Boulder Shake Chocolate Porter

A nice, easy-drinking porter from Boulder Brewing in Colorado. Cacao nibs and “chocolate wheat” make this very chocolately. And just 5.9%.

 

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  • nbplopes

    09 February, 2018 - 4:31 am

    <p><strong>On Windows 10 Modes (S, Home, Home Advanced, Pro, Pro Workstation)</strong></p><p><br></p><p>I find that all this very unacessarly complex, MS way. </p><p><br></p><p>In undersstand the need to tier. I mean, a $300 machine does not have the guts of a $1200 machine, much less anything above that. But I think they are slicing the pie to thin, not only bringing unnecessary complexity but also not taking advantage of the opportunity move the market forward. In the end of the day it looks like everything will just stay has it always was while MS might get bit more money out of it.</p><p><br></p><p>For me this is what would make sense:</p><p><br></p><p>Its all about Production Capacity of a machine:</p><p><br></p><p>From $100 to $800 get the Windows 10 S. S, meaning Simple (even though we know that means Store). No ability to upgrade If we believe that Windows Store apps are lighter and more efficient as MS says, that would would be a better fit to low end machines than x32 apps in general.</p><p><br></p><p>From $800 to $2500 get WIndows 10 Pro or Windows 10 Gaming.</p><p><br></p><p>Anything above $2500 get Windows 10 Pro Workstation or Windows 10 Pro Gaming.</p><p><br></p><p>Whoever would feel Windows 10 Simple would not do, or are not open to adapt to harvest a better experience out of a low end machine, heck, spend more $100 dollars and buy a machine that can run efficiently something more flexible. How many of us see $600 machines dragging their feet with x32 apps such as Chrome?</p><p><br></p><p>I can see Paul saying, what about those people that want to run they favorite x32 apps on sub $i800 PC or less. The solution would.be to buy a better PC. A PC that can actually run those stuff efficiently. This would be perfectely understandable. This would at least stall the race to the bottom both for OEMs and MS, but also have a good rationale of quality and efficiency for the user.</p><p><br></p><p>Now MS started putting Windows 10 S on machines from $1000 up to $3000? CRAZY.CRAZY. A simplefied app experience on medium to high end machines on machines with guts to do power stuff. Of course people who bought these machines will first enable the OS to take the most out of them, meaning move to Pro. In fact the offering Windows 10 S was so silly that they needed to make such move FREE. Otherwise no one would buy them at that price. Period!</p><p><br></p><p>Not even Apple attempted this. An OSX S precisely because of the above. Their machines would not be in the price range where such a constraint would make any sense.</p><p><br></p><p>This is no way to lead! In the end of the day, we are back at square one, with a feature, S Mode meaning, enable the system to run Windows Store only apps. This is another instance why MS is no longer the leader. They are so smart that less and less people in the consumer market understands them given other options.</p><p><br></p><p>Windows 10 S on ARM would make sense also and fit the above rationale. At least for awhile :)</p><p><br></p><p>PS: By the way. I’ve seen many crazy things from MS so I would not be surprised that PWA is once again a sidenote in Build. Apple can afford to be a sidenote, they have a strong developer base for their App Store, but MS? </p>

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