Maktaba

First Ring Daily and The Sams Report are both available on iTunes, but only in audio. Why there is no video? If video is available on YouTube then why not on iTunes, etc.?

Just wanted to share this (found it via Forbes):

https://www.ndss-symposium.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/usec2019_02-5_Morris_paper.pdf

I was thinking about Terry Myerson, feeling sad that he has left Microsoft, and about the sad state of Windows today, so I searched about him and found this old interview about Windows Phone, and I decided to share it with you:

https://www.mobileworldlive.com/videos/interview-windows-phones-terry-myerson/

I have been using OneNote since the days of Windows Phone 8.0 but since migrating to iPhone I have come to realize after all these years that I was wasting my time with this app.

OneNote on iOS is extremely slow and cumbersome to use. It takes 3-4 seconds just to open the app (on my iPhone SE), when all I want to do is to create a quick note or quickly look up my patient file number of the hospital I frequently go to, etc.

Then there are other problems, like the app always asking to sign in again, and searching inside notes no longer working in Spotlight Search of iOS (searching from Home screen).

But the biggest problem is not supporting background syncing. Once on my iPad’s OneNote I made some notes of book titles I wanted to check at the library, but on reaching there I found the notes had not synced to my iPhone’s OneNote, and I had to go back home just to get them synced! (You have to open the app for syncing to start).

That’s when I started to seriously consider the native Notes app in iOS, and decided to copy all my notes from OneNote to Notes, and create any new notes there.

Here’s how I’ve found Notes compared to OneNote:

– Simple and uncluttered interface.

– Notes open much faster.

– Faster and seamless background syncing across devices (even on icloud.com!)

– Extremely well integrated into iOS and macOS (whereas in OneNote the only integration with Windows 10 is you can create a quick note from the Action Center).

– Allows creating notes directly from the Control Center, including scanning documents (OneNote has to rely on widgets to do this).

– Never fails to appear in Spotlight Search (whereas in Windows 10, Cortana can’t even search inside OneNote notes).

– Allows locking notes with TouchID.

– Notes are more accessible and easier to read, especially on smaller screens.

To be sure, Notes has its own shortcomings (not being able to create subfolders in the iOS app, not being able to change font size or color) and has much less features than OneNote (no text recognition inside scanned documents, not solving math equations, no handwriting to text, and biggest of all, not being cross-platform), but superiority of OneNote in these areas is not enough to justify using it instead of Notes, at least on Apple devices.

Perhaps the same could be said of Google Keep for users of Android devices?

Closing Microsoft Edge window when it’s downloading files gives a warning that you’ll lose all your downloads.

That’s unnacceptable because a UWP app called iDownload Manager keeps downloading in the background even when you’ve closed it’s window. In fact there’s no indication that the app is even running except when you see a notification in the action center informing that a download is complete.

It’s very annoying being forced to keep the Edge window open just for the downloads to finish.

I recently bought a Nokia 6 for someone, which comes with Snapdragon 430 and 4 GB RAM, and is upgradable to Android Oreo.

Of course with Snapdragon 430 no one expects much performance.

Geekbench reveals:

Single core 668

Multi core 2907

As for myself I use iPhone SE as daily driver.

Geekbench numbers for my iPhone SE are (there is no throttling because of battery, and I had factory reset the phone):

Single core 2503

Multi core 4358

Yet the OS and the apps are more fluid and responsive on the Nokia than on the iPhone! Not only that, they open faster too.

I have tested many apps: OneNote, Outlook, To-Do, OneDrive, Adobe Acrobat, Uber, FIFA etc. and the apps I use daily on my iPhone. All of them run faster on Nokia than the iPhone. I haven’t tested games though.

Is it because iPhone SE is an old phone and the Nokia 6 new?

Are apps written for Android extra-tweaked for performance?

Is it because of the RAM difference? iPhone SE has 2 GB while Nokia 6 has 4 GB.

Maybe on Android apps tend to become slower over time?

I mean, what’s the point of buying an expensive iPhone when you can get the same performance on a much cheaper Android phone? 

The mobile version of Windows 10 died not because no one was developing apps for it, or no OEM was making phones or tablets for it, rather it’s because of Microsoft’s own conscious decision to slowly disregard its own OS and start giving preference to the two rival mobile platforms, all because the CEO Satya Nadella “did not get why the world needed the third ecosystem in phones”.

But in the process, not only Windows 10 Mobile really did die–which is what Nadella wanted all along–it also resulted in the failure of other Windows 10 features and Microsoft services and apps whose success was dependent on mobile.

These are:

UWP. UWP is completely useless now as no developer would ever want to make apps using this platform. There is little incentive to port apps to the now-dead Windows 10 Mobile, or bring app from there to PC. Now Microsoft is being forced to embrace the much inferior PWA, only because UWP has failed. To add fuel to fire, Google has just released Flutter to compete against Xamarin!

Edge. Most of the internet browsing is done on phones, not on PCs, and consequently Edge is bound to lose market share. Releasing Edge on iOS and Android is futile–why would anyone download and use Edge on iOS or Android when they can use the native browsers that come with these platforms? And by using Chrome or Safari on phones, users won’t be able to sync their history and bookmarks with Edge in Windows PCs. Even if they download Edge on iOS and Android to use this feature, Windows-to-Windows syncing is much superior to Windows-to-iOS or Windows-to-Android syncing. Bing is also going to lose market because of no mobile.

Cortana. Again, voice assistants only make sense on phones, which you can carry anywhere. Cortana on Android and iOS has many limitations, and no one would use it anyway because there’s Google Now and Siri that come baked into their respective platforms.

Groove. People listen to music on their phones. Nothing more needs to be said.

Ebooks. Like Groove, ebooks will failed too. That’s the whole point of ebooks – they are read on ebooks on handheld devices like tablets and phones, not on laptops or desktops.

Maps. Bing Maps will eventually die as people need maps only when moving around.

Linking with PC. Why would users want to install Cortana on iOS or Android just to see notifications coming from their PCs? The new option for linking iPhones or Android phones is extremely cumbersome and buggy.

Skype and messaging. Skype was nicely and successfully integrated with the Message app of Windows 10 Mobile, a feature they later removed. Then there was Messaging Everywhere that allowed sending text messages from PC through Windows phone. This too was killed before being officially released.

Office and OneNote. Microsoft Office is popular, no doubt. But on Android, there is Google Docs and Sheets that come pre-installed in the phone. People would use that instead, and not bother to download Word, Excel, etc.

Background syncing. One of the most frustrating experiences when using such apps as OneNote and To-Do is that the notes or to-dos don’t sync in the background. You have to open the app for the syncing to start! Had there been mobile, apps such as OneNote and To-Do could have been integrated into Windows 10 to allow background syncing. People instead use native notes and reminder apps of iOS and Android.

So you see, Microsoft is being beaten in all of the above services. With no Windows phones on the market, less people will use Edge, Cortana, Bing, Bing Maps, Groove, ebooks, Skype, Office, Outlook, OneNote, To-Do, buy apps from the Microsoft Store, and, most importantly, make apps for the Microsoft Store.

Because someone at Microsoft does not get why the world needs a third ecosystem.