TheJoeFin

So it is no secret that Progressive Web Apps are the future for the majority of development. Most major popular applications are looking for how they can implement their app as a PWA. It obviously saves lots of money and time because their is only one target platform with one set of tools.

The really interesting thing to me is how PWAs are beginning to eat into mobile app development. There seems to be a movement where tech companies are trying again to move back to using their website as their only product. I've seen demos from Twitter and Lyft where their entire app happens through a browser. If this trend continues then Microsoft's position to break back into mobile is looking better and better.

What do you think, do PWAs give new life to a mobile device from Microsoft?

(sorry for the click-bait headline. I just thought Paul would cringe at the thought of PWAs being used as an excuse that Windows Mobile is not dead)

Many times Paul makes the case that it makes more sense for people to spend $1,000 on a phone and $500 on a computer or tablet or whatever because you use it more, and derive more value from it. Most recently he said this on GFQ but I've heard him say it many times: https://youtu.be/IOZwt6AX5CE?t=28m16s

This logic doesn't make sense to me at all. So, you should spend more money on a device you use more often, even if spending more money on it doesn't return more value to you?

For example. I can go buy a 32GB iPhone 6s for $549 or I could go buy a 256GB iPhone 7 for $849. When it comes down to my return on investment, they have nearly the exact same return with one requiring a much larger investment. The iPhone 7 might be a bit faster and obviously has more storage, but in all my time using my iPhone I've never needed more than 32GB thanks to the cloud.

Furthermore, both devices are great build quality, good warranty, great customer support, and on and on. When buying a PC that is not the case. A $300 HP stream does not have the same level of build quality as a $1500 HP x360. Also for the additional price you get a more flexible device, which pen and touch support, more ports, faster ports, better quality screens, and of course faster components.

It seems like the justification for spending $1000 on a laptop far outweighs the justification for spending $1000 on an iPhone.

What do you think? Did I miss Paul's point? Do you agree/disagree with Paul? How do you decide how to allocate your tech budget?

Recently Paul wrote a post about how it is embarrassing for Microsoft to keep failing at mobile and they should give up. Personally I don't think they should give up.

Currently Microsoft has nothing to lose when it comes to mobile. No market share means more flexibility to do whatever they want. In the same way Google uses profit from search to fund all their other projects, Microsoft should use their profits from Azure, Windows, and Office to fund their mobile experiments.

Mobile is like web search, it'll be around forever. The same reasons Microsoft held on to Bing are why they should hold on to mobile. Hopefully with Windows on ARM Microsoft can differentiate themselves and offer a compelling mobile strategy.

We'll see what the future holds. What do you think?

Has anyone connected their iPhones to the Bluetooth Xbox controller? How did it work? What apps did you use it with?

It seems like OneNote has been put on life support. Microsoft hasn't added any new features to the product family in like 5 years! Also there is no clear vision for the future of the product. Is Microsoft moving away from OneNote or are they working on it all behind the scenes? It is getting insane photo cropping is still not an option.

I recently got the new Outlook Mail experience and updated my phone to iOS 10. Now I am having strange issues with contact sync where every once and a while my iPhone will not be able to see any of my contacts on my Live.com account.

Has anyone else had this or similar issues? Did you fix it? Is the problem on Microsoft's or Apple's end?