willr

In the past few years, a lot of software/video game studios have decided to just stop doing QA. Microsoft famously fired almost all of the Windows QA people in 2014 or 2015 I believe, now we're seeing video game studios like CD Projekt RED and Rockstar decided to stop doing basic QA on their games. There are more examples of this trend. But why have companies decided QA isn't necessary anymore? It ends up hurting the companies reputation and their wallet too, so what's behind this?

I've read a LOT about Windows 11 and the one thing that really stands out to me is the 6th and especially 7th gen Intel chips not getting official support. Now I understand at the end of the day Microsoft is a business, and inside any company there are disagreements and competing forces, but when you learn about the minimum requirements, it is indeed true that especially the Surface computers that have 6th gen and 7th gen Intel chips, there is literally no technical reason to block these computers from upgrading to Windows 11. I have spent way too much time trying to find a reason, and there simply isn't. Those Surface computers have all the modern security features and functionality enabled, and we see the 7th gen powered Surface Studio 2 getting official support from Microsoft, which should really outrage Surface customers that have 7th gen Intel chips. What is really concerning is that the people in Microsoft that wanted to block those computers from getting Windows 11 won that battle. Is this because there isn't enough pushback inside Microsoft? Or is it because the people that made this decision have too much power inside the company? Either way, this is not good and it doesn't bode well for the future. Going forward, they can and might do whatever they want, and they don't care if it's reasonable or not. It really seems like current leadership is reckless. I don't think Terry Myerson would have allowed them to screw over the 6th gen and 7th gen Intel customers (especially Surface computers), it's a real shame he's gone. And Windows 11 is great by the way, which makes this situation even worse. Those 7th gen intel powered Surface customers would have been delighted by Windows 11, and current leadership is so unreasonably greedy that they're trying to make those people with 2 or 3 year old Surface computers buy new ones.... Ya Microsoft, all those 7th gen Surface customers are going to go buy a new Surface just to get Windows 11, your plan worked brilliantly! /sarcasm

I'm confused by Microsoft officially supporting some 7th gen Intel chips but not others. My understanding is, they had to do lots of compatibility and reliability testing in order to give those few 7th gen chips the "official support" rubber stamp, but why wouldn't the rest of the 7th gen Intel chips also be included then? If a few 7th gen chips are officially supported, that should mean all 7th gen chips should be officially supported. Is there anyone that can explain? I am far from an expert as you can see, I'm just curious. Eager to hear responses :)

There’s an issue that, if I was in the Windows or Surface division, would really anger me. Basically, Intel has decided to remove some very important functionality from the Graphics Command Center app. The most important one being the ability to turn off that “feature” that dims the backlight when the on-screen content is dark (like a dark mode app/website or when you’re watching a movie in fullscreen). That’s not a small nitpick, Brad mentioned that as one of the reasons you should skip out on the Surface Laptop 3 (I think AMD did eventually release their graphics app though, so you should be able to turn that feature off). One of the ideas behind the Surface line was that, Microsoft had full control over the experience, which is important. But as we can see, that’s not really true… Don’t you think Microsoft should do something about this? Intel (or AMD, Nvidia and Qualcomm for that matter) shouldn’t be able to go over Microsoft and make changes to the Surface computers, but they currently can and do! Apple would never give Intel the ability to mess around with the Intel powered Macs. If Intel wanted to make some change to Intel powered Macs, they’d have to ask Apple for permission. This should also be the case with the Surface computers!

I am eager to hear what others think of this, am I thinking about this the wrong way or is there something I’m missing? I’m quite upset though, this dimming “feature” is back and I can’t easily or “officially” turn it off….

My brother just got a Macbook Air. I have a Surface Pro 7. We're doing some comparisons between the trackpad scrolling (using Edge on the Surface and Safari on the Mac), as a Surface fan I'm sad to admit the difference is just huge. When the new chromium edge came out I did notice the trackpad scrolling wasn't as good as the "old" Edge, but Safari on the mac is just in a different league. If you are a trackpad user, just get a Macbook. If you use a mouse though, the Pro 7 is amazing.

Let's face it, it's iPhone or Pixel, and the Pixel phones have had a lot of issues. They also were overpriced for what they are. The Pixel 3a is different though, you get a great OLED display and amazing camera for $550. Minimum 3 years of major software updates too (it could be longer than 3 years, the original pixel phone still got the December 2019 update). I got one 2 weeks ago and it's amazing, no issues so far either. Apple are going to have to respond to this phone, the iphone xr is $600 and it's significantly worse than the 3a. Bottom line: the pixel 3a deserves phone of the year award, they deserve to sell tens of millions of this phone. Google just needs to keep doing this phone at this price point forever and the pixel brand could be huge in a few years.

Microsoft just announced that XCloud is coming to Game Pass... This is a bombshell. What could Google even do to respond to this? Stadia probably won't be able to compete with this and be profitable at the same time, which means Stadia will be in the Google Graveyard in 5 or 6 years. After tonight, it's really looking like Microsoft is going to be the Netflix of gaming.

We all know "X" does well in a name but Microsoft's lazy, uncreative marketing people are overdoing it to the point that it doesn't make sense. At the same event, they revealed the Surface Pro X and also Windows 10X, which wouldn't be too bad if the Pro X ran Windows 10X, but it does not. This is idiotic and embarrassing. They also named Scorpio "Xbox One X", which is an awful and stupid name. They need to hire better marketing people that won't just tack "X" on everything.

Xbox Live down AGAIN right now??? This is like the 3rd or 4th time in the last 2 months this has happened... Anyone know wtf is going on lately? Brad? Paul? This is ridiculous

There's a bunch of Microsoft apps preinstalled on the Note 10 but SwiftKey isn't? SwiftKey is Microsoft's best Android app. And really, there are only 2 Android keyboards worthy of using: Gboard and SwiftKey. It's just so dumb that SwiftKey isn't preinstalled on this phone. Thank you for reading my rant (but seriously, who makes these decisions?)

Can we please have a dark mode for thurrott.com? Once you get used to dark mode, you can't go back

thurrott readers are a smart bunch, I want to know which company do you think is less evil, Google or Apple? My opinion: Apple is more evil than Google. Apple somehow gets away with a lot though...

Game streaming is not just typical industry/business hype BS, there really is a good chance it could seriously change the gaming industry in a big way. This is why even Apple, Google and Netflix are looking into it, but it's Microsoft that has the best chance of dominating when it comes to game streaming. 'Xbox' is a household brand name and Microsoft has the tech to make it happen, there's just 1 missing piece of the puzzle: an actual mobile game console. Either Microsoft needs to make a handheld Xbox console, or they need to fully embrace the Switch. Why? Because even though newer phones have excellent chips, you cannot actually play real video games on them, because they don't have buttons and joysticks, and the screens are still a bit too small for real console video games. Playing Fortnite on a phone is a joke, for example. This is one of the major reasons the Switch is selling like hot cakes, people want to actually play real video games on the go.

I can't see Microsoft making an Xbox handheld but they really don't need to, and maybe they shouldn't, because Nintendo and Microsoft have a great relationship and I'm sure they would both love to have Microsoft's games streaming on the Switch (Minecraft sells amazingly well on the Switch, for example, and Microsoft is bringing Xbox Live to the Switch). This all won't happen right now obviously, Microsoft hasn't even launched their game streaming service yet and the Switch doesn't have a cellular modem. But the Switch 2 comes out in 2023 or 2024, it will have a 5G modem and Microsoft's game streaming service will be out by then, we really could see Microsoft completely dominate game streaming. Interesting and exciting times ahead... Imagine Microsoft being the giant of the gaming world? I bet no one predicted that!

Paul, your name even appeared in the 2004 New York Times ad for Firefox. Firefox is arguably more important now than it was back then, but you don't seem to be endorsing/promoting Firefox these days. You have a real platform and we need your voice! Yes, Chromium is open source but Google ultimately controls what happens in Chromium, it's Google employees that make the decisions and that's not good

Just saw this on twitter and thought this is worthy of discussion. User @campuscodi said this yesterday "Windows devices aren't allowed at Google's HQ due to security reasons. Only Linux/macOS. You need special permission (and reasons) to run Windows at Google. Windows-related dev work usually gets done via a VM."

This seems ridiculous. There's no way this is true? Right??

Apple really just wants everyone to shut up and go away with their bent iPad Pro's, they don't even want to officially acknowledge the issue (they said their comments to the Verge were not official and they were going to put out an official statement last Friday, but they changed their mind and we're still waiting). Do you think they posted that letter investors to distract people from Bendgate 2.0? If so, it might have worked!

The next-gen successor to the Xbox One X, do you think Microsoft will put an SSD in it? Of course this will make it more expensive but as we can see, there is indeed a big market and demand for these expensive 'pro' style consoles (because they're awesome). Brad what do you think? Could you ask your sources?

We've had the 8 GB Surface Go in the family for a couple of weeks now and I really think the next version could dominate. It's small and light enough that you can actually use it as a tablet (the Surface Pro is too big and heavy to use as a tablet). It'll probably have that new chip Qualcomm announced last week, which will probably double the battery life while also improving performance. I'm sure it will have a larger screen and thinner bezels (just like they did going from Pro 3 to Pro 4). That's pretty much it, the Surface Go is close to perfection for what it is, with a few improvements it could completely dominate, they've got the recipe right, just a few tweaks are needed. I could see the Surface Go 2 selling better than the Surface Pro, it's an amazing device, I think more compelling than the Pro (and not just because of the price)

I have a Surface Laptop and I love it. Most of what I do is in the browser and since I got this Surface Laptop, I don't even use a mouse anymore because the touchpad scrolling is just amazing. In Edge, it's so fast and responsive but still super smooth, it's just like a Macbook trackpad. I'm very concerned about Edge switching to Chromium because even though Chrome added support for precision touchpads this year, it's still not in the same league as Edge. When the update comes out in 2019, if touchpad scrolling is just like Chrome, I'm going to have to move to a MacBook because I just can't accept that much of a downgrade. Please don't think it's just me, ask any Macbook user to try Chrome for Windows trackpad scrolling and they will laugh at you. I hope Microsoft can avoid this somehow because I love the Surface Laptop, I think it's probably the best laptop in the market

With the news that Microsoft is killing EdgeHTML and going with Google's Blink, the danger of the web becoming a webkit/blink monoculture is very real and very close. Firefox is the only browser that does not use webkit or blink, it uses Firefox's in-house Gecko engine and it's a solid engine. This is a critical time in the history of the web and we must come together and fight for openness and diversity on the web. Firefox is a hair slower than Chrome but it's worth putting up with this, we must

Brad on today's first ring daily you mentioned there's a bug in Edge where images aren't centered in eBooks, did you file this or tell someone on the Edge team about this? (btw I didn't mean in the Feedback Hub, that's probably a waste of time. I meant the Edge issue reporter website, which is really good and Edge engineers actually look at the issues and fix them)

The new iPad Pro's are 5.9 mm thin but the actual 'chassis' is even thinner than that, it's pretty much a sheet of aluminum foil and it bends with minimal effort. How do people compare this cheap crap to a Surface Pro? Apple doesn't even care at this point, they've been through this before with the iPhone 6 bendgate and they've done it again. Apple doesn't learn from their mistakes, they don't deserve their reputation for quality.

Rant over, thank you for reading.

There is an issue with Intel-powered Surface devices and I want to actually get Microsoft to hear me out about this, I don't want to just complain or talk into the wind. What is the best way to do this? Do you have to be a high profile person to get them to actually do something?