It would be funny if it wasn't so sadly consistent: Microsoft has once again delayed a promised Windows 10 feature to a future version. And this time, they've informed the world via a Microsoft employee's personal Twitter account.
Classy.
As Brad reported earlier today, Microsoft has delayed one of the four marquee new features that it planned to introduce in the Windows 10 Fall Creators Update this September. Dubbed Timeline, this feature is designed as a major update to Task View, one that lets you visually “jump back in time” to find what you were working on earlier. It’s described as a visual timeline that displays files, apps, and websites you were working on.
Right now, however, Timeline is just vaporware. And like My People, which was supposed to debut in the Creators Update in mid-2016, it's been punted to the next release, which in the case of Timeline is slated for March 2018.
I have a number of problems with this.
First of all, the current Windows team has a terrible track record with this kind of thing. In addition to My People---which is at least happening at a slower pace---Microsoft showed off numerous features that were supposedly going to come with the Creators Update but were never, in fact, ever developed. For example, Groove Music Maker and the 3D Photo app for phone.
This team also exaggerates the capabilities of its offerings with alarming regularity. The problems with HoloLens are well-understood. But consider, too, the Story Remix hoo-hah we were shown a Build 2017 and then the half-hearted update we actually received. They are like completely different products.
Likewise, this team can't communicate clearly at all. The Timeline feature was introduced with much fanfare during a public press conference. But its delay to a future version of Windows 10 was revealed via an asterisk on a website no one will read and a personal Twitter account that belongs to a Microsoft employee. That's not OK.
But the most troubling aspect of this fiasco is the way in which this bad news was also downplayed. Microsoft's Joe Belfiore noted that Timeline would appear in Windows 10 Insider Preview builds "shortly after" the Fall Creators Update ships in September. The inference being that the delay is minor, a trifling matter that should concern no one.
Joe, Windows 10 Insider Preview builds are not Windows 10. Those are pre-release/beta-quality builds that are used by a tiny minority of the overall Windows 10 community. This feature will not actually debut until Spring 2018, and probably mid-2018 for most given Microsoft's glacial rollout schedule. The stated schedule is dishonest, plain and simple.
Yes, I know.
I know this one is going to be divisive, but I don't care. You don't treat customers this way, repeatedly, and fans don't get to excuse this behavior just because they'll suck down anything that Microsoft throws their way. We deserve better than this.
But then this need to continually upgr...
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