Always Connected PC is a Counter to All the Nonsense in Windows 10 (Premium)

The Always Connected PC initiative is the cornerstone of Microsoft's latest attempt to modernize Windows and the PCs on which it runs. But after many misfires, Microsoft and its partners are on the verge of fundamentally changing how PCs work for the first time in decades.

And I think this one is going to stick.

What I like about this initiative, this new "wave" of computing, as Microsoft will call it, is that it solves real problems. There's a lot of nonsense in Windows right now---3D, Mixed Reality, and so on---that solves small problems for a limited audience. But Always Connected PC is bigger than any of that. And it will help the broader, mainstream user base in meaningful ways.

Too, Always Connected PC is a concrete step to the future that Microsoft has long known that it much achieve for Windows. When we look at failures like Windows 8/RT and Windows 10 S, we see weak and misguided attempts to force the user base to a simpler, more refined PC platform of the future. But Always Connected PC is representative of the strategy I believe is necessary: A multi-year plan in which we get from here to there in a logical way. It's what will enable a future of Andromeda and Polaris, to put it in the language of starry-eyed Microsoft enthusiasts.

This is important because PCs have a problem: They are fundamentally too complex. And as a result, they are being overrun in the market by simpler and more personal devices. Mostly smartphones, of course, but also tablets and hybrid devices like iPad Pro and 2-in-1 Chromebooks. One gets the sense that Microsoft's competitors in this space can smell the blood in the water and see the opportunity that's presenting itself.

To date, Microsoft's response to the post-PC world, as Apple calls it, or the "mobile-first, cloud-first" world, as Microsoft once called it, has been marked by missteps. From the focus on pen and not touch in Tablet PC (2002) to the overreaching of the touch-first UIs in Windows 8/RT (2012), we're still reeling from over a decade's worth of bungling. All Microsoft has really done to Windows so far has been to add more. And it has simply made Windows even more complex as a result.

It's not hard to see how and why this happened. Microsoft has long championed the notion that Windows is somehow the most versatile software ever created. And it has survived countless competitive generations---the Mac, the Internet wave, netbooks, whatever---by simply adapting to new needs as they arose. This is historically true, but that model no longer works when the competition is functionally good enough, much less complex, and (usually) less expensive.

But they're still piling on the crap in Windows 10.

In addition to things like Windows Mixed Reality and 3D, Windows 10 also includes dubious mobile device integration features, both real (Continue on PC) and imagined (Cloud Clipboard), that look like they were cobbled together after someone viewed an Apple keynote. But while Apple...

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