Windows 11’s Broken Promises (Premium)

When Microsoft announced Windows 11 in June, it made a lot of promises, many of which will be broken on October 5 when the new system ships after just three months of public testing and without many expected features.

This might be surprising to some. We know that Android app support won’t be included, and I think most would agree that this support is among Windows 11’s biggest new features, if not its biggest. But it’s not just Android app support. When I went back and rewatched Microsoft’s late June Windows 11 announcement video and read through the materials it gave the press at that time, I was reminded that the software giant promised much more than that.

This is interesting on a number of levels, and while none of the missing features are exactly crucial, I’ll remind everyone that Windows head Panos Panay repeatedly stated that “details matter” when he publicly introduced Windows 11. And then went on to highlight details that apparently didn’t matter enough to make Microsoft’s too-short initial Windows 11 development period.

Among the promised Windows 11 features that will not ship on October 5 are:

Full-screen Widgets. When Panos Panay demonstrated the Widgets interface, he showed how it could expand from a pane that looks like “a sheet of glass” to a full-screen experience. (It was later shown off a second time, too.) This full-screen Widgets experience is not available in Windows 11.

Rearrange and resize widgets. In the Windows 11 introduction, Microsoft’s Philip McClure demonstrated how you can rearrange widgets using touch and resize widgets. But neither feature works in Windows 11.

Support local content creators by giving a tip. In the third Widgets demo in the introduction (seriously, Microsoft really pushed this feature), McClure showed how you can “Offer a tip” to news providers in the feed by selecting a widget and viewing the full story via MSN on the web. I suppose this is technically an MSN feature, but it’s not available today, at least not that I’ve ever seen.

Streaming services support in the Microsoft Store. Microsoft noted that it has updated the “Entertainment tab” in the Microsoft Store by showing movie and TV show content across multiple streaming services “all in one place.” But there is no Entertainment tab in the Microsoft Store in Windows 11, and the Movies & TV tab just shows content from Microsoft’s service.

Adobe Creative Cloud and Document Cloud. These were shown off as being in the Store, but they are not available in the Store.

Android apps are coming to Windows. This was previously addressed, but Android app support and the Amazon AppStore for Android store-in-a-store experience will not be added to Windows 11 until next year.

Mute/Unmute from taskbar. A microphone icon appears on the Windows 11 taskbar whenever you’re using your PC’s microphone, and Microsoft said that this would work as a universal mute/unmute tog...