Windows 10 a failure by Microsoft's own metric
theregister.co.uk
theregister.co.uk
When I tried a pre-Win10 Lumia in a store I actually found it very impressive, but I heard that the Win10 mobile launch had a rocky start. It seems strange to me that Microsoft was pushing for universal apps, and now that it's close enough to finally happening they've given up on mobile.
Somewhat offtopic, but I wonder if performing the Win10 upgrade itself is scary for users. For instance, on a relatively new i5 laptop the upgrade left the screen entirely black for long periods of time. It also says things like "your files are exactly where you left them" with a color changing background; for me I know that Windows must still be installing, but for an average user (like my dad) he had no clue what was going on at that point and thought that the install had failed since it was stuck on that screen for multiple minutes.
Edit: I swear that I read the article, since the article itself mentions mobile. I just haven't had any caffeine yet...
I found something very HALish about that screen. A vague somewhat reassuring statement with an ominous tone. I mean, great, they're right where I left them but will you grant me access them?
My wife upgraded her laptop and the TV/Kodi computer that I built for her on her own. She's an elementary school teacher and by no means is she a computer professional. It wasn't scary at all. She didn't lose anything and she has a LOT of apps on her laptop.
If she had lost something, it wouldn't have been lost for long because A) we had backups and B) when Windows removes a program during an upgrade, it doesn't remove all of the app data so at worst you have to run an installer...big deal.
Priceless. (Especially when you actually need to use the computer and the files. Business hours? Nope, YOU WANT THE X)
That was my favorite message during install. Thanks Windows, I had never once worried about that previously but I have to say you specifically mentioning that it wouldn't be a problem definitely made me wonder.
It's been solid since, but the first month or so of Windows 10 on a Lumia 950 was rough going. Store was unreliable, battery drained in ~6 hours (same hardware/usage will now last me 24+ hours), and auto-updater got permanently stuck at 0%. Only way to move to a working build was to factory reset the phone.
That said, I remain a user who isn't interested in the latest trendy apps. I don't feel an urge to play Pokemon Go (although I find the phenomenon hilariously awesome). For the basics—web browsing, e-mail, text messaging, maps, calendaring—Windows 10 Mobile is great.
Continuum—the feature that converts the phone into a "regular" computer—is quite nice, although I don't use it much since I have more than enough computers already.
I am hopeful that a Surface Phone will eventually arrive and make Continuum more compelling. I could get into the idea of carrying a lightweight keyboard/display thing instead of a laptop. The HP Elite x3 already works this way.
Overall, I remain a bigger fan of Windows Mobile than I was of Android or iOS before that. When I use a modern Android device, Android feels sterile and clunky; meanwhile modern iOS feels too little evolved since iOS 1.
So, parity with Android then? (I kid, I kid....kinda.)
Of course, if you want a week on the battery, you must have data off, both wifi and mobile.
I don't know about that, they sure have been pushing a lot of new builds lately :
https://www.reddit.com/domain/blogs.windows.com/search?q=bui...
though I guess they did sell part of Nokia or something.. Sad because those phones are super durable for someone like me who breaks devices constantly
1. "Microsoft is launching its latest version of Windows 10"
(you realize this is for pc and mobile?)
3. "Facebook committed to bringing native apps to Microsoft's Universal Windows Platform"
7. "Windows 10 Mobile users will be able to "beam" Continuum sessions to compatible monitors."
The point I take from this is that they seem to be considering windows 10 as one platform (desktop and mobile), which makes sense to me since the several apps I've written for UWP worked on mobile/desktop with the same code. Also I think the react-native-windows news isn't listed there, but I personally consider it fairly huge news for win 10 mobile (and desktop) as someone who uses react-native for android / ios
[1] http://www.windowscentral.com/most-important-announcements-b...
Nokia's legendary durability died with the feature phone.
List of recent devices I own that are unbroken:
lumia 521, 950, and Kyocera Rise.
broken:
nexus 7 (screen after 2 months), asus fonepad note 6 (screen after ~1 year), galaxy s4 (won't connect to tower, probably my fault for installing roms incorrectly)
In particular the 950 has been dropped in the river in breckenridge, and the 521 in a natural hotspring / taken on many rainy hikes / dropped more times than I can count.
Windows 7 is still king by a long shot, but Apple, for example, would love if MacOS/OSX's market share (all versions!) totalled as many computers as just Windows 10--it would be an approximately 50% increase in Apple's laptop/desktop market share. (Source is https://netmarketshare.com/. No direct link available. Click on "Operating Systems" / "Desktop Share by Version" for details.)
Even IBM has gone to using Macs today. http://www.computerworld.com/article/2998315/apple-mac/every...
So the machines are very cheap, even to IBM they are easier to use and require less tech support. For those that want to do some software development with open source, very useful.
While Office 2016 Mac is not as good as Office 2016 Windows, it works fairly well.
And if you really need the Windows 10 OS, you can invest in a Parallels virtual machine.
Besides, for many of us, Apple has stores where we can take the computer into a Genius Bar to get problems fixed.
In NYC, we even have a 24 hour/367 store (Fifth Avenue). There will be a seventh store in Manhattan soon. There is one in Queens, Statin Island, and one in Brooklyn soon.
Other cities have access as well of course.
So, except in certain important cases like gaming and certain specific applications, or cases where the stylus and touch is really important and the Microsoft Surface would be a best choice, a Mac is a better investment for most.
I ended up buying a fully-spec'd 2012 MBP instead (more affordable, better keyboard & trackpad than the 2015s) - and shortly after, a friend bought an identically spec'd HP for half the price of my new Mac. I'd love to say I'd bought a more reliable machine, but this MBP has already been back to the Apple Store twice for repairs in just 6 months. Frankly, it's become embarrassing to buy Apple.
So even though I'm that guy who queued up for a day-one iPhone 4, wore Panic Spinner t-shirts into the Apple Store & knew the staff, persuaded clients & work to support Macs... I now recommend PCs and Windows 10 to friends instead. I can't justify the 100% markup anymore. And since Apple stopped updating macOS for my older Macs (a MacBook 1,1 and 3,1) I even run Windows 10 on my old Macs - now I know I'll get security updates until 2020 on those machines, even though Apple insists they're obsolete. (Win10 runs pretty well on them.)
But you can get a brand new 15" Macbook Pro Retina for about $1900 total from an authorized dealer. Check out website Appleinsider.com
Besides being able to go to stores for Genius Bar help, you're when you call for customer service or tech support you get Americans who are very helpful and speak English well not people from Philippines, India, whatever. Nothing against these people of course, just when it comes to tech support.
There was a recent NYTimes article about how companies make tech support awful. Apple is not one of them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/04/technology/why-tech-suppor...
My times calling Microsoft Tech support (having to do with Office 2016 Mac and other MS products running in Windows 10 VM) were miserable. Switched to the wrong people, people who can't speak english well, who don't seem to understand what I was talking about. Having to call over and over and over again.
Part of the added cost of Macs is precisely to ensure that you get quality support and is well worth paying for unless you absolutely cannot afford it.
It works at the moment, but it has twice lost the startup drive & refused to start without new replacement components from Apple - not something I expect from brand new hardware bought direct from Apple.
But (knock on aluminum), I've had 4 macs since 2011 all without hardware problems.
This comparison makes no sense to me. It's 2016, not 2000, so the fact that a Mac Air is $700 in 2000 dollars is a completely random and arbitrary number.
Macs have a value proposition based on the user experience, quality of software, and quality of hardware. This value proposition is relative and certain market segments have never seen it. Graphic designers appreciate the consistency and accuracy of Apple products in their workflows so the value proposition was high. Gamers however saw anemic hardware and limited support so the value proposition was extremely low. With the arrival of OSX and the growth of the internet and *nix based development, and then with iOS, the value proposition for software developers grew significantly.
To me, the way to weigh value is relative to workload. Few users are hardware bound and today the most likely bottleneck for ordinary people is going to be GPU, not that I'm saying ordinary users are going to run up against it.
The "refurbished" were generally returns that were reinspected, etc. The company bought a lot of them.
But to have only spent $700 for a 13" Macbook Air type of machine then! :-)
> So the machines are very cheap, even to IBM they are easier to use and require less tech support. For those that want to do some software development with open source, very useful.
This is just untrue at many levels, there is still plenty of early adopter issues going around and there are plenty of people getting new laptops with Windows/Linux OS. It certainly hasn't stopped IBM's contributions to open source before or after.
This is a weird argument to make.
http://appleinsider.com/articles/15/10/15/only-5-of-mac-user...
what percent of laptops sold do you think are under $500? I bet most.
And now chromebooks wax popular.
Macs aren't for the masses, cost wise.
In NYC they are $12-$14 per pack, but even in the rest of the country at its lowest cost it has to be several dollars per pack * 365.
Cannonical loves my data as much as Microsoft. Unlike Microsoft, they love sending to Amazon for sales purposes and the search engine du jure for "personalization" and to websites to download their Ubuntu "app" things.
TANSTAAFL.
With Linux, there is a free lunch.
Why do you naturally assume malicious intent? Is the Android Keyboard (which does the same thing) a keylogger? What about every search engine's suggested searches?
Did you know that OSX's Spotlight feature sends your queries to Bing by default? If Apple is so protective of your personal information, why on god's green earth would they choose big bad Microsoft as their default search provider for OS level search?
There's this dichotomy that exists between Microsoft and everyone else. Microsoft can do no good, and everyone else is given benefit of doubt. Google's search assistant cross references a search you made on your desktop Firefox browser with a contact in your Android phonebook and suggests a Google Now car based on it and your response is "Thanks Google!". Microsoft grants it's search assistant access to it's contacts app on your device so that if you type your friend's name in the Windows 10 search bar it can display his contact info and you lose your mind. How is that fair?
Please explain how one can permanently or even significantly delay a security update in Windows 10 Home and Professional? While one generally wants security updates, there are time when one does not. There could be something in the new patch that clashes with some hardware combinations and a new patch could render my machine unusable.
As far as privacy and data protection, here are some quotes from a recent article in pcadvisor.com:
http://www.pcadvisor.co.uk/feature/windows/should-i-upgrade-...
> "After writing this article in June 2015 before Windows 10 was released, there was quite the backlash from people who felt that their privacy was being invaded by Windows 10, and rightfully so. Not only is Microsoft now urging people to upgrade to Windows 10, but it's almost forcing them.
The reason appears to be data harvesting. Windows 10 collects a variety of data, some for improving the effectiveness of features such as Cortana. There are ways (as you can see below), even before installing Windows 10 to disable most of these features and prevent your information from being captured in the first place."
> "By switching them off, you'll have more privacy, but how much more data Microsoft is collecting is anyone's guess. We certainly can't say that you can prevent 100 percent of your data from being sent to Microsoft, but it's safe to say that Windows 10 does have the most data harvesting of any version of Windows yet. By switching them off, you'll have more privacy, but how much more data Microsoft is collecting is anyone's guess. We certainly can't say that you can prevent 100 percent of your data from being sent to Microsoft, but it's safe to say that Windows 10 does have the most data harvesting of any version of Windows yet."
The UI for granular control of updates in Windows 10 has been removed putting more in line with macOS, iOS, Android, etc. The features are still there and configurable in the registry though it's primarily intended for enterprise customers to leverage.
I think the scenario you describe where an individual actively monitors and selectively chooses which updates to install is pretty insignificant. One of the problems with Windows has been that users or software (e.g. AV, AntiMalware, etc) will disable the Windows Update Service or set it to manual and then neglect to update the system. This leaves the user vulnerable. The changes Microsoft has made are to benefit the majority and not to cater to the minority.
In Windows 10 the UI doesn't allow you to disable automatic updates, it only allows you to disable automatic reboots. If you are hell bent on disabling them however you can do it via registry changes or various tools that have been released. That being said it's generally a bad idea to do this.
> As far as privacy and data protection, here are some quotes from a recent article in pcadvisor.com:
None of your quotes are proof of spying, they're reactions to the EULA or default settings. Hell one of your quotes even says "felt". And they use such menacing terms as "data harvesting" to describe pretty routine behavior.
Contrast that with 10, I think I've found maybe 2 people in my group of online and offline friends who "like" it, not love, just like, and the rest are varying degrees of indifference and of course there's a few people who outright hate it.
One of my sysadmin friends is currently looking into if he can rebuild his company laptop with 7 because he just can't stand 10.
I only bring this up because it seems like while people didn't like 8 hardly at all, nobody really seems to love 10 either. They either shrug their shoulders because they don't care, or they tolerate it because it's better than nothing.
Gut since they will start with subscriptions very soon I wonder what is their long term plan with these Win10 installations on existing computers...
I tend to call software that tries to trick users into doing things they explicitly do not want to do malware, but that's just me.
Edit: Intentionally forces the system to a state where functionality is unknown (as opposed to breaking the system on purpose). Big honking difference, yeah right. "I just pushed him into the pool, you mean I should have checked if he can swim? Wait, what do you mean 'if he even wanted to?' That's ridiculous, of course he did!" The problem (malware-ness, if you wish) isn't with the upgrade (we would have upgraded in a matter of 6-8 weeks), it's the disregard for consent ("you didn't say 'no' often enough, that's a loud and clear 'yes' to me").
Perhaps not malware, but not a huge leap away from it.
Edit: Clarification.
1. Run `gpedit.msc`.
2. Navigate to Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Windows Update.
3. Locate the “Configure Automatic Updates” setting in the right pane and double-click it. Set it to “Enabled,” and then select your preferred setting. For example, you can choose “Auto download and notify for install” or “Notify for download and notify for install.” Save the change.
If you're running Windows 10 Home you can simply set your ethernet/wifi connection as a metered connection which results in the same exact policy being applied - you get to choose when to install updates...
Do check compatibility before upgrading. My middle-aged Dell Precision laptop with Windows 7 sticker does not officially support Windows 10 according to Dell.
It runs Windows 10 OK but I do get the occasional blue-screen panic from the wireless network interface driver.
I had a few minor twitches like that too, and they've all gone away after doing a clean install.
Tough to say what their goals are in the mobile space though.. It's a saturated market and people are already plugged into ecosystems so it's tough to pull them out. The plus with Windows 10 Universal though is that for developers, why not make it universal and get added mobile/desktop app for free?
Hard to say where they're going.. The entire market has sort of reached a strange place with shifts to the cloud and attempts at AI (I disable cortana by the way because she eats battery for breakfast).
I've been refraining from installing it on a bunch of other PCs since then.
As soon as I uninstalled it, no more problem.
One of my friends also had Clover installed, but he had no problems.
I don't, so that's not it...
(See this for context - IMNSHO a program which does this fully deserves its accolades, no matter if it's pushed by the OS vendor or not: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11846198 )
- It would be the same as before.
- Continuing a failed strategy won't suddenly be any more successful. Why should those who didn't upgrade until now suddenly do it? The most likely reason will be because they have to - in which case letting them pay is the better business strategy.
- It sets a bad precedent for the future (from their POV), nobody would take similar announcements seriously any more.
That said, my reason for not upgrading my PC thus far is that on my officially Windows 10 supported Dell XPS 13 9333 (from 2014) ultrabook (which I bought with Windows 8.1) I have quite severe sound driver crash issues (the actual Realtek driver is even worse, but with only the Microsoft High Definition Audio Device driver I have them too, and I'm not alone), and I have to restart explorer.exe (the window manager) occasionally because something hangs. No chance to get anything done from Dell, even though they officially support the upgrade. On my XPS 8500 PC - two years older - it isn't even officially supported, and it also has a Realtek audio chip. So I'm really reluctant to start the upgrade. I'll do it just before end of the month, but I'll be sure to have everything backed up even if they say I will be able to revert the installation.
Given its slow, but consistent non the less.