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Comment by mark_l_watson | Hacker News Reader

I am a big fan of Office 365. We currently have no Windows machines in our home but for macOS and Linux, Office 365 provides great value also.

Microsoft 365 is probably a good idea, but Microsoft is missing one consumer product: a great cellphone running Windows and seamlessly working with other Windows devices. Having phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops all seamlessly working together is something that I now insist on. For now, this makes me an Apple customer because iPhone/iPad/MacBook devices work really well together. If Microsoft had a fantastic phone with handoff, they could compete better. (BTW, I briefly owned a Windows 10 laptop a few years ago - bought it just to play with Windows 10. I thought Windows 10 was quite good.)

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Microsoft strategy with Windows 10 was to encourage developers to write UWP apps so they could eliminate the app gap in Windows 10 Mobile.

Good strategy in theory, but looking at the Windows Store today, it seems like developers are not that interested in UWP and frankly, who can blame them?

If you want to write a tablet app, you target the iPad because it's the best product in that category. If you want to write a phone app, you target Android and iOS because that's where the money is today.

Is there good money to be made writing UWP at the moment? In my opinion, UWP apps on desktop are inferior to "classic" Windows apps. Windows 10 Mobile is pretty much dead at this point, so what's the point of UWP, what's the true benefit?

This is probably where Windows 10S (pushed in education) comes into play. It's a version that offers "secure & superior" performance over normal Win10. Since 10S can only install from the Store app, devs are `forced` to port their app.

Only time will tell how effective this strategy is. I for one would love for this to succeed if it means better security for users (especially on older, technologically challenged folks)

Well, I don't see how Windows 10S helps push adoption of UWP since you can already distribute Windows Forms, WPF, or Win32 desktop apps on the Store today. At that point, why bother making a UWP app?

Also, Edge only have a handful of extensions. If they want to compete against Chrome, they have to do something about that, otherwise people will just use Chromebooks.

UWP will handle touch-enabled Win10 devices better. And while it's not a segment anywhere near the size of iPad, it's still there, so if you can reach it, why not?

The problem is that right now, doing UWP means no Win7 support, and that's a far larger segment - there are twice as many Win7 installs as there are all Win10 installs, and Win10 tablets would be positively minuscule in comparison. So this will change if and when Win10 becomes the dominant Windows desktop OS.

Win32 apps run with full thrust, instead of the actual UWP container, so ideally one should migrate to a proper UWP app.

But we all know how users and many devs, actually value security.

The devs may value security but they need the tools to actually build a working app. From what I have seen UWP is way too limited for a lot of apps.

Win 10S can run desktop apps that have been "converted" using the Desktop App Converter (nee Centennial) and uploaded to the Store. This is how iTunes will be coming to the Store later this year.

Currently the only device shipping with 10S is the Surface Laptop, and it can be upgraded to regular Windows 10 Pro for free for the rest of the year. I suspect that step 1 of the Surface Laptop setup experience for users-in-the-know will be to do this upgrade, just like "uninstall craplets" has been for previous Windows laptops.

I feel like it's more likely that the Education apps they're trying to push to UWP would be ported to the web. I am a firm believer that there are places where desktop apps make more sense but from a market standpoint, porting to UWP gives you access to Win 10/10S but porting to the web gives you Win 10/10S, iPhone, Android, Windows 7, OS X, Chromebooks, etc. That's a lot more coverage for your dollars spent.

Not to mention a decent path to Electron (mac, windows, linux native-ish) and Cordova (android, ios native-ish). React-native is conceptually better than UWP at this point.

I can't see any compelling reason to use UWP. Functionality is limited, runs only on Win 10, Windows 10 mobile is dead. Why would you use it over WPF, Winforms or going straight to a web app?

The problem with UWP started with Windows 8.

As consequence of the traditional WinDev vs DevTools relationship, WinRT did not care for a good story.

Worse, it forced devs to write the app three times because the APIs were not the same between phone, tablet and desktop.

Window 8.1, helped a bit with the Universal Apps model. Then the business code could be shared between platforms, but the views (XAML) still needed to be written three times.

Finally UWP was supposed to be back into one single code base for all platforms, but it still lacks polish.

One area is that .NET Native imposes restrictions on .NET code and they are still improving on that area.

Another burning point was that they dropped raw 2D APIs from .NET, forcing anyone that wanted accelerated graphics to go write DirectX code with C++/CX or C++/WRL. Forcing them to make Win2D available.

This is also one of the reasons why Visual Layer was later introduced.

C++ devs also don't know much what to expect.

Initially there was C++/CX and C++/WRL, then Kenny Kerr got hired to work on C++/WinRT, which would support UWP but with standard C++ instead of the extensions used by the former.

C++/WinRT is still WIP after two years, and C++ almost vanished from Microsoft UWP related presentations. The majority of C++ talks are always related to standards support, or OS X/Linux/Android related tooling support.

No word when C++/WinRT will reach feature parity with C++/CX, be supported on Blend or even actually integrated into Visual Studio.

Meanwhile HoloLens and Visual Layer graphical coding presentations are done with C#.

A real pity, because UWP is what I wish .NET would have been since version 1.0 built on COM and AOT compiled to native code, but Microsoft doesn't seem to get it right how to send an uniform message to the developers to build up confidence.

Didn't the problems start even before that? Windows 7 phone was the first new phone platform from Microsoft and was widely regarded as pretty good by the pundits. It had a whole new set of APIs though compared to Win32 (as could be expected), based on a Silverlight-like platform IIRC. Then Microsoft changed all of the APIs again for phone 8 as you outlined. That really scared off a lot of developers I think. Who would be willing to code for something so unstable? 2 new sets of APIs in as many years, with no kind of overlap or migration plan.

All these changes had their reasoned explanations back in the day: the install base was small so it didn't have much impact and they were removing cruft each time, but with hindsight it was a really bad way to go about creating a healthy ecosystem.

Kind of, it had to with "WinDev vs DevTools relationship" I refer to.

Windows 7 was .NET based, Silverlight for apps and XNA for games, native code was only available to Microsoft partners.

Then the WinDev won the next round and we got WinRT, fully based on COM, based on the initial design of .NET before CLR was a thing (Ext-VOS).

As side effect XNA and Silverlight were killed, not even ported to WinRT, and as I mentioned for accelerated graphics the APIs were only exposed at C++ level.

As a c++ developer it has been indeed impossible to figure out what ui stack to use from Microsoft. We ended up choosing Qt because it seemed to have much lesser roadmap uncertainty.

I'm not sure UWP can be judged yet. Slack and Spotify, amongst others, just announced UWP apps.

> Office 365 provides great value also.

I think the cheapest version is $70 a year. I'm still using office 2007 which cost about the same but has lasted 10 years. I dont think this software rental trend is anything about great value.

I think it's different based on the use case.

For a document editor or spreadsheet, continuous or even regular updates aren't important as long as it has the base features you need.

When you have a CRM that integrates with other systems, an accounting package that has to stay up to date with policies and laws, or even an IDE that can support numerous languages, regular updates are more valuable and in some cases necessary.

I used Office 2000 until I decommissioned my last Windows machine (dual boot even then) in 2010/11.

For me, Office and Windows upgrades are just a useless time waster. I'd be happy with Office 2000 if it weren't for the fact that the only thing I use it for is collaboration.

As a solution, I just set up a copy of Server 2016 Essentials, set the telemetry mode to "security" (which is easier said than done -- you have to go through an active directory server!) and installed Office 2016 Home + Student on it.

The lowest price for that Office SKU is $75 on Amazon at the moment, but normal retail is about twice that. It looks like they support current office releases for about 4 years, so I figure $40/year if I stay on the upgrade train and pay full price.

Server 2016 security updates end in 2026, and it retails for $400, so another $40/yr.

This all goes in a VM running on a low wattage (already always on) box, so it will hopefully update + reboot itself when I'm not around. Time will tell.

Electricity for my physical desktops running windows was $10's per month (windows refused to stay suspended...), and my incremental hardware costs are $0, so this is a lot less expensive than it looks.

Plus, this gets rid of the vast majority of the Win 10 spyware in a supported way, and future proofs against most hardware compatibility problems.

That $70 is effectively a bundle with OneDrive, getting you 1 Tb of cloud storage. If you only need Office, and upgrade rarely, it doesn't make much sense. But seeing how many people pay similar money for Dropbox alone, for example, it can definitely be a great value proposition.

Dropbox + Libreoffice is similar, yes. Also dropbox is way faster, runs on linux, and easy to script against. Oh, and onedrive consistently crashes on my win 10. But yeah, feature-list-wise, onedrive isn't bad if you're a MS fanboy.

That's weird that OneDrive crashes consistently on your W10. How much data do you have on it? It doesn't crash on our family computer which is always an old computer. And on Mac it crashes maybe once a quarter. I have hundreds of gigs on it so that's not so bad.

MS fanboy remark seems weird. I'm guessing you'll just think I'm an MS fanboy. Which would be silly, I use Apple products far more among other companies. OneDrive might actually be the only Microsoft app I use consistently.

Just a few gig in a directory at work. Gave up syncing it after spending several days alternating between crashing, eating 100% CPU, and popping up error messages. Yes 1 TB is nice but you can't get to it!

Damn. This is OneDrive personal, not Business? You said work so if it's OneDrive for business that isn't really OneDrive. It's just their enterprise stuff with OneDrive as the name. Like Skype business or whatever they call that.

Normal OneDrive which is what comes with the $80/year/5 people Office 365 isn't perfect. A few issues/features that they should have finished by now, but I'd be really surprised if regular OneDrive was causing those amt of issues.

I don't know about the personal OneDrive offering but on OneDrive for Business it's pretty much impossible to fill 1TB because the client will crash and burn far before reaching the limit.

I think OneDrive for Business is like the Skype Business (not sure the name) issue. Where they just renamed it. The exe was still Lynx.exe for some time.

I have had over 500GB syncing on OneDrive before via an office 365 account. It was fine. It would crash or mess up a lot more in early 2016 and 2015. But has been pretty good in the past year.

OneDrive still has issues though.

It doesn't understand symlinks and it doesn't allow far too many special characters in file names.

OneDrive for Business used to have something to do with SharePoint (as in, that's where it would sync those files). That would probably account for a lot of problems with it. ;)

Yeah most likely. I use Onedrive a ton (200+ GB), so the normal one still has a few issues that are annoying - primarily some special characters not being allowed, no symlinking, and I don't think it does file history well compared to Drive or Dropbox.

The standard edition which lists for $99/yr is ~$80/yr on Amazon and on sale elsewhere. That version is Office Home. Good for 5 people (like my family of 5) - Word / Excel / Powerpoint / Outlook / OneNote / Publisher / Access.

5 TB of OneDrive storage too.

Look. No referral or anything - https://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-Office-1-year-subscription-...

Great deal.

the family feature is absolutely killer.

equivalent office 2007 for 5 family members is like $750? That's 10 years of 365, with no feature update (if you like that sort of thing) and no onedrive.

Yeah i was surprised with this not being mentioned in the higher up comment lamenting $70/yr. $80/yr for 5 people has been great for us.

For $80 a year like our family has had for years, your get Office Home and OneDrive 1 TB per person for 5 people. It's a great deal.

Is there any app that you use that wouldn't be covered by Office 365 Home edition?

It's hard for me to personally see what I'd gain from Microsoft ecosystem + Microsoft phone over Microsoft ecosystem + iOS/Android apps, since their suite of apps for those platforms are quite good.

I have no interest in dockable phones or app handoff or any of that; never saw the point of it when using iOS + OS X, don't miss it now that I'm on Windows/Linux/Android.

My wife had a Windows phone and reported that the Onedrive/Office support for Android was actually better than on Windows phone. shrug.

(Currently dealing with Onedrive sync having self-destructed on her laptop, she is now much less of a Microsoft fan)

They are doing it for Android and iPhone

> With Build 16251, we are introducing the first set of features that enable “linking” your phone to your PC. This build’s scenario is focused on cross-device web-browsing. Today, we’re asking for you Windows Insiders to help us test this experience out using your Android phones. Support for iPhone is coming very soon, stay tuned.

https://blogs.windows.com/windowsexperience/2017/07/26/annou...

Also still updating and advancing Win10 Mobile; though obviously not making any devices.

I hope they open up all their APIs, then lean on the phone duopoly (iOS and Android) to do the same, enabling cross-OS handoff. Maybe even throw in some accusations of monopoly/duopoly abuse to ironically expedite the features along.

I'm still getting insider OS updates on my Lumia phone. Their Build conference this year also had the Windows Phone on a bunch of banners hanging all over the conference, even though no one talked about it. Seems like something is brewing...

> a great cellphone running Windows and seamlessly working with other Windows devices.

They tried and failed, very little chance they will try another shot at this, their brand is not associated with quality phones and it will be extremely hard to get developers to work on apps because they will believe the platform will be abandoned.

I think you are right - they would have to fund the development of popular apps themselves, at least for a while. That said, I use few third party apps on my iPhone and iPad (preferring a web browser and mobile apps when possible). But yes, it would be expensive to seed their app store with enough apps for people to get their work done.

They have been trying for years. I still have several emails from before I retired offering $250 MS point gift cards or Xbox One consoles just for submitting an app for approval.

Still couldn't be bothered.

Once they get the x86 emulation on arm working, the problem goes away. They can start running apps from the windows store. I highly doubt they're done unless Intel follows through on a lawsuit and wins.

Not really. Mainly because apps designed for desktop suck to use on touchscreens.

Especially 5" (or smaller) touch screens, good grief what a hassle that would be.

I would buy a Surface Phone with a fully-realized version of Continuum (ARM + x86 emulation) in a heartbeat.

I'd love a phone on which the "phone" UI was simply on choice of app but could be docked to an HDMI & USB device, then boot up windows and run windows desktop apps. I'm not too fussed if it is a little slow.

Heck, you could even just use the phone's display as a keyboard / touchpad for the windows OS while displaying a desktop on the monitor.

You might. Take you, everyone else who might over the next 10 years, then increase by two orders of magnitude and you are still a tiny drop in the bucket that can't possibly compete. Network effects mean there probably won't be another mobile OS any more than there will be another desktop OS to gain traction. There are the two leaders and everyone else is permanently relegated to <1%.

BTW: I keep seeing people talk about this hybrid concept but I have yet to see a UI toolkit that trivially scales up and down between phone/desktop. It mostly seems to involve a lot of compromises and a lot of extra work.

I would be happy to run two different OSes (and maybe 2 different CPUs), the mobile one getting access to the phone screen and the desktop one with access to the monitor, Bluetooth keyboard and mouse (or the phone as touchpad). One or more shared directores for file sync (pictures, videos, downloads, etc)

The problem is that there is no phone with an i7, 32 GB RAM and 1TB SSD now. That's my laptop. My phone is a sub 5" Xperia X Compact. 3GB, 32 GB storage, a Snapdragon 600 something. Fast but not suited for the job I'm doing on the laptop.

Then the battery. It would drain as fast as the one of those old laptops that need to have theirs replaced.

We're still not there and I not sure there is a market for that. Maybe we'll get there by inertia once batteries and cycles per Watt will allow it. The direction we are headed now for this use case is the phone CPU driving a smart terminal to a powerful remote computer, with attached monitor and input peripheral.

An alternative to docking station: these AR screens and keyboards from the Dennou Coil scifi anime https://mengle.wordpress.com/tag/dennou-coil/ Kind of Google Glasses required.

>BTW: I keep seeing people talk about this hybrid concept but I have yet to see a UI toolkit that trivially scales up and down between phone/desktop. It mostly seems to involve a lot of compromises and a lot of extra work.

Except I don't care about desktopified android/iOS/windows phone apps. All I want is to run my already existing open source desktop linux applications. Chroot on android doesn't have hardware acceleration and you have to use VNC for anything graphical.

That's precisely what a fully-realized Continuum experience would be. Using the latest Windows on ARM with x86 emulation and the Composable Shell (CShell) [1] would give you a great experience.

Note that the Lumia 950 with the current production of Continuum is effectively a technology demo of that model since it doesn't have x86 emulation [2] and therefore can't run the full breadth of Windows applications. That said, Continuum already does use the Phone's display as a keyboard, mouse, or just a second display according to your preference.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNxtMtlrm6U

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2y1cKh-KXs

The office 365 that works on Linux lacks equation typesetting.

It's no better than markdown with pandoc (worse in fact, at least with pandoc you can use "$" and have latex do it.)

Personally I'm fan of Google's Office Suite because it works so nicely via web browser, regardless of device type. It makes the device and OS irrelevant.

That kind of misses the point of the article though.

> Having phones, tablets, laptops, and desktops all seamlessly working together is something that I now insist on.

Yes, this is the problem Microsoft needs to focus on. 'A great cell phone running Windows' solves a problem for Microsoft. It's a self-centric view. Microsoft could make everything run seamlessly if they focused on that, instead of Windows on everything and walled gardens.

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