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Windows-as-an-app is coming

computerworld.com

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Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#41

Post by steve1977 »

0xNotMyAccount wrote: post #30
secfirstmd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big area will be security.

Yep, this is Microsoft's answer to the terrible Citrix user experience, which is a non-trivial component of burnout in healthcare. Every hospital basically tells their staff, several times a day, via an electronic health record system served over Citrix: we don't trust you, and you time is worthless, fuck you. All in the name of security.

What is so bad about Citrix nowadays? I’m not in the loop anymore but I did Citrix about 15-20 years ago (geez…) and it was working very well and our users liked it. So that was Metaframe XP on Windows Server 2000 and 2003 back then.

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#42

Post by JohnFen »

sonicanatidae wrote: post #32
JohnFen wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I avoided this fatigue by not doing subscriptions at all. It works great for me, but YMMV.

I avoid them in my personal life, but stuck with them in my professional life. :|

I don't count subscriptions connected with my work because those are my employer's subscriptions, not mine. My employer can, and does, have different preferences about these things than I do.

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#43

Post by MattPalmer1086 »

0xNotMyAccount wrote: post #30
secfirstmd wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One big area will be security.

Yep, this is Microsoft's answer to the terrible Citrix user experience, which is a non-trivial component of burnout in healthcare. Every hospital basically tells their staff, several times a day, via an electronic health record system served over Citrix: we don't trust you, and you time is worthless, fuck you. All in the name of security.

Ummmm, we use Citrix to get remote desktops and it's fine. Seems like somethibg specific to your setup that's the problem.

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#44

Post by _chu1 »

What if I just run a bunch of cryptominers on my Windows 365 instance? Either way this is gross and I guarantee people will just accept that. To unintentionally quote Deus Ex, Some people don't see the danger of indiscriminate surveillance.

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#45

Post by thesuperbigfrog »

danpalmer wrote: post #17

I'm not quite sure I get the strategy. For people who need Windows for some business requirement, this lets them use less Windows, and have a Mac or Chromebook as their hardware. The result: less Windows. For people who don't currently use Windows, does a slower, internet-only Windows present a compelling product? Windows doesn't really sell itself (other than as a gaming platform, but we have Nvidia's streaming plat…

>> I'm not quite sure I get the strategy.

It's to get enterprises and consumers to pay for Windows twice:

1) once for the Windows that runs on hardware and controls devices (traditional Windows)

2) continually for Windows and related services that run in the cloud (Windows 365, CoPilot, etc.) on a subscription basis

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#46

Post by I_Am_Nous »

LegitShady wrote: post #26
crowcroft wrote: post #9

The idea of a super thin client in the form of a light laptop with amazing battery life connected to something like this seemed appealing a few years ago. With everything Apple has delivered with their ARM processors though it seems like you can have your cake and eat it too with compute power, battery life, and a very nice laptop all at once.

In a recent sale, I saw a 15" macbook air for $1750 Canadian Dollarydoos (a discount of $250 from the original price of $2000). For t hat money it came with an M2 chip, 512gb SSD, and 8gb of RAM. There is no alternate timeline of this universe that would make a $1750 or $2000 laptop with 8gb of RAM ok with me in 2023. The prices are high and the upgrade costs for RAM are abusive. Of course, it doesn't use SODIMM modu…

I needed to buy an iMac for my wife's new job, and could only afford the base model iMac M1 24" - 8 GB RAM, small storage, limited Thunderbolt ports, but it's still been the best computer we've ever had, bar none. My wife abused it with huge catalogs built in Adobe InDesign, as well as projects in Illustrator and Photoshop, and the only thing that's held us back is the small storage when Photoshop feels like it doesn't have enough scratch disk. We haven't even noticed the 7 core GPU (vs the 8 core the midrange model gets).

Anectdata aside, you know your workflow better than I do so I won't tell you 8 GB should be enough. It definitely makes it less future proofed for sure.

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#47

Post by sonicanatidae »

JohnFen wrote: post #42
sonicanatidae wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I avoid them in my personal life, but stuck with them in my professional life. :|

I don't count subscriptions connected with my work because those are my employer's subscriptions, not mine. My employer can, and does, have different preferences about these things than I do.

I detest the Subscription model so very much, that I hate it on behalf of my company. lol

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#48

Post by LegitShady »

I_Am_Nous wrote: post #46
LegitShady wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a recent sale, I saw a 15" macbook air for $1750 Canadian Dollarydoos (a discount of $250 from the original price of $2000). For t hat money it came with an M2 chip, 512gb SSD, and 8gb of RAM. There is no alternate timeline of this universe that would make a $1750 or $2000 laptop with 8gb of RAM ok with me in 2023. The prices are high and the upgrade costs for RAM are abusive. Of course, it doesn't use SODIMM modu…

I needed to buy an iMac for my wife's new job, and could only afford the base model iMac M1 24" - 8 GB RAM, small storage, limited Thunderbolt ports, but it's still been the best computer we've ever had, bar none. My wife abused it with huge catalogs built in Adobe InDesign, as well as projects in Illustrator and Photoshop, and the only thing that's held us back is the small storage when Photoshop feels like it doesn…

its not even enough ram to run cities skylines with a decent city. For a premium product in 2023 costing what it does, the ram should not be 8gb.

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#49

Post by crowcroft »

LegitShady wrote: post #26
crowcroft wrote: post #9

The idea of a super thin client in the form of a light laptop with amazing battery life connected to something like this seemed appealing a few years ago. With everything Apple has delivered with their ARM processors though it seems like you can have your cake and eat it too with compute power, battery life, and a very nice laptop all at once.

In a recent sale, I saw a 15" macbook air for $1750 Canadian Dollarydoos (a discount of $250 from the original price of $2000). For t hat money it came with an M2 chip, 512gb SSD, and 8gb of RAM. There is no alternate timeline of this universe that would make a $1750 or $2000 laptop with 8gb of RAM ok with me in 2023. The prices are high and the upgrade costs for RAM are abusive. Of course, it doesn't use SODIMM modu…

Totally agree that the current offering from Apple isn’t exactly appealing for everyone, I would imagine other manufacturers will develop products that offer similar specs soon though.

Re: Windows-as-an-app is coming

#50

Post by crowcroft »

riskable wrote: post #19
thegrim33 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would never be appealing to me in the slightest, having my compute taken away from me and put in someone else's control to siphon away even more data about me, where they have the power to shut my compute off if I violate their TOS, accidentally or not, where I'd lose what little remaining privacy I have left. Of course it'll end up that way in the end eventually, as the enshitification continues; no way would compan…

When AI gets involved it suddenly starts making sense because your laptop's GPU a little baby toy compared to an entire data center running the latest & greatest GPU/AI accelerators. It might be that every day (e.g. regular people) AI use cases don't scale much beyond 64GB of VRAM though in which case it's only a matter of time before laptops have such capabilities.

My sense is that AI models will need to be able to run on relatively low powered eventually, just purely for the economics of it to work out.

Still a lot of unknowns though.

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