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Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

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Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#181

Post by BLKNSLVR »

dspillett wrote: post #142
sedatk wrote: post #93

> The only thing of note they have added to Windows in the last five years is Copilot That's a quite unfair take, especially when it fails to compare it with what things of note Linux distros have added over the last five years. Valve made Windows emulation better, yes. That's it. What else? Actually, I wouldn't even call Copilot a thing of note. It's just ChatGPT-in-a-popup at the moment. A real thing of note is WSL…

> an extremely polished web browser, clipboard history, Windows Sandbox, screen recording, OCR, automatic private info redaction, Markdown support in Notepad and many more. None of those exists on most distros. That is simply wrong. Some of them might be a package install away rather than there by default, but they are hardly features that Windows pioneered… > automatic private info redaction With regard to that, I w…

Notepad had been perfect for two (three?) decades.

I think it was noticing that Notepad (and Calculator) in Windows 10 took a countable number of seconds to open, that's what pushed me over the edge into permanent Linux desktop land.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#182

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

crazygringo wrote: post #132
GeekyBear wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft has never been a consumer tech company. The Zune wasn't consumer tech? Windows 95 was definitely consumer tech. Windows XP was about making the Windows NT line accessible for home users going forward. Weirdly, Windows Phone was aimed at consumers at a time when they really could have leveraged integrations with products like Exchange and Office to stand out.

Zune belongs with Bob and Encarta. I said Microsoft has had side areas. But Win 95 and XP were were absolutely built for corporations. Sure, XP came in separate "Home" and "Professional" editions. But the important thing is that it was the Home version that was missing features to make it cheaper -- not that the Professional edition was primarily a consumer product with some business functionality bolted on. Obviousl…

You weren’t around at the Windows 95 introduction were you? There were a long line of consumers buying it and Gates went on the Tonight Show with Leno to promote it.

Windows NT was for businesses

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#183

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

tremon wrote: post #58
GeekyBear wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft has never been a consumer tech company. The Zune wasn't consumer tech? Windows 95 was definitely consumer tech. Windows XP was about making the Windows NT line accessible for home users going forward. Weirdly, Windows Phone was aimed at consumers at a time when they really could have leveraged integrations with products like Exchange and Office to stand out.

They already had Windows CE and ActiveSync, the bane of many an IT support worker. It might be they expected phones to remain consumer-only, and the business world to keep using PDAs.

Apple announced ActiveSync support in coordination with Microsoft around 2009, Microsoft knew which way the wind was blowing.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#184

Post by wkat4242 »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #117
wongarsu wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is at least in part operating like they are a fashion brand. Functionality and usability are secondary to looks. Both in their devices and their software. It's hard to argue they aren't successful with that. It probably helps that Microsoft has also abandoned usability, just for very different reasons

Are you complaining that Apple is releasing computers that are fast, quiet and with a ridiculous long battery life that are well built as “not functional”?

The keyboards are terrible now, even the ones that went back to the original type after the hell that was butterfly. There's still almost no key travel because Apple is so obsessed with thinness.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#185

Post by PaulHoule »

sofixa wrote: post #114
cameldrv wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This more recently happened to IBM (as a computer manufacturer). If your platform is not accessible to hobbyists, the next generation will not be familiar with it, and when they go get a job, it probably won't be with the technology they don't know. Then, assuming there is a credible alternative, the inaccessible technology will die out in a generation, as we've seen with IBM mainframes.

> Then, assuming there is a credible alternative, the inaccessible technology will die out in a generation, as we've seen with IBM mainframes Unfortunately IBM mainframes are still around. No new customers, but existing ones are too afraid of touching it because it's usually the result of decades of spaghetti hence they're locked in for the forseeble future. So they'll keep renewing contracts and refreshing hardware…

To their credit, IBM is still making zArchitecture chips that aren’t completely humiliated by x86 and ARM. Note also since 2000 IBM helped improve the Linux kernel and got it working in zArchitecture so if a business that has old COBOL or CICS applications wants to run some Linux apps in virtualization on the same machine they can.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#186

Post by raw_anon_1111 »

wkat4242 wrote: post #184
raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you complaining that Apple is releasing computers that are fast, quiet and with a ridiculous long battery life that are well built as “not functional”?

The keyboards are terrible now, even the ones that went back to the original type after the hell that was butterfly. There's still almost no key travel because Apple is so obsessed with thinness.

Absolutely no one to a first approximation is complaining about the keyboards since they left the butterfly keyboards even before the ARM transition. These were the same people who (rightfully) criticized the butterfly keyboards left and right.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#187

Post by type0 »

rowanG077 wrote: post #133
wongarsu wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple is at least in part operating like they are a fashion brand. Functionality and usability are secondary to looks. Both in their devices and their software. It's hard to argue they aren't successful with that. It probably helps that Microsoft has also abandoned usability, just for very different reasons

I'm not sure that's true. Apple has arguably the best laptops there is in terms of hardware. Making the highest end SoC year after year. That's not operating like a fashion brand.

They are operating as fashion brand, that's why they want to sell you a knitted iPhone Pocket for $230

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#188

Post by PaulHoule »

marcosdumay wrote: post #4
PaulHoule wrote: post #2

Yeah, this book was hugely influential https://www.google.com/search?q=innovator%27s+dilemma&ie=UTF... And came to the conclusion that many firms like DEC and Xerox did not sufficiently move to new technology because their customers were not interested and didn’t feel served by it, at least not until it had decades to improve. Today we have the FOMO dilemma where executives all read that book and no way they are goin…

Well, almost the entire book is about how companies like DEC and Xerox just could not move to the new technology, whatever their decision makers decided. I really don't understand the executives that read it and decide that "yeah, we are doing that impossible thing, disregard the sensible alternatives the book shows or thinking of something new!"

Windows 8: some people in the early 2010s (me!) thought laptops were cooked…. My hackathon kit from then was a dirt cheap Android tablet, plastic clip, Bluetooth keyboard and Bluetooth mouse. It looked so sleek compared to the MacBooks and gaming laptops everybody else had. I don’t think Microsoft was crazy chasing the tablet dream but I was the only one.

Meta Quest: Facebook has users, advertisers and all sorts of people who depend on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and such. Facebook knows that platforms like that fail eventually and doesn’t want to be the next MySpace so it has been struggling to get them into a virtual reality platform that, on a certain level, is well executed, but that people don’t have enthusiasm for. VR games for the Quest platform are pretty good but there are so many good flat games that I barely have time for them. I’d make the case that the 8GB MQ3 has enough RAM to run carefully optimized games but not enough for ordinary people to author content (some of why Horizon Worlds is dead: no way McDonalds is going to build an experience if they can’t import an SVG or PNG of the Coca-Cola logo to out in the cups and instead have to painstakingly make it out of solid geometry using the controller by hand… and the same is true for small businesses and enthusiasts) —- we are seeing 16GB headsets from Apple, Samsung and Valve now and maybe it will be better but quite probably it won’t. I know though that if Zuck gives up and somebody else succeeds he’ll have the most terrible regret.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#189

Post by PaulHoule »

righthand wrote: post #171
ruined wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks, gp's google link was unusable for me (apparently my activity is unusual)

I thought the Google search link was some facetious joke at first. I’ve only seen people share a search result as a sarcastic “lmgtfy” response.

It was an accident on my part tapping away on my tablet when I was out of town.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#190

Post by AniseAbyss »

sofixa wrote: post #98
blitz_skull wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an Apple Stan, I don’t understand what you’re referring to. MacOS is light years ahead of Windows in so many arenas, I’m not really sure what you could be referring to when you say “stagnation”. Every OS ever released has issues at launch, not sure if that’s what you mean by “regression”. But man… windows has been garbage for the better part of 2 decades now.

> MacOS is light years ahead of Windows in so many arenas At least Windows dignifies you with an error message (even if a hex code and badly tanslated text) when something is wrong. macOS mocks you with a dumb and utterly useless message like "Something went wrong, try again" or "A USB device is using too much power, try unplugging it". Or just flat out not showing the button for the thing you're looking for if prere…

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