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Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

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Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#91

Post by __aru »

apples_oranges wrote: post #40
loumf wrote: post #32

I think of it a different way. The consumer market (if Microsoft doesn’t value it) is holding them back from paying tech debt. The fear of regressions is a good reason to not touch stuff. If you do value a market and ignore this, the consequences can be fatal (see Sonos). But if you don’t, then doing the minimum is rational.

I think it’s just like Steve Jobs said: they have no taste. That never changed and it causes them to fail time and again with innovations

I actually think Microsoft is often ahead of it's time with it's consumer-facing products, but executes very poorly. So they have good foresight, but "very bad taste" when it comes to execution.

Microsoft was early to making tablets, smartphones, living room PCs, etc. They just royally screw up the execution of each product category every time.

Maybe it'd be a fun idea for to take some of Microsoft's failed consumer ideas, and revisit them 10-15 years later to see if some other company successfully executes on it.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#92

Post by layer8 »

tyleo wrote: post #12

Another point not mentioned in this article is that Windows desktops are incredibly slow these days. I did some compilation tests on a 2025 Windows desktop with an i9 vs some MacBooks and a new top-of-the-line Windows machine can’t even keep up with a bottom-tier M1 MacBook Pro. https://www.tyleo.com/blog/compiler-performance-on-2025-devi...

Did you turn off Microsoft Defender for the relevant directories? Otherwise you might be measuring malware scan performance more than compiler performance.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#93

Post by sedatk »

> 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 WSL2. It's a total game changer.

Windows has got many quality of life improvements over the recent years such as 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.

Most distros lack the features below, out of the box, which Windows has supported for years:

- "reset this PC" functionality

- a built-in anti-malware

- Touch/Face login

- Ability to enable FDE post-installation

- Hybrid-sleep

- Fast fractional HiDPI scaling

- Running x86 apps on AArch64 performantly

I agree that Microsoft needs to stop letting product groups get their way with screwing up user comfort on Windows for the sake of their arbitrary goals (like shoving Microsoft accounts, Teams, and anything Electron-based down our throats) and keep it as a solid, bloat-free system that everyone can safely rely on. But, dismissing the existing pros of Windows is just unfair. Despite all the cons, it's still a very good OS.

Disclaimer: I had to switch to Fedora on my old machines because Windows 11 weren't supported on them. That's an exceptionally rare incident where Microsoft dropped the ball on backwards compatibility. But that doesn't mean Windows itself is bad.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#95

Post by rolisz »

blitz_skull wrote: post #19
rconti wrote: post #14

The web/webapps/mobile helped lead to this era of "desktop PCs" (to include laptops) where the browser mattered more than the OS. It allowed Apple to become resurgent in the desktop market because OS compatibility mattered less than ever. It's not weird that it led to Apple regaining _some_ market share because clearly there was demand for the Apple/MacOS/OS X experience that may have been tempered by incompatibility…

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.

I bought a MacBook last year. The amount of stupid bugs is insane. Safari eating text input, Safari simply not connecting to internet after several days (while chrome is working well). I have to restart my Mac more often than I had to restart my last Windows machine, because it simply grinds to a halt (with a frickin' M4 Max processor)

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#96

Post by Kye »

riversflow wrote: post #61
rconti wrote: post #14

The web/webapps/mobile helped lead to this era of "desktop PCs" (to include laptops) where the browser mattered more than the OS. It allowed Apple to become resurgent in the desktop market because OS compatibility mattered less than ever. It's not weird that it led to Apple regaining _some_ market share because clearly there was demand for the Apple/MacOS/OS X experience that may have been tempered by incompatibility…

> 1. The Apple experience, at least on the OS side, matters less and less in the webapp world. I see it the opposite. At least for iPhone owners Universal Clipboard and file sharing with Airdrop are killer apps.

I didn't really get it until I Airdropped a shipping label PDF to the guy at the UPS store to print from his phone, which was already set up for the label printer.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#97

Post by dawnerd »

wongarsu wrote: post #45
rconti wrote: post #14

The web/webapps/mobile helped lead to this era of "desktop PCs" (to include laptops) where the browser mattered more than the OS. It allowed Apple to become resurgent in the desktop market because OS compatibility mattered less than ever. It's not weird that it led to Apple regaining _some_ market share because clearly there was demand for the Apple/MacOS/OS X experience that may have been tempered by incompatibility…

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 thought it was an Ive problem but once he left nothing really changed. Sure the Mac got some functionality back but that’s about it. They really need to just not do a redesign and flesh out their software.

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#98

Post by sofixa »

blitz_skull wrote: post #19
rconti wrote: post #14

The web/webapps/mobile helped lead to this era of "desktop PCs" (to include laptops) where the browser mattered more than the OS. It allowed Apple to become resurgent in the desktop market because OS compatibility mattered less than ever. It's not weird that it led to Apple regaining _some_ market share because clearly there was demand for the Apple/MacOS/OS X experience that may have been tempered by incompatibility…

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 prerequisites aren't filled (iPad screen extending, unless the iPad is on the same Apple ID, and has been restarted since, the button just isn't there and there is nothing you can do to debug it other than tryingn to guess what is missing).

Also, Windows allows you to install whatever with a clear UX (this might be dangerous for random crap from the internet vs having to jump through a weird non-existing UX to get it to open, or flat out being blocked from using downloaded libaries).

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#99

Post by dingnuts »

blitz_skull wrote: post #19
rconti wrote: post #14

The web/webapps/mobile helped lead to this era of "desktop PCs" (to include laptops) where the browser mattered more than the OS. It allowed Apple to become resurgent in the desktop market because OS compatibility mattered less than ever. It's not weird that it led to Apple regaining _some_ market share because clearly there was demand for the Apple/MacOS/OS X experience that may have been tempered by incompatibility…

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.

[dead]

Re: Are consumers just tech debt to Microsoft?

#100

Post by seam_carver »

rolisz wrote: post #95
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.

I bought a MacBook last year. The amount of stupid bugs is insane. Safari eating text input, Safari simply not connecting to internet after several days (while chrome is working well). I have to restart my Mac more often than I had to restart my last Windows machine, because it simply grinds to a halt (with a frickin' M4 Max processor)

Yea, Safari 26.1 is really buggy for me on macOS 15. Google searching the issue, lots of my issues are fixed int he 26.2 beta, I had to download beta from apple developer website.
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