Quick Thoughts on: Thinking about Windows in 2020
I’ve had a lot of the same thoughts about Windows lately. I love the Surface stuff, but I’m pretty entrenched in the Apple ecosystem at this point and I can do my job as a Microsoft admin from the comfort of my Mac, iPad Pro, and iPhone. I do use more Microsoft services than I ever have with Teams, OneDrive, OneNote, Todo, Remote Desktop, SharePoint Online, Azure, and Office365 Enterprise. I really love these services and the cross-device support is a big appeal to me. If I were using Android as my primary phone platform, honestly I would consider Windows because Windows is still the first place you see the new Microsoft 365 features and often implement the best since Microsoft has low-level access to their platform that Apple is simply not going to give them on iOS. Paul does make a point about Windows as a Service being a failure and I too think its good that they’ve removed a lot of the entertainment services from the platform. I do wish that they would have an Office365, but for creative apps though, like Apple Photos, iMovie, and Garage Band. I feel like there is a big missed opporunity to keep Windows relevant in that market. Not everyone can afford the Adobe Suite or needs it, especially in education and just getting started. People can podcast or produce videos for years on a Mac at a good quality before having to upgrade to the Adobe Creative Cloud suite or Logic/Final Cut Pro. Like a fool, I’m looking forward to Windows 10X as well, but I fear that they’re not going to put their heart into it.
I see the new Edge as a good first step and their focus on Progressive web apps as a big plus as well. I just hope that the Office teams gets behind this and really brings the mainstay apps like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote into the PWA era and make it competitive with classic office. 2020 should be an interesting year. I’m looking forward to Windows 10X, Surface Duo, Surface Neo, the Surface Hub, and the Xbox Series X device this fall. I hope that Microsoft can keep its own platforms alive because while I do like MacOS, I don’t think its for everything and ChromeOS seems to have stalled out. I hope that Windows gets some more love going forward. I would love a good reason to switch back because I do love the hardware choice, flexible pricing, and the platform as a whole. I hope going foward Microsoft keeps doing stuff like Visual Studio Code, Windows Terminal, Linux on Windows, etc that makes Windows a more interesting and delightful place for developers to create a good ecosystem of third party apps. The thing that has kept me on the Mac this long is its good third party app ecosytem. I wish Windows 10 had more of that. More apps like Fantastical, Things, Reeder, Cardhop, Pixelmator Pro, Bear, Tweetbot, Twitterfic, Toothfairy, Piezo, Netnewswire, Omnifocus, etc. I think if Microsoft could inspire people to come back to Windows and foster the platform that way, that the platform would have a brighter future.
