Windows 10 - Build 10049 - Feature Complete & Underwhelming
On March 30, MS released the latest public update to Windows 10 - build 10049.
At this point I am calling Windows 10 feature complete. I really don't expect to see any new capabilities added to Windows 10 between now and release "sometime this summer" which all tend to agree in most likely late September.
One of the major adds this build was Spartan - MS's eventual replacement for Internet Explorer. More on Spartan below.
As always I loaded 10049 on both a traditional desk and a 8" Atom based tablet. Both installs worked well via Windows update albeit somewhat slower than 10041. I had a much better experience this time with the tablet than updating from 9926 to 10041.
One thing MS did not correct in 10049 was the mis-packaging/installation of the Mail, People & Calendar apps - which still required a command line uninstall and then reload from the Windows store.
One path MS is starting down as a part of the prep for release is updating the core group of "Modern" apps into "Universal" apps. One of the first was Photos, now followed by Music & Video. The goal of the universal app is that the same code will run on Windows 10 desktop, tablet, phone and xBox editions.
There is now OneDrive integration for Music - so you could copy your entire personal Music collection to OneDrive and then have it available to all of your Windows 10 devices. It sounds great - and MS has done a better job matching metadata like album artwork from private collections - but to be honest - this should have been available years ago and it has taken MS some 3+ years to actually start to get the Music app to work correctly. Video is still a bit messy and they don't allow the same capability.
I for one will stay with my personal music local. While my collection is not huge at around 40GB - I prefer to manage it myself than have OneDrive do it.
Some news feeds are reporting the Universal versions of Mail, People and Calendar are coming in build 10051 - and therefore will be available in the next public build. Obviously all native Modern apps will be migrated before launch.
Now on to Project Spartan. Okay - so yes Spartan does have a much cleaner, modern UI and is a universal app - so hopefully that will mean a better experience on Windows phone than the dreadful version of IE they provide today.
There are some very cool features like the ability to annotate pages and then share them and the removal of ActiveX add-ons. But I really guess the question is does it matter ?
As we all know - the internet has every conceivable version and type of Web Server out there - many legacy which will need legacy support to work correctly. So while I can't guarantee it - I almost fully expect Windows 10 to ship with both Project Spartan and IE. So how confusing will that be...?
Besides - yes we all use a browser when on a desktop or even a tablet - but rarely do I use a browser on a mobile device. Typically even with Safari on iPhone or IE on Windows - its an average at best experience. That's why there are so many apps in the mobile space. Most companies like to control their user experience so they build a mobile app and get/receive data via RESTful applications on the backend - no browser involved.
My point here being - obviously Spartan will replace IE - MS has stated that clearly and Spartan will prove to be a better rendering/search engine than IE ever was. But when I compare where Spartan is going versus Google Chrome for example already is - with a large library of apps that run within the browser then I have to say that Spartan will not change the fate of Windows 10.
I titled this post Feature Complete and Underwhelming. At this point in it's development cycle Windows 10 is feature complete and for the next 6 months it's all about universal app migration and overall clean-up and boy there is still a lot to clean up.
Control Panel vs Settings, Menus, Management Tools, Event Logging - just to name a few. Right now Windows 10 is a horribly confusing mash up of Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. It will need a lot of cleanup to get this right before launch.
Is Windows 10 better than 7 or 8. Yes and No. Yes - from a Core OS perspective Windows 10 is dramatically better than Windows 7 if and it's a BIG if you have modern hardware like 3rd Gen Intel Core processors, SSD, 802.11ac WiFi, etc. But if you have a 6 year old PC with a 5400 RPM HD and an 802.11b/g WiFi - you're not going to see a huge performance improvement. In fact like I mentioned in a previous post - Windows 10 - may not even install correctly on some older hardware.
Is the overall user experience in Windows 10 better than Windows 7 ? No - it really isn't in my opinion. Yes - you get Live Tiles along with the MSN apps like News, Sports, Weather, Finance, etc that are much better than any of MS's previous attempts to deliver that type of content - remember Widgets ? But the start menu is painful and the mashup of tools, etc that I mentioned earlier are not going to make anyone more productive.
The reality here is this - By the time Windows 10 releases - Windows 7 will be over 6 years old. Windows 7 was never designed to support the kinds of modern hardware available today - so staying on Windows 7 and upgrading the hardware doesn't help either.
But in my opinion, MS has not made a very compelling value proposition for Windows 10. It's just lipstick on the Windows 8 pig.
Sure if you go buy a new PC this fall, you'll get Windows 10. But as I stated in an earlier post - the reason to by a new PC will be the new and incredible hardware - not Windows 10.
At this point I am calling Windows 10 feature complete. I really don't expect to see any new capabilities added to Windows 10 between now and release "sometime this summer" which all tend to agree in most likely late September.
One of the major adds this build was Spartan - MS's eventual replacement for Internet Explorer. More on Spartan below.
As always I loaded 10049 on both a traditional desk and a 8" Atom based tablet. Both installs worked well via Windows update albeit somewhat slower than 10041. I had a much better experience this time with the tablet than updating from 9926 to 10041.
One thing MS did not correct in 10049 was the mis-packaging/installation of the Mail, People & Calendar apps - which still required a command line uninstall and then reload from the Windows store.
One path MS is starting down as a part of the prep for release is updating the core group of "Modern" apps into "Universal" apps. One of the first was Photos, now followed by Music & Video. The goal of the universal app is that the same code will run on Windows 10 desktop, tablet, phone and xBox editions.
There is now OneDrive integration for Music - so you could copy your entire personal Music collection to OneDrive and then have it available to all of your Windows 10 devices. It sounds great - and MS has done a better job matching metadata like album artwork from private collections - but to be honest - this should have been available years ago and it has taken MS some 3+ years to actually start to get the Music app to work correctly. Video is still a bit messy and they don't allow the same capability.
I for one will stay with my personal music local. While my collection is not huge at around 40GB - I prefer to manage it myself than have OneDrive do it.
Some news feeds are reporting the Universal versions of Mail, People and Calendar are coming in build 10051 - and therefore will be available in the next public build. Obviously all native Modern apps will be migrated before launch.
Now on to Project Spartan. Okay - so yes Spartan does have a much cleaner, modern UI and is a universal app - so hopefully that will mean a better experience on Windows phone than the dreadful version of IE they provide today.
There are some very cool features like the ability to annotate pages and then share them and the removal of ActiveX add-ons. But I really guess the question is does it matter ?
As we all know - the internet has every conceivable version and type of Web Server out there - many legacy which will need legacy support to work correctly. So while I can't guarantee it - I almost fully expect Windows 10 to ship with both Project Spartan and IE. So how confusing will that be...?
Besides - yes we all use a browser when on a desktop or even a tablet - but rarely do I use a browser on a mobile device. Typically even with Safari on iPhone or IE on Windows - its an average at best experience. That's why there are so many apps in the mobile space. Most companies like to control their user experience so they build a mobile app and get/receive data via RESTful applications on the backend - no browser involved.
My point here being - obviously Spartan will replace IE - MS has stated that clearly and Spartan will prove to be a better rendering/search engine than IE ever was. But when I compare where Spartan is going versus Google Chrome for example already is - with a large library of apps that run within the browser then I have to say that Spartan will not change the fate of Windows 10.
I titled this post Feature Complete and Underwhelming. At this point in it's development cycle Windows 10 is feature complete and for the next 6 months it's all about universal app migration and overall clean-up and boy there is still a lot to clean up.
Control Panel vs Settings, Menus, Management Tools, Event Logging - just to name a few. Right now Windows 10 is a horribly confusing mash up of Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10. It will need a lot of cleanup to get this right before launch.
Is Windows 10 better than 7 or 8. Yes and No. Yes - from a Core OS perspective Windows 10 is dramatically better than Windows 7 if and it's a BIG if you have modern hardware like 3rd Gen Intel Core processors, SSD, 802.11ac WiFi, etc. But if you have a 6 year old PC with a 5400 RPM HD and an 802.11b/g WiFi - you're not going to see a huge performance improvement. In fact like I mentioned in a previous post - Windows 10 - may not even install correctly on some older hardware.
Is the overall user experience in Windows 10 better than Windows 7 ? No - it really isn't in my opinion. Yes - you get Live Tiles along with the MSN apps like News, Sports, Weather, Finance, etc that are much better than any of MS's previous attempts to deliver that type of content - remember Widgets ? But the start menu is painful and the mashup of tools, etc that I mentioned earlier are not going to make anyone more productive.
The reality here is this - By the time Windows 10 releases - Windows 7 will be over 6 years old. Windows 7 was never designed to support the kinds of modern hardware available today - so staying on Windows 7 and upgrading the hardware doesn't help either.
But in my opinion, MS has not made a very compelling value proposition for Windows 10. It's just lipstick on the Windows 8 pig.
Sure if you go buy a new PC this fall, you'll get Windows 10. But as I stated in an earlier post - the reason to by a new PC will be the new and incredible hardware - not Windows 10.
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