Upcoming Windows Live Stream Predictions
The computer industry has been kind of stagnant of late, and yet every time a company has something to reveal no matter how banal, they hype the ever living shit out of it. The last Apple and Google major press conferences were no different. The iPhone 6 and 6+ were not revolutionary devices, ApplePay was no biggie either. And 'L' was a move in the right direction but in many even less revolutionary than what Apple unveiled.
At the end of the day, these conference have been boiling down to 5% sizzle, 10% steak and 85% gristle. And to make it worse, in most cases the sizzle and the steak were leaked or predicted and widely accepted long before the unveiling making the event generally pointless and the secrecy around them even more so. And the reason why there is more sizzle than steak is because many of the best things are things users "don't see", things like performance improvements or new APIs.
I'm not sure I see the Windows event next week being any different. Sure, there is potential for Windows 10 to be a game changer and there is a chance that Microsoft will unveil something that is exactly that next week. I'm excited for the event, but I just don't see it delivering. As with all other major events of late in the tech industry I think we know the bulk of what they are going to say.
In this case I don't think we'll see much more than a consumer preview of the desktop OS which will likely be a much more stable and slightly feature enhanced version of the last preview version they revealed. It will probably contain Continuum which will look good at first but probably function in a way that irritates everyone who uses it thus proving to be little more than a chance for them to beta test and refine it before a final version.
I suspect we will see the first demos of the Phone Preview. But I wager it will still be early, early beta and no one outside of MS will see it any time soon or it will be heavily restricted by device.
I also wager we won't see anything on Windows 10 for Xbox. They are all supposed to be the same underlying OS with Windows 10, and after the desktop/laptop version and phone versions, Xbox will be the freak in the room.
There will probably be a demo of Cortana on Windows 10 and notifications and mention/demo that Cortana syncs across devices but beyond that I doubt that there will be any interesting new interaction between Cortana enabled devices. Both features are kind of a no brainer though. With the OS going out on phones it meant the bulk of the code was already going to be there, and they just needed UI's for those features that would make sense outside of a phone.
Desktop consumer preview will probably be available same day as the event. Either during or immediately after the conference. From the sounds of it, it seems like Phone preview will probably open up for those outside of Microsoft, but I wager this is a signup only and no one external is going to see Windows 10 on a phone for several months still. The rumours don't point to the phone OS being super far along and this will likely also mean battles with carriers if not OEMs as well (OEM fight will be largely a non-issue though since the majority of Windows Phone are under a brand MS owns).
I could be wrong on the state of the phone OS though. Thought I saw some articles claiming that Yezz said Windows 10 phones would be on shelves in May. Which means OS would have to be expected to go gold in advance of that timeline which would have to mean that the OS could conceivably already be very far along. Just not seeing the leaks and rumours to back that up though.
There may be some talk of Office Touch for Windows 10. But again, doesn't seem to be enough info swirling around to imply that it is more than half baked yet.
Things that would make me wrong: Phone Preview available immediately. Demo and/or preview of Windows 10 for Xbox. Continuum nailing it in first pass. Major new features no one has seen in preview or leaks. Cortana doing something "cool" which makes owning multiple Cortana devices better than owning one individually. Cortana for Xbox.
Microsoft has a lot of changes coming and so there certainly IS potential that they could blow everyone out of the water with something huge no one saw coming (noting of course that simply delivering EVERYTHING people want out of the things we know will be involved would count). History, however, has me jaded and I don't think we'll get that.
I hope I'm wrong. Obviously (as an owner of Windows PCs, Windows Phones and an Xbox One). I would love to try out Windows 10 on my Lumia 1020. I'll probably avoid the consumer preview outside of VM's. I'm not super interested in an Xbox One update. It is already running the Windows 8 Kernel as far as I know and they aren't likely to do much with the UI even if they update a ton under the hoods. Game consoles are a totally different animal. Even a phone is more of a personal computing device than a game console. Touch based Office availability would also intrigue me.
Less than a week away now. Lets hope Microsoft finally restores some faith in the hype around these conferences.
At the end of the day, these conference have been boiling down to 5% sizzle, 10% steak and 85% gristle. And to make it worse, in most cases the sizzle and the steak were leaked or predicted and widely accepted long before the unveiling making the event generally pointless and the secrecy around them even more so. And the reason why there is more sizzle than steak is because many of the best things are things users "don't see", things like performance improvements or new APIs.
I'm not sure I see the Windows event next week being any different. Sure, there is potential for Windows 10 to be a game changer and there is a chance that Microsoft will unveil something that is exactly that next week. I'm excited for the event, but I just don't see it delivering. As with all other major events of late in the tech industry I think we know the bulk of what they are going to say.
In this case I don't think we'll see much more than a consumer preview of the desktop OS which will likely be a much more stable and slightly feature enhanced version of the last preview version they revealed. It will probably contain Continuum which will look good at first but probably function in a way that irritates everyone who uses it thus proving to be little more than a chance for them to beta test and refine it before a final version.
I suspect we will see the first demos of the Phone Preview. But I wager it will still be early, early beta and no one outside of MS will see it any time soon or it will be heavily restricted by device.
I also wager we won't see anything on Windows 10 for Xbox. They are all supposed to be the same underlying OS with Windows 10, and after the desktop/laptop version and phone versions, Xbox will be the freak in the room.
There will probably be a demo of Cortana on Windows 10 and notifications and mention/demo that Cortana syncs across devices but beyond that I doubt that there will be any interesting new interaction between Cortana enabled devices. Both features are kind of a no brainer though. With the OS going out on phones it meant the bulk of the code was already going to be there, and they just needed UI's for those features that would make sense outside of a phone.
Desktop consumer preview will probably be available same day as the event. Either during or immediately after the conference. From the sounds of it, it seems like Phone preview will probably open up for those outside of Microsoft, but I wager this is a signup only and no one external is going to see Windows 10 on a phone for several months still. The rumours don't point to the phone OS being super far along and this will likely also mean battles with carriers if not OEMs as well (OEM fight will be largely a non-issue though since the majority of Windows Phone are under a brand MS owns).
I could be wrong on the state of the phone OS though. Thought I saw some articles claiming that Yezz said Windows 10 phones would be on shelves in May. Which means OS would have to be expected to go gold in advance of that timeline which would have to mean that the OS could conceivably already be very far along. Just not seeing the leaks and rumours to back that up though.
There may be some talk of Office Touch for Windows 10. But again, doesn't seem to be enough info swirling around to imply that it is more than half baked yet.
Things that would make me wrong: Phone Preview available immediately. Demo and/or preview of Windows 10 for Xbox. Continuum nailing it in first pass. Major new features no one has seen in preview or leaks. Cortana doing something "cool" which makes owning multiple Cortana devices better than owning one individually. Cortana for Xbox.
Microsoft has a lot of changes coming and so there certainly IS potential that they could blow everyone out of the water with something huge no one saw coming (noting of course that simply delivering EVERYTHING people want out of the things we know will be involved would count). History, however, has me jaded and I don't think we'll get that.
I hope I'm wrong. Obviously (as an owner of Windows PCs, Windows Phones and an Xbox One). I would love to try out Windows 10 on my Lumia 1020. I'll probably avoid the consumer preview outside of VM's. I'm not super interested in an Xbox One update. It is already running the Windows 8 Kernel as far as I know and they aren't likely to do much with the UI even if they update a ton under the hoods. Game consoles are a totally different animal. Even a phone is more of a personal computing device than a game console. Touch based Office availability would also intrigue me.
Less than a week away now. Lets hope Microsoft finally restores some faith in the hype around these conferences.
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