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Apple's iPad Pro becomes more like a Surface, and that's a problem for Microsoft | Windows Central

I'd argue – and many of you would too – that Windows 10 is still a more "serious" OS built for doing "real" work.

It bothers me more than it probably should that people use this language to talk about computing platforms. What this statement usually boils down to is “the iPad doesn’t do what I do all the time,” which is a fine position to take, but that’s a very different thing.

For example, I started this blog post by selecting that line of text in Windows Central, and with 2 taps had this fully formatted blog post open in Ulysses. Once it’s done, I’ll post to my Ghost blog with literally 2 taps as well. I don’t know how I would automate that on Windows, Ulysses doesn’t exist on Windows, and I certainly don’t know how I’d post to Ghost, short of manually pasting in the article and adding the metadata in the Ghost web UI. Does that mean Windows isn’t as serious as iPadOS?

The good news is while Apple is just now catching up to Microsoft's 2012 vision of a 2-in-1 tablet PC, Microsoft is already on to the next thing: foldable and dual-screen devices.

This bit from later in the article made me raise an eyebrow as well, because while Daniel (who I should note I find really interesting and has turned into my go-to Windows writer) appears to be saying Microsoft is pulling ahead with this new tech, is almost surely writing what John Gruber would affectionately call “claim chowder.”

Microsoft was first to smartphones, but they were too early, didn’t nail the execution, and lost hard in the smartphone market when it took off post-iPhone. They were much earlier to touch screen tablet as well, but again they goofed the software and the hardware was not nearly ready for consumer products, and they lost hard to the iPad. Now they’re getting to dual-screen laptops and tablets today, but if I zoom out to the long view, this really feels like something that’s going to be a big old nothing thing for a long time before a real use case comes up.

My last point on this is that when Microsoft demoed their Surface Duo and Neo, I thought they looked like cool tech, but didn’t see how they fit into my life, nor how they would make my life better. Microsoft still has time to make that case, but this feels a lot like deja vu to me.

The Xbox Series X specs look impressive, but that’s not enough - The Verge

This all sounds great, but it also sounds not all that differentiated from what Sony has promised for the PlayStation 5 — notably when it comes to load times. So as with a lot of consumer tech these days, the real answer to what you’ll get when you buy an Xbox isn’t going to be about the hardware, it’ll be about this: Microsoft’s ecosystem of services.

I read all the coverage of the Xbox Series X yesterday, and everything Dieter wrote here resonates with my feelings on it as well. I think the Series X looks cool today because we have not seen the PS5 yet.

Improved load times will be great, and the instant resume feature that lets you bounce between multiple games in seconds is amazing, but they didn’t give me much to get excited about after that. The hardware clearly looks impressive, but Microsoft has not convinced me yet that they have solved the actual reason they lost so badly this generation: games.

Microsoft has only demoed existing Xbox One games running on the new hardware, which is all well and good, but really, that’s it? The problem with the Xbox One was that it didn’t have enough exclusive games to make it a compelling purchase over the PS4 for most people. By showing off new hardware that runs those same games, I don’t know how they’re persuading people that this will be different going forward.

I own a PS4 and got it specifically because of the exclusives. God of War, Horizon Zero Dawn, Spider-Man, The Last of Us, Uncharted, Ratchet and Clank, Death Stranding, Shadow of the Colossus, Persona 5, Bloodborne, and Ghost of Tsushima are all games that I adore and I simply can’t get on Xbox.

That’s not to say Xbox doesn’t have some good exclusives, with Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Forza Horizon, and Halo jumping to mind, but I’d take the Sony list in a heartbeat, personally.

I know many of you are not gamers, so I’ll say this is like a Mac vs Windows comparison. Would you buy a Windows laptop because it had a higher specced CPU and higher resolution display? No, probably not because the software you want isn’t there. Would you go to a theater that had higher resolution screens, but didn’t have the movies you actually wanted to see? No, because the movies are the thing, not the tech surrounding them.

The tech in these new consoles is going to be fun to explore, but as we have seen time and time again, that’s not what wins the day, it’s always the games, and Microsoft hasn’t convinced me yet that they’re going to have those.

The EU Wants All Phones to Work With Interoperable Chargers, Here’s What That Means for Apple's Lightning Port - MacRumors

To reduce cost, electronic waste and make consumers' lives easier, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) want "binding measures" that ensure chargers fit all smartphones, tablets, and other portable devices.

This is a Slightly uncommon “explainer” article on MacRumors and I think it's a really good way to get up to speed on the EU’s recent attempt to normalize chargers across all phones.

Here's the thing, I'm pretty liberal and support government doing quite a few things to ensure the quality of life of the general public. That said, I think this is an example of overreach and doesn't make much sense at all.

First off, let’s just get one thing out of the way: this is a law that would basically only make Apple change their current behavior. If you look at the rest of the smartphone market, it’s basically entirely USB-C everywhere. Yes, there is the occasional micro-USB phone, but those are pretty rare and are only used on very low cost phones and are a part of keeping prices low on those budget devices.

Second, this is addressing a problem that I think we all suspect is going away shortly anyway. Every Apple laptop charges with USB-C. The new iPad Pros released in 2018 use USB-C. Every Mac they sell is all in on USB-C (some would say to a fault). It’s just the iPhone that’s not using the standard, and we all pretty much agree that it’s only a matter of time (1-2 year max) before they switch over there too.

Third, what do we do in 5 years when there is a successor to USB-C that is better in every way? Are phone makers expected to wait for the EU to approve that new connector before they can use it?

Like I said, I get the need to laws and support plenty of corporate regulations, but this just doesn’t make sense to me. The market drove all non-Apple phone makers to USB-C and that same market is pushing Apple to follow suit. Lightning used to be a differentiator because it was better than micro-USB, but in 2020 it’s hard to argue anything besides “momentum” that makes it more of a feature than a burden.

I love USB-C, and everything in my technical life with the exception of my iPhone uses it, so yeah it is inconvenient that the iPhone has a different plug. But Apple does not currently, nor will they ever have a monopoly in smartphones. I think there is plenty the EU could be doing that would be more helpful than this.

I’ve never been that into video game speed runs, but I have had an obsession with The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time speed runs for years now. In 2013, a speed runner called Cosmo did a run through Ocarina of Time in 22 minutes and explained both what he was doing and what the history was around the glitches he was using to achieve that 22 minute time. If you havbn’t watched it before, it’s absolutely worth a watch.

Since then, the best time has dropped time and again to just under 10 minutes. Considering the game proper takes 20+ hours to beat normally, this was really insane.

The below video explores the changes in the Ocarina of Time speed run methods and whether or not speed running this game has shifted into something that’s sucked all the fun out of Ocarina of Time runs.

It’s a complicated question, and I’m personally conflicted. On the one hand, the method shown off in 2013 and the one that was used to get down to 17 minutes in 2019 used glitches too, so I don’t think that using glitches in the game to skip to the end of the game is fundamentally wrong.

But on the other hand, the 17 minute runs were way more fun to watch. They took you outside of the opening area of the game, they involved a couple boss fights, they partially relied on getting lucky with some randomly falling debris at one point, and maybe most of all, it was easy to understand what they were trying to do to get the glitch moments to happen. This new 10 minute method lacks all of this, and basically amounts to watching someone seemingly walk randomly around a small area until they’re warped into the end credits.

All I can say for sure is that for me, this new method for beating Ocarina of Time in next to no time is of zero interest to me as a casual viewer. The drama of the old style of speed run is what kept me coming back whenever a new record time was posted. Would they pull off the jumping combo on the first try? Would they beat the boss in an optimum time? Would they just get hit with a random bolder when running up the castle? With all of this gone and the run being reduced to a bunch of random side-stepping and looking around at nothing, the thrill just isn’t there for me.

Is Having an RSS Feed Just Giving Content Away for Free? | CSS-Tricks

I mean, kinda.
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But…
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It's hard enough to get people to care about your work anyway. Being extra protective over it isn't going to help that.

This article is good, and I just wanted to add one idea that may rub some people the wrong way, but here we go anyway…

It all comes down to what you want more, people to read your articles or people to click on your articles. If you write to pay the bills and you need ad revenue to put food on the table, go for it, I get it. If you run a business that needs revenue to pay your writers, I get that too! But if you're a solo writer doing it for fun (and either zero or little money) then I'd really think twice about restricting your RSS feed in any way.

It's possible to subscribe to BirchTree and never give me a single page view. You'll never see the (tasteful) ad on my site, you certainly won't click on it, Google Analytics won't know you were here, and I can redesign the site all I want and you'll never notice. But that's okay, I don't make a living wage from this site, and even weeks like this where I wrote something that got tens of thousands of views, the most exciting thing has been the conversation I've gotten to have with people and listen to other folks have online. The ad revenue will be nice, sure, but that's not what it's all about.

Thank you for reading, no matter if this is in Feedly, or Reeder, or a good old fashioned web browser.