So, it's official: contrary to what they'd said previously, Windows 10 will not be the last version of Windows that Microsoft releases. Windows 11 is definitely coming, it's definitely called Windows 11, and today we got a look at some of its sexier features.
First, the good ...
Windows 10 is very pretty. A lot of people, myself included, hated the flat, designed-for-touchscreens Windows 8, and while Windows 10 restored the start menu, it didn't fix the ugly look of the thing. Windows 11 was very clearly designed to mimic the much, much prettier Aero Glass UI of Windows Vista and Windows 7, and it's a huge improvement.
Gone, too, is the ugly "live tile" blue void that takes up space next to W10's start menu. Live tiles still exist, but Microsoft has renamed them to Widgets, and banished them to their own sub-menu; those who are interested can call up the Widget menu using the button on the task bar, and ignore it otherwise.
Windows Updates have apparently been improved as well, with smaller updates loading in the background, rather than shoving themselves to the fore and preventing users from doing anything else while the updates happen. They've also finally found a way to get some Android apps into the Windows Store, too, although it's the much, much smaller subset of Android apps that Amazon have on their app store.
... which brings us to the less-than-good ...
Building Amazon's Android app store into the Windows store is basically a hellish team-up between two gigantic corporations with proven monopolistic tendencies, and not something I'm thrilled to see. Whether it succeeds in driving custom to either Amazon's or Microsoft's app stores remains to be seen.
More problematic to me are the aforementioned Widgets, which appear to be on by default, and driven by "AI," which is presumably some new iteration of Microsoft's Cortana product without the name. Cortana was a serious privacy concern when Windows 10 was released, which Microsoft never really fixed, and I have similar concerns with W11's Widgets:
- When and how are Microsoft harvesting the data which is being used to power this AI-driven feature? Can that data harvesting be turned off? Can the Widgets themselves be turned off? And by turned off, I don't just mean removed from the task bar: I mean turned off completely, by the user.
- From where is Microsoft harvesting data for its Widgets? Is it nailed to Edge and Bing again, in a market where users have very clearly indicated a preference for Chrome and Google? Panos Panay made a big deal out of the need for users to have choices again; does that include the choice to opt out of Microsoft's products, in favour of the ones Windows users clearly prefer to use, or is Microsoft still going to keep stuffing their own products down our gullets, using their control of the platform to do it?
- And while we're on that topic, how many of the "AI-chosen" Widgets will actually be advertisements? Has Microsoft finally removed the advertising and bloatware from Windows completely? Are lock screen ads finally dead?
... and a whole bunch of questions ...
A lot of Microsoft's live stream focused on Teams, too, which will be integrated with Windows and available to use on any device or OS, including Android and iOS. Does that include Linux? Microsoft has been doing a lot of work with Linux in recent years, so I found their failure to mention a Linux version of Teams to be rather odd. Does it not exist? Or did they just cut it for time?
Also, what about people who don't use Teams? Or any of the Microsoft 365 subscription service package? Teams is very popular for enterprise and institutional use, but I don't know anyone who connects with family on Teams outside of Microsoft's employees; the whole world seems to be using Zoom instead, except for gamers (who all use Discord), and older users (who still use Skype).
And, while we're on the subject, how many of W11's newly-announced features are actually free with Windows 11, and how many of them will actually require a paid monthly Microsoft 365 subscription?
And, while we're on that subject, will Windows 11 itself be a free upgrade? If so, to whom: only Windows 10 users? Or will Windows 7 users (roughly 25% of all PC users, as of last reporting) also be invited to upgrade their OS again at no cost? (This was answered: see the update, below.)
... and a few other oddities ...
Microsoft's presentation made a big deal about Windows 11 having been built for gamers. This is clearly bullshit; all of the gaming-specific "features" they mentioned today are really features of the new generation of PC hardware, and not specific to any OS. It's nice that W11 will support them, but so will W10, and so will Linux for that matter. Also, given how much of the presentation was focused on productivity features, and how little was focused on gaming, it seems pretty clear that gaming is still a secondary consideration for the Windows team.
XBox Game Pass took up more than its share of bandwidth, too, but you already know what I think about Game Pass.
Microsoft made a big deal about the new Windows Store, which nobody cares about, and which nobody will use. The fact that Windows Store Apps will have a more favourable revenue split, and even allow companies with their own, independent payment systems to pay nothing to Microsoft for the privilege of padding their app store inventory, is less of a revolution in app stores, and more of a recognition of the fact that nobody cares about Microsoft's version of that.
UWP is officially dead, though; the new Windows Store will accept both
Win32 apps and Android apps (via the Amazon App Store), so only
Microsoft will still use UWP for anything.
Windows 11 will also include a window snap/tiling feature which will immediately look familiar to users of Linux and MacOS; Microsoft's claim that no other OS has such a feature is therefore obviously nonsense. W11's version does look very polished and user-friendly, though, and works well when docking/undocking a laptop, for people who need that (i.e. business and productivity users, rather than gamers or personal users).
The same applies for their focus on better functionality for tablets and 2-in-1's, which are increasingly looking like devices that people might actually want to use. They are still devices which only a minority of people actually do use, of course, but recent hardware developments are also making 2-in-1's more viable, so the fact that even Windows is finally catching up may help those devices finally see wider adoption. I don't care about that, personally, but you might.
... leading me to the obvious conclusion ...
I will not be switching to Windows 11 anytime soon, or installing it on the new PC that I'm planning to build later this year. There are too many questions, and not enough features that I don't already have with Linux, to make it worth my time. That opinion may change as more details emerge or evolve; allowing users to finally turn off data collection, for one, and making it a free update for Windows 7 users who dodged Windows 10 because of its invasive data collection, would go a long way towards changing my mind.
UPDATE:
I just finished watching this week's Windows Weekly, and apparently there's a hardware limitation which will likely prevent Windows 7 users from upgrading. Apparently W11 required a TPM 2.0-capable motherboard; since TPM 2.0 (or, more accurately, fTPM 2.0, since it's normally a firmware thing that just runs on your motherboard's onboard chipset) is the newer standard, this likely means that users with PC chipsets older than 2016 or so are out of luck.
Also, W11 isn't even coming out on new PCs until the holiday season of this year (i.e. for PCs that will be available for sale from Black Friday onwards); for users wanting to upgrade an existing PC to W11, you're probably looking at Q1 of 2022 before you can switch... assuming you can switch. Apparently Microsoft is being very, very careful about switching over users with hardware configurations that haven't been properly vetted this time, which is probably a good thing.
The update will be free to W10 users with systems that qualify, which W10 users who just want a prettier interface and better update system will certainly appreciate. I'm still planning to stick with Linux, though. Pop!_OS 21.04 Cosmic looks pretty sweet.