hey everyone welcome back to today in tech i'm julia beauchamp and i'm here
with computer world executive editor ken mingus as well as macworld executive editor
michael simon topic of the day is windows 11. there's the release happened just two days ago
on tuesday if you're watching this on thursday and there's a lot that looks um there's a lot that's
new there's a lot that's also kind of the same so i figured this would be a good time to talk about
um you know what it looks like maybe it looks a little bit like mac os and then also some android
app integration later in the show um we will also have preston gralla join and we're going to be
talking a little bit more about the enterprise play some hardware security requirements
and so on so thank you both so much for calling in and joining me today so
i guess like i said released on tuesday not a ton of people are using it necessarily i know
certainly um it teams are not immediately deploying it but i want to turn up
i want to talk a little bit um i guess about the the changes so ken do you mind if i throw
to you and talk a little bit about um what's new and i mean i know that we've this is kind
of a surprise announcement when it happened a few months ago correct yeah the thing about windows 11
is that nobody expected windows 11 until microsoft announced that it would be coming over the summer
and you know it is it is new and improved in the sense that it has a smoother look
the start menu is in a different place which is you know which we were alluding to earlier that it
it kind of uh in some ways mimics the dock on uh in mac os um but the the thing about it is
it's really more like a version of windows 10 plus you know it could easily have been
i think preston growler who we'll have on later in his review for computer world said this could
easily have been released as 10.25 or 10.5 because it really doesn't change a whole lot
you know the the big issue here that that both individuals and companies have to consider are the
hardware requirements because microsoft has made a big deal that you know it's bolstering security
with this particular rollout and i think that's why it decided it could actually make a jump from
windows 10 to windows 11. nobody wants to be told they got to go out and buy a new pc for windows 10
you know the 2021 version but if it's a new operating system even just for
marketing speak purposes uh you know people are more likely to upgrade down the road
but as you said it just rolled out on tuesday it's going to be a very slow rollout windows 10 is not
going anywhere uh i think support on windows 10 ends in 2025 so there's basically a long exit ramp
for people and companies that are looking to get off 10 and a very long entrance ram for windows
11. so i think preston's basic advice was you know it's a good solid operating system it's you know
worth upgrading when you want to upgrade but you don't have to rush to do it uh you know one other
thing i should point out that's new quote unquote new is the way microsoft is trying to integrate
microsoft teams you know given all that's gone on over the last 18 months with the pandemic and
the the fact that so many people are using their computers to collaborate with each other remotely
whether they're in the office talking to people at home or vice versa or everybody's at home
um you know teams has seen a lot of uptake over the last year and a half as a lot of collaboration
apps have and so what microsoft has done is kind of put you know access to teams more front and
center you know for users who are going to be using the windows 11. so it's it seems to be a
good solid operating system it's you know it's got some tweaks and changes that'll make it useful uh
you don't have to upgrade right away especially if you've got older hardware you can wait until that
hardware wears out in a couple of years and then upgrade but in the meantime i do like the look of
it i mean i i haven't specifically used it i'm more of a mac guy i haven't used windows 11 yet
but based on all the you know the the stuff that i've seen it looks nice i mean michael what do
you think does it does it looks very mac os yeah i think you like it because it was literally made
i mean from what i read there's like a couple thousand people using windows 11 and they're all
journalists yeah like every article i've read said you know don't upgrade right now and to be fair to
microsoft they made it real easy to not upgrade they're not abandoning windows 10 for a long time
the hardware requirements are relatively stringent right as far as windows are concerned and you
know there was a lot of backlash about that at rightfully so but in my mind mike this windows 11
is for your new pc not your existing one and the way i see that is the people but they want more
people like us i guess or younger people people who who use iphones have maybe maybe use the mac
certainly an ipad and want are our pc curious we'll say i we were just talking earlier i just
bought my son a desktop for christmas i bought it now because i hear that they're going to be hard
to buy later and he's he's an ipad guy you know he knows apple but he but he he watches youtube
and he sees he's he and he said you know that i i i want to play blah blah game i would google
it like oh you can't you don't have a pc and this happened numerous times so i finally said
all right i'll i'll look into it so you know as much as i hate to admit it i'm going to buy my son
are you sure gabe doesn't watch these videos giving away the game right now the christmas
game come on santa he's not well i mean if he finds this then i guess i did give it away
sorry gabe so i just missed mr beast and things i don't think i don't think i'm
popping up in that album well let me let me ask you michael okay so so you know as someone who
is buying or just bought a dell will that come with windows 11 or will it come with it will
come with 11. okay okay and basically i mean i don't know for certain how all this works but
because i'm a mac person but you know on on the apple side once the new operating system comes out
when you buy a new mac you get the newest os right and that seems to be the same thing with with
windows like as i was saying i windows 11 is it's very much windows 10 with a new coat of paint and
one that people don't really like um they changed they changed things that people are used to
it's not unlike the difference between like well it was more extreme but for mac os 9 and mac os 10
like mac os 10 was for new macs yes you could upgrade your old one and a lot of people did
but it was mainly for this is the way forward this is the new os this is our new look our new
platform you know is it was different because it was a massively different architecture it
was beyond just look of course that was a completely architecture but the people who
who were mac os um stalwarts yeah you know they were like what is this you know why is everything
different why is it all uh blue and blah blah it's a similar type of thing you know people who know
windows people who use windows day in day out they're up there firing their their windows 11
machine up and saying like what the hell why is the start centered and why are there widgets and
um even the teams thing you were talking about that's facetime like it is very much
mac os but with the windows you know the the windows stuff i that's the way i see it
do you think that's intentional oh yeah of course it's absolutely intentional i mean well i mean i'd
be surprised i guess i don't think of microsoft as taking a look at apple's operating system and
saying we want to copy that they they haven't done a lot of that in the past well you can say
i mean i know that i know that they trade back and forth and when some future comes up it shows
up on the other but okay i i mean i i really have not thought that that windows that microsoft was
specifically coming listen maybe i'm way off base but there are
several features that are pretty obviously lifted from mac os again the taskbar center that's a dock
we have widgets that are very similar teams integration is basically facetime
um especially because it's desktops a consumer play backgrounds and you know that's
that's a mac os thing like we are very much in mac os um in the mac os environment and it
runs android apps too let's let's talk about that yeah i could do do talk yeah that's that's another
you know obviously microsoft doesn't have a mobile platform so android's the thing and you
it's not live yet but you'll be able to just like on chrome basically have access to the
play store and download android apps onto your device now it's not going to be like catalysts
in the sense that developers are not going to retool their android apps to work better on
windows they're going to be android apps on your pc so they're not going to be optimized they're
not going to be pretty they're not going to be you know like full screen nice all that stuff
that's what i haven't figured out yet i think the rationalistic is to create that ecosystem
that they don't have you know they've famously tried windows phone failed miserably didn't do
so well they didn't do well at all and and that was it you know they completely missed
that boat that was that was steve steve ballmer's era he laughed at the iphone didn't miss the boat
completely and by the time he got in his canoe and tried to catch up with it it was long gone
and that was that they just they just cut cut rank and left i mean they make an android phone
the microsoft duo it's it's android that is has windows e stuff in it like it runs you know it has
the dual screen uh word and excel and stuff but it's it's an android phone so windows and android
are not you know anathema to each other they are they are window microsoft is understanding
that the you know in 2021 that the future is mobile and they don't have that they're just
complete you know you can say well they have the surface stuff and you know they have portable pcs
they don't have a phone they don't have a phone platform so android's that's it you know they do
integrate with ios a bit as well they have an app and stuff but android is the one if they're going
to really uh build this ecosystem forward it's got to be android question here's here's one of
the things you know what juliet you were talking earlier about some of the changes in windows 11.
one of the things that's been sort of gradually happening even in windows 10
has been the the disappearance of cortana you know the right assistant that just never really worked
very well and i mean even more so i think it was even more problematic in some ways in sirius and
that's saying a lot uh and i you know it's sort of surprising because it does seem like
there is a lot of energy and development around voice as a ui so to see cortana kind of you know
gradually disappear or become a shell of itself uh with windows 11 it sort of surprises me
uh do you do you see that the same way michael or do you think that makes sense just to deprecate it
i don't even know i mean it's not even on by default in windows 11 it's so strange that like
siri i don't know how many people are using siri on their mac but it's there yeah i don't i don't
either ever present if you want it right it's there like it's good it's good for accessibility
issues yeah i mean there's there's it has its place and i still hold on to the dream that one
day i will make it better but cortana it wasn't bad it was fine she she it whatever you want to
call it it was fine but windows 11 is just like nope like it's there but we're going to have it
off and most people let's face it most people who buy a device don't dive into the settings to turn
on things that aren't turned on by default they use the defaults that's why safari is the biggest
mobile browser and why you know apple madam state apple decided to make its own maps app
because people use defaults that's they just that they don't change things unless you're you know
you're a fisheye fishing auto and i don't think they're turning on a cortana either like it's just
apple apple uh microsoft just decided i guess that you know this isn't really working for us
and that's it it's i i suspect in some future version of windows 11 that it will be
it'll be gone i guess i don't know well i mean a lot of it depends on on the back end you know and
the reason i asked about that and preston included this in the review he did on windows 11 for us
talking about cortana he had done a story this summer about trying to get valid and correct
covet 19 and vaccine information and when he would ask cortana questions it literally could
not provide anything you know i mean even the most basic information and and that of course ties into
you know sort of the search engine that's behind the the voice sure and it was sort of surprising
because you know i mean i mean microsoft has bing they should be able to do the most basic
basic things like i think one of the questions he asked was he asked cortana does you know the
vaccine put a microchip in me and it was basically the response was uh i don't know the answer
it's like you know i mean that's just kind of weird so maybe it's a good thing that cortana's
being you know put in moth balls more or less fair enough yeah i mean i guess it's you know it really
speaks to just how hard this stuff is and how easy you know google and amazon make it look it's not
it's it's hard to build out this infrastructure we call it ai it's not ai it's people behind the
scenes pouring through this stuff and making sure that it understands what you're saying and and
learn from from your conversation sure but it's not pulling this stuff out of thin air you know
you have to put in the resources and the effort and the energy to make sure that these things
work right i was wondering if we can untouch a little bit more about touch on a little bit more
um the android app integration it's not available yet um i think it's supposed to be available in
the coming months but i personally have never um messed around with like with one of the apple
silicon macs and using any mobile apps on it have either of you tested that out what's that like
yeah well it's different than this so i i haven't used windows 11 um android stuff well it's not out
i don't know if it was out in the preview in the previews but i've used it on chrome so the way
it works on chrome os is you have the play store and you basically have access to whatever you want
and it opens up a little window and based on the um the images microsoft has it's similar okay so
it's literally a floating window with an android app inside and it works in a layer on top of yeah
okay so you can expand it full screen and it may or may not look good we don't know it depends
on what the android app if it has a tablet uh size whatever it is on on mac
you have to physically go in there and say allow this on the mac the developers have to
do some work or at least allow it and even then like it's it's a it's it's mackified so to speak
you like you can kind of tell that it was designed for the iphone even even on some
of some of apple's apps like you can kind of tell but they're they feel and look and operate like
apps yeah there's different menus there's you know there's different buttons it doesn't look like
an iphone app on your mac so they're they're quite different in that regard
now there's drawbacks to that in the sense that the developer has to do work so if they don't you
can't use it like you can't just go into the app store ios app store and download whatever you want
and and use it on your mac well also ios apps are designed for touch that's right things on
the desktop you know so obviously the way things work and how you navigate through them and access
menus et cetera is going to be very different on a desktop and all that stuff and you know i've found
on chrome some apps are just not viable like they just don't work some of them crash like there's
issues there because there's not really um um there's not really anyone that's policing
this stuff so it's for lack of a better word so you know when anything goes some things don't
yeah that is um yeah that's good to know i'm sure it'll be interesting once the android
app integration rolls out what that looks like and i guess i'm kind of wondering um
as we um sort of transition here shortly for preston to come on i'm wondering
what like sort of the big use case is for using a mobile app on like any sort of desktop or laptop
system i i guess it's like i mean for a consumer i can see it's nice like you know you can scroll
through your instagram even though instagram has a website or your tick tock would have you
you'd have to have something on mobile that you don't have on the desktop
sure to make it make sense because if you're i mean michael you know correct me if i'm wrong
again but you know porting a mobile app to the desktop is is is not necessarily
a way to get to the ideal experience especially if the app is originally on the desktop was developed
for the desktop and you know you've got some branch of it that was designed for mobile and then
you're bringing the mobile version back to the desktop it's like you know desktop apps are going
to work best and look best on the desktop and mobile apps are going to be best on mobile i think
for sure and like i said i think it's just some call it desperation if you want to but it's just
it's a they don't have that ecosystem and apple is killing it that's that's basically what made apple
apple it started with the ipod apple doesn't sell a product they sell an ecosystem so you use the
iphone you want to go to the mac you use the mac you want to check out the iphone they used to sell
the ipod it only worked with the mac then they opened up the windows but it's still
they used to call it the halo effect so you use one product and you want to use
others and i think microsoft's trying to kind of replicate that with android and windows
because well you know i used android for a while and it does not play nicely with mac os at all
they're very separate worlds there are some apps that sync and stuff but it's
it's it's not as easy as the iphone mac integration icloud drive all that stuff
so that's the logical use case is to make is to try to get that system in place with
onedrive and the microsoft apps and an office and the things that that we know work on both
try to get that seamless so if you're using the galaxy s 21 you're in the market for a
new computer new pc maybe i'll check out windows oh i can i can put my app on there
sure it's that mentality i think sure yeah that makes sense yeah well thank you both so much
for chatting a little bit about android app integration you know how it looks compared to
how windows 11 looks and feels compared to mac os so michael it's been great to have you here