Zac Bowden has published an article making sense of all the news and rumors regarding Microsoft’s Andromeda device, its dual-screen foldable tablet thing. According to his sources, the device is not cancelled, but delayed until next year because the custom UI Microsoft is building for it needs more time.
The Andromeda device runs an experience tailored for its unique form-factor, which is built on top of Windows Core OS. This tailored experience is known as Andromeda OS and includes no legacy UIs and bloat. Microsoft is doing the exact same thing with Surface Hub 2, which also runs a custom tailored version of Windows Core OS known as Aruba and built specifically for that large collaborative device form factor.
Therefore, it’s important to stress that Andromeda OS is unlike any version of Windows 10 available on the market today; it’s an entirely new Windows OS experience powered by CShell that’s built from the ground up for mobile dual-screened multitasking. Because of this, Microsoft needs more time to ensure the OS is well-baked.
Bowden’s article is probably the closest to the current state of Andromeda.
It occurred to me a while back that if Microsoft wants to move forward, it needs to ditch the Windows brand. You cant take an established platform (win32) and deprecate it while pushing a new platform (metro) with the same name.
Keep Windows around but create a new platform with a new name (Like Andromeda) and then you can cast off win32 and perhaps build a new brand that doesn’t have decades of association with: shoddy code, instability, poor security, terrible API’s, awful engineering decisions (e.g. registry, services), anti OSS FUD and monopolistic strong arming of the entire PC industry from end to end (e.g. pushing secure boot/EFI, and bullying vendors who wanted to offer PC’s with Linux). The Windows brand is toxic.
Well, the Windows brand is mixed feelings for me. Sure in tarnished computer history with shady OEM practices in the 90s, but with XP (sp2) it confirmed its legitimacy as a wide spread and wide adopted operating system.
If you look more closely, Windows in particular has brought many benefits to the computer industry, most of all a kind of standardization. Remember all the file formats and protocols in the 90s ?
That Microsoft decided to shoot themselves in the foot with Vista or 8.x (or 10 for me) that’s their problem. 2000, XP or 7 and rock solid and the forced evolution really have to use reality distortion to convince people to switch.
The Win32 deprecation is as much artificial, while some other APIs were based on it, nothing could prevent Microsoft to promote a new more up-to-date API (UWP?) and rewire Win32 to it to get “security” or “stability” and whatever buzzword.
That Microsoft now admit taking time to make things right sounds really positive to me and I can’t blame them for that, instead to rush out a half baked Vista or anything useless. Like I said, for having worked on Intel’s Tiger Rapids, this stuff rocks.
Now leave them time to find their marks and stay relevant with a pretty competent competition around.
And pleeaaaase, keep Win32 alive, because not everybody needs gigabytes heavy applications and online store shit. KISS !
You need literally millions of hours to “rewire” Win32.
look at http://www.reactos.org and http://www.winehq.org
Do you think the same of Apple and MacOS? Because you know, it’s now really NextStep, “macOS” mostly in name only… yet it succesfully shed its baggage. Windows will likely do the same.
Especially since your associations are far from universal for a long time now…
Say, one of conclusions of code leaks was that MS code quality is actually quite good. Also, they push out quite stable and secure OSes for a while now, with pleasant to use APIs (what’s the alternative now to ~registry or services?). And didn’t you hear? MS is the largest contributor on Github and now even owns it, how’s that for “anti OSS FUD”?
“Secure boot/EFI” – that’s a good one: when TPM was fresh, it was “proof” that MS would block you from installing Linux; again the same story with UEFI/Secure Boot; neither became true; and ironically, one of most locked down with ~TPM machines available are Linux PCs, Chromebooks… “Bullying vendors who wanted to offer PC’s with Linux” is also funny in a wider perspective – from a ~1.5 decade ago, until few years ago, on ceneo.pl (the biggest local prices/shops comparator) ~1/3rd of all laptops were “Linux” machines …but this was a cloak, the machines often had just a liveDVD disc thrown into the box, or couldn’t boot (no drivers) into GUI, they almost universally ended up with pirated Windows, that’s what people buying most of “Linux PCs” really wanted …now, the pretense is dropped, this ~1/3rd is just a “no OS” category.
Edited 2018-07-20 20:33 UTC
The classic example of “If you can’t beat them, lead them”
Lots of projects have abandonded GitHub since MS bought it so it could be that soon they are the ONLY Contributors left actively comitting to the site.
My one FOSS project will be gone from GitHub before the end of August.
I know that I’m not alone. My LUG friends are all prepsing to move their projects or have already done so.
Where are they heading to? GitLab?
Yeah, until someone else buys them as well.
Okay, but why? I haven’t heard anything about changes to the platform. GitHub is still just as solid an open-source repository as it was before.
They evacuated for an Azure hosted repository. Freetards…
A lot of People in the FOSS world don’t want anything to do with Microsoft. They even have to grit their teeth when the find out that MS has been contributing things to the Linux Kernel. While these are mostly to enable Windows and Linux to work better together it still wrankles with them
A lot of these have ditched Linux and gone to BSD.
Does not bother me one bit but when I retired, I cut all ties I had with MS so when they bought GitHub, I decided to keep to that philosophy. I’ll be moving my project to GitLab later in the summer (i.e. when I find the time to do it).
95%+ of the software I wrote these last 20 years was for Windows so I said ‘enough!’. I didn’t need any of the tooling VS etc and certainly had no need for LinkedIn any more. I’d already moved my personal computing to a Mac. That was back in 2009 so there was no need to use anything with their brand on anymore. Oh, I did try W10 and hated every minute of it until I ould make it look something like W7/Server 2008.
What will they do when they’ll learn that MS used some parts of BSD in Windows?…
(and IIRC is one of prominent sponsors of some ~BSD foundation?)
Edited 2018-07-22 23:44 UTC
They’ll use GNU/Hurd as their main kernel.
Everyone’s used the BSD networking stack though. It’s solid and very portable, and been used in everything from MacOS to Windows to Haiku
I bet it is like 1% of Github active repositories if ever.
semi agree that if they want to ditch legacy they should move away from the Windows name. Not because of negative associations though, but because of positive ones: legendary backwards compatibility, openness to running any old program developed by whoever (aka opposite of app stores), etc. If they want to lock down Andromeda, having those things people expect from Windows being missing will lead to ill will. They should dump the Windows name for such a product to avoid people being pissed off by what is missing (see Windows RT).
Call it Andromeda, or SurfaceOS or something, and most would find it much more palatable as an ios sort of curated thing
The problem is that people are often reluctant to switch to “new” things. Will Google’s Fuchsia have as much attraction as Android have ? Will the new Microsoft’s OS be as successful ? If there is a Windows emulation layer to offer them to switch smoothly and not restart from scratch, perhaps. But this new OS better be productive and not this responsive-ready tablet-oriented shit everybody are trying to sell and shove down our throat for a few years now. But perhaps the Andromeda form factor is the most balanced to accept all kind of usage and input style. Who knows.
I’m just happy to hear the project hasn’t been shut down. If they make it more polished and still manage to get it to market in a year or two, more power to them.
I’m still expecting Apple to put out a new MacBook that’s just two iPads stuck together with a $500 Jony Ive hinge. One will be locked to display just a touch keyboard and virtual touchpad area.
It won’t be convertible because the action of flipping the keyboard around behind the screen is “undignified”.
There is just something about MS that keeps them from knowing how to sell insanely great things. The know how to make them, but then they just let them die on the vine or try to pitch them with ineffectual marketing.
eg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUXnJraKM3k
You have to hand it to Microsoft. They keep trying to find the ‘killer’ device that everyone in the world would want. Sadly I think that this is several steps beyond their capability.
Where is the ‘user experience’ that would make this device so desirable? Call it the USP if you like but where is it?
We don’t know and somehow I don’t think that MS does.
For a company that, lets be honest has really been focussing on the business world, do that have a real clue as to what would make a consumer device the ‘latest thing since sliced bread’?
I don’t see it.
Just bolting a new U/I on top of windows is just not going to do it. There has to be something that grabs the world by the short an curlies and won’t let go.
Sadly, I don’t think MS would recognise that even if it came and hit SatNad right in the face.
MS is IMHO just not a real consumer orientated company.
Agreed! I like what they’re doing with Azure though…
I remember when the prototype/design images came out something like a decade ago… I thought that MS would have a huge winner if they could get it out soon! But now… I don’t know. A lot of time has passed. If it is truly special in regards to the UI it could succeed. If not, it’s just another device…
I don’t suppose Andromeda counts as the same device as Courier…
I can’t really see this any other way than as an engineering solution looking to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. It will be 3-5x more expensive, and not particularly better than solutions available on some Android or iPhone. And that hinge, we both know there are going to be a lot of stories about that failing and pictures of it failing.
If people still don’t pay much attention to their $500+ toys, that’s their first world problem.