Windows Weekly 403 (Transcript)

Leo Laporte: It's time for Windows Weekly. Mary Jo Foley is off to Hong Kong. Brad Sams of neowin.net joins Paul Thurrott and me as we talk about the news from Microsoft, all of the news from Mobile World Congress, and what's with those new icons on Windows 10? It's all coming up next with Windows Weekly.

Netcasts you love from people you trust, this is TWiT! Bandwidth for Windows Weekly is provided by Cachefly at c-a-c-h-e-f-l-y.com.

This is Windows Weekly with Paul Thurrott and Mary Jo Foley, Episode 403, recorded March 4, 2015.

Eargonomics

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Leo: It's time for Windows Weekly, the show where we cover the latest news from Redmond. Paul Thurrott, as always, is here, well not always, but mostly. Thurrott.com is his new home on the net. That's 3 t's, 2 r's, a u, and an o.

Paul Thurrott: I like to use the number 4 instead of the u, so it will be easy to find.

Leo: Mary Jo is in Hong Kong right now, right?

Paul: Yep. She's got a big 2 week trip, Vietnam and Cambodia.

Leo: Good for her, but we have coming out of the bullpen, he is a young left hander, throws the Coney Island hot dog like nobody's business, Brad Sams from neowin.net.

Brad Sams: That is all true.

Leo: Now pitching. Hey, it's great to see you Brad, welcome.

Brad: Same to you, good to be here.

Paul: If you took away all of that Microsoft stuff in your office it would look a little like Hitler's bunker. What is this place?

Leo: Hitler didn't have Microsoft stuff. If he had then he would...

Paul: No, he clearly had a MacBook Air, but...

Brad: I would have gone with Chromebook.

Leo: That's a good question; Hitler, Mac or PC?

Paul: I think that we all know.

Leo: That's not humorous to anyone actually, so let's just rewind and start over. It's time for Windows Weekly.

Paul: That's a 4 instead of the u.

Leo: Mobile World, neither one of you I noticed are in Barcelona.

Paul: Nope.

Leo: Paul loves Barcelona. I thought you would go.

Paul: Listen, any excuse to go to Barcelona I would be there. It's just that it's a lot of money for absolutely no reason at all.

Leo: It's like all trade shows. Nowadays with the internet you can cover them from afar.

Paul: It's bad enough when they are in Vegas, but when you have to fly international which is $1,500 a seat it just doesn't make any sense. I would love to be there.

Leo: Tell me about it, we sent Mike Elgan, a producer, and a cameraman, and Myriam Joire.

Paul: Mike used to live there so he's probably running around like a madman.

Leo: Oh, he's having so much fun.

Paul: Which is what I would be doing. I would be eating ham every day, and drinking beer, and writing these baloney reports of stuff that I never even saw.

Leo: Berico, pictures of pizza, pictures of coffee, pictures of beer, pictures of pyaya. It's so depressing. And then he is spending like 16 hours a day on the show floor because there is so much to see. We were speculating, we knew Microsoft would be there, but did they show anything of great interest?

Paul: Yeah, I'm curious to see what Brad thinks about this, but they did announce 2 phones. I thought that they were going to announce more. Had you heard anything about this ahead of time?

Brad: Yes and now. With Microsoft is has kind of become the statute that if they are going to announce something that it's going to be low that something that neither Paul or I really want.

Leo: But somebody does!

Brad: These first two areas kind of go together. They come out with this low end big phone, and everyone was like great. I remember hearing, I think that it was during their conversation of the pitch that they said that you can buy 3 of these instead of 1 flagship. So Microsoft's Windows Phone strategy is the Costco approach.

Leo: Yeah, buy more cheap phones.

Paul: Buy a pallet of phones.

Brad: I don't know. It's another low end phone with average specs, and a larger screen, and some plastic casing that is going to be just another low end phone. They've got so many of them now.

Leo: But wait a minute now. Aren't we a little elitist?

Paul: Yep, a little.

Leo: We are all into the 3830, and the 1520, and we talk about the high end Samsung phone, the 6, and we talk about the high end HTC phone, but if you look at growth numbers all of the growth is in cheap phones in the developing world. There is a huge amount of growth there.

Paul: Yeah, except that Microsoft saw very little growth last year and all they sold were low end phones.

Leo: Well they are trying.

Paul: I guess the fundamental argument here is we are going to sell low end phones because that is all that is selling. Now you can look back at the end of the year and say see, we only sold low end phones. Well you only had low end phones to sell. You haven't put out a new high end phone since June of last year.

Leo: It's kind of self-fulfilling prophecy in other words.

Paul: Yeah, and you know, unfortunately what you don't see is any results. Apple, for example, had amazing unit sales growth in 2014 but lost market share because Android grew faster. Microsoft barely sold more phones last year then they did the year before, and by the year before we are talking about Nokia obviously at that point. So they saw very little growth and they lost market share fairly dramatically, so you can't really look at this strategy and say; I think that what Brad was eluding to and I agree with it sort of generally like this is where the market is but it's also not what I'm interested in personally. But more importantly there is no evidence to suggest that this is working, you know, so far.

Leo: Would it be better if they took the Apple approach and said look, we are only going to sell high end phones?

Paul: No, because that's actually what they did on day 1. 

Leo: That didn't work either. So Paul, what do you do?

Paul: Leo, Samsung makes this phone that has Android on it. No, I don't know. I think that there are a couple of things that you have to do. I think that they are treading water, there are universal apps coming, Windows 10, etc. I get that. Honestly, if they really do have a plan for Windows 10 getting upgraded without the carriers getting in the way I don't see a reason why you wouldn't wait on at least one flagship phone. Actually, I will say this, one thing about these new phones, so Microsoft introduced 2 new phones, a 640, which is a 5 inch device, and a 640XL, basically the same phone with a 5.7 inch screen I think. So a fablet and a phone. Obviously the biggest innovation here, in many ways, I guess there would be 2 of them, a free year of Office 365 Personal, kind of wondering why that never happened, and it's going to be really broadly available around the world, which is something that has dogged their flagship phones. If we look at the 2 flagships that came out last year, the Icon came out only on Verizon in the United States somewhere around March, and then in April they announced the 930 and started selling it in June. That one made its way to a couple of different markets but never made its way to the United States. The 640 and the 640XL look like they are going to be all over the place, in fact you have multiple choices to buy these phones, or will soon in the United States. Even doing something like launching the 930 and giving the same pledge, you are going to get a free upgrade to Windows 10, just to have a phone out there that people can point to as an aspirational device, even if it doesn't sell very well, I don't really see how it hurts to have it out there. Windows Phone, it's not going well, so waiting for the next big thing...

Leo: Is that their motto? Windows Phone, it's not going well.

Paul: It is, but then you have to have a dramatic pause between the two and say Windows Phone, um...

Leo: Not going well.

Paul: Then it's like duh duh duh, copyright 2015 Microsoft.

Leo: So maybe they are just seeding the remainder of this year to everybody else and saying, well 10, it's going to be Windows Mobile.

Paul: They are seeding until the end of our lives.

Brad: They are seeding every year. That's been the problem.

Paul: Look, it's not their fault. I really don't see anything that they could do that would fix this problem. Everyone has these ideas, its apps, it's not apps, it's this, and it’s that, it's whatever. I think that the platform deserves to succeed, and thrive, and grow, and it hasn't so it doesn't really matter what I think. I wish it was doing better.

Brad: They entered arguably one of the most competitive markets to ever exist, at least in technology. They entered late, and then they tried to buy their way in, they tried to buy apps, they tried to buy hardware, and it doesn't really work because they never had that organic growth. They had this sort of artificial here is all of this sweet stuff that we paid for. Then it kind of just sat there. Look at Instagram for example. They touted that app when it came out like it was the second coming of Christ. They were like here is Instagram, and I've got a post ready for the 22nd of this month that it has not been updated in a year.

Leo: In a year? Wow.

Brad: In a year. It's still technically in beta.

Paul: That's not even that bad because there are apps like Kindle, which is a pathetic experience in phone, Audible is the same thing, it's a terrible, terrible disgrace.

Leo: They are touting books from last year on the Audible app. 

Paul: It's just bad. I've always had a pretty good experience on Audible. Well, I shouldn't say that, I'm sorry. I've always been able to cope with Audible by doing things like setting a bookmark every time I stop playing because it would often lose its position. On the 930, and this is something a lot of people had seen on different phones; I'd never seen this before, and I use a lot of different phones, but the 930, you press play in a book and then you can walk away for 45 seconds. If you give it time it will start. It takes about 45 seconds. That's crazy.

Leo: And that is probably something that is easily fixed, but nobody at Amazon cares anymore.

Paul:  There are obviously the apps that we don't have. There are so many of them. Jet Blue is one that I would like to have. Then there are the apps that we have that are never updated like the ones that we talked about. Then we have the apps that I'm really happy to have but they are just not as good on Windows Phone. Duolingo is an example of that. I'm so happy that Duolingo is on Windows Phone, I use Duolingo every single day.

Leo: It's a great app, yeah.

Paul: But I don't use it on Windows Phone because it doesn't have some of the features that are available on Android and IOS. Actually, going back and forth between the platforms what I can tell you is that Duolingo is updated very regularly with new features on IOS that aren't on Android either. I think when you are paying money to be part of an ecosystem and you are kind of investing nobody wants to buy in to be a second class citizen. That's the unfortunate part of Windows Phone. The system itself is solid, they've got innovative features, and there is a bunch of stuff that I really love about Windows Phone. It hasn't resonated with consumers for whatever reason. You have to make a conscious decision that the stuff that other people take for granted on IOS especially, but also on Android, isn't going to be available to you. I don't think that a lot of people are ready to do that. I'm not going to sit here and try to convince people to do that. I could never with any, I think that the best that I can do with Windows Phone right now is say, hey look, a Lumia 635 is $50. $50 is nothing. Pick one up, experiment with it, play with it, maybe give it to a kid, enjoy it, and get to know it. Maybe this thing will take off in the future. I won't make the case for why I would buy a 930. Some other people would do that, but I always feel a little uncomfortable when that happens because you hope that they know what they are getting into. It's not Android or IOS from an apps availability perspective.

Brad: It's a tough sell, it really is. Think about it. You are going to go drop a couple hundred bucks on yesterday's premium phone, which everybody used to call the 1020 the greatest thing, and now they are like okay, we are just not going to touch that phone forever, including the fact that it was left out of the Windows 10 release. So it's like okay, you get the 930 and then what do you do? If you don't like the apps that come preloaded then you are in some trouble.

Paul: If you didn't know that you weren't going to get LTE speeds in the United States then I've got some bad news for you. It doesn't have the antennas that the Icon has.

Brad: Then you can go to Verizon and just hope that you get an update ever.

Paul: Yeah, so that was Mobile World Congress.

Leo: Yeah, you just did the whole thing, a brief version, and the Microsoft version.

Paul: Microsoft's shtick at Mobile World Congress was basically the two phones, kind of mid-market phones, they are fine, Snapdragon 400, they at least have a GB of RAM, 8 GB of storage is a minimal amount, Micro SD expansion, they are plastic but you can replace the covers with different colors so that's cool. Fablet, non fablet, there is some choice there. I don't have either one of these phones so I can't really pass judgement on them yet, but obviously something like the 830 is a slightly higher phone and something like the 930 is a much better phone than this one if you can get it where you live. Then they have about 2,100 other Lumia’s that I can't remember the model names for.

Leo: Can't they say we've got the 930, we've got the 1520, can't you guys just relax? It's everything that you want it to be, what do we need another one for?

Paul: The thing is that you can do really small things to make the situation better. You can release the 930 on AT&T with those different colors. This was about a year ago now; I think that they announced it at Build last year. They updated the 1520 where you can get it in a new green color for example, which doesn't cost anyone anything, it's just a new color, but I think that for some people it's kind of a cool midstream. I think that you can do some of those things. Like small refreshes of those devices with broader availability. Frankly, who cares anymore? Maybe there are carrier exclusives, like I'm sure that Verizon had some kind of exclusive on the Icon that prevents the 930 from coming here. Does Verizon really care about the 930 right now? They aren't even selling their own phones.

Leo: We must enforce that exclusive.

Paul: It's too bad that they couldn't do something along those lines.

Leo: Just give it up. Help us out here.

Paul: Because, you know, the 930 with the Denim, that's the midstream right there. That release takes and already amazing device, the 1520, the same thing, you put Denim on there, and the camera, which was already amazing is suddenly even more amazing. It's not a new device, but it's like Apple used to say about getting a new Mac in your Mac, or whatever the stupid ad was. It really is like that.

Leo: Ew, install critical update. That's not it probably. This is on my 1520. I don't think that they would call Denim a critical update. This is an AT&T 1520. Install critical update. Well I will install that. It doesn't say anything.

Paul: Is it like 8.1 or something?

Leo: It's 8.1 something, but I am still waiting for Denim. Maybe that's Denim. They made sure that I don't miss it.

Paul: But I'm saying in other words sell these things. They could have the green and orange colors, or white and black, whatever, and have that stuff preloaded and just sell them. No one will buy them, but I think that it would make the people who are pining for this stuff; actually it would make them kind of upset, we are not a very happy group of people. But hopefully it would, I'm just trying to think of something, throw a bone out there.

Leo: There is nothing that you can do to cheer me up.

Paul: Typical Microsoft, releasing a year old phone as a new one, typical Microsoft.

Leo: You would get that, wouldn't you? People would say that's like gilding the pig. Okay, it's just us, let's talk. Why don't they just kill the damn thing? Put it out of its misery.

Brad: They spent too much money.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: How are they recouping their losses?

Brad: I honestly don't believe that they are.

Leo: So they have lost too much money, let's lose more?

Paul: You bought Nokia, right?

Leo: Is it just embarrassing? Is that it?

Paul: Well, no, this is like becoming President of the United States. I'm going to close Guantanamo. Then you become President and you find out all of the stuff that you didn't know about. Then you are like actually, I'm going to keep Guantanamo. In Satya Nadella's case it's not Guantanamo, its Windows Phone. It's like the Nokia.

Brad: Good analogy.

Leo: The Lumia Guantanamo, next from Microsoft.

Paul: He was against the Nokia purchase.

Leo: He didn't want it.

Paul: Of course he was kind of forced into it, there was nothing that he could do about it.

Leo: Do you think that his heart is not into it?

Brad: Yes, I would say that.

Paul: Listen, the first thing that he did was lay off half of those people, right?

Leo: But they were redundant. A lot of those people were redundant. A lot of that was manufacturing that they didn't need. A lot of that was redundancies.

Paul: Windows 10 is the last ditch effort here.

Leo: Okay, so they are going to say we will see what happens after we release that?

Paul: Windows 10 is a 3 year play, so it's not like it happens overnight. With Windows 10 we will see a version that goes out, this is what they should have done with Windows 8, it still kills me, basically they are going to put out the Windows Phone OS not just on phones and fablets, but on low end tablets. I should say small tablets. Even right now I can look at any one of these tablets that I have in my office, HP Stream 7, that WinBook 7; I would give anything for those to be running Windows Phone instead of Windows. I would use them much more than I do. The Kindle app, which is terrible on Windows Phone, is actually better than the Kindle app on Windows for example. I would use that. Does that mean that is what is going to fix it? Because that is what they are doing. No, they should have done it 3 years ago, but it will make it better for those people who do use these things. I guess if you have one system, sorry...

Brad: I was going to say, that with these things, when I look at Windows Phone, other than them paying billions of dollars for hardware that's not selling, that makes sense in their strategic play, and I think that we can agree to this, that in the next 10 years you are not going to carry a laptop, you are not going to have a desktop, it's all going to be in your phone. Your phone is just going to plug into a screen and you are going to have a keyboard and a mouse. To me that is the path that eventually I see them taking with this hardware is saying okay, we know that eventually is where the market is going to go. Nokia was talking about leaving. We need to definitely be in that space. At that point then they lose the desktop and laptop share.

Leo: Oh, that's a good point. 

Brad: This could be like Bing 7 years ago, or however many years ago. They could say we are going to keep throwing money into this because we know that eventually the market is going to adopt cell phones as their laptops, and if we don't have something we are done. So they are just saying, okay, just keep throwing money at it, and just keep incremental, and just kind of keep chipping along until we get to that point and then we can make the play that says, here's Windows 10, here's your phone, here's USB to HDMI with Spec 3 or whatever Spec we are at by then, here is your foldable keyboard, and here is your laptop.

Paul: We saw previews of this a few years ago. Remember those laptops that had a slot that you could put a phone in?

Brad: Yeah, Motorola Atrix tried to do it and failed.

Leo: Will there be an HTC M9 with Windows Phone on it? Did they say anything about that?

Brad: I think that everybody hopes so but they didn't mention anything.

Leo: Didn't they partner with Microsoft or something like that?

Brad: Well, kind of along those lines. I think what you are thinking about is what happened with Samsung. What is sort of surprising, and it leaked before it happened, is that there are Microsoft apps preloaded on that Galaxy, which many are thinking is tied to their court battle. If you remember they had a disagreement about royalties that were owed and Samsung was like, no, we don't owe any money since you bought Nokia.

Paul: We don't owe you a billion dollars.

Brad: Just put that under the rug type thing. What seems to make sense is that Microsoft said, hey, load a couple of our apps on there and we will just kind of walk away from this. Or something to that extent because it seems like it was very late in the game and then all of the sudden OneNote, OneDrive, and Skype are now preloaded on the Galaxy S6.

Paul: Yeah, I wish it was more. It's too bad that the Office apps were not included.

Brad: Yeah, it seemed really odd.

Leo: It's about as little as you can put on there basically.

Paul: There are some interesting integration bits that you could do. We don't know how constraining Google's licensing is for them, but for example wouldn't it be interesting if OneDrive was set up to do your backup by default somehow through part of set up? Maybe someday it heads there, maybe they reach an agreement with some hardware maker to do that kind of thing, and this will help overcome the issues that they have with Windows Phone perhaps.

Leo:  That kind of makes sense because services are the place that Microsoft is still making money.

Paul: Obviously the goal with Windows Phone should be to make money when you sell, but right now they are losing money. If they had sold 70 million more of them last year they would have lost more money. Getting their software on successful phones makes more sense.

Leo: Microsoft can afford to not make money or even lose money for a little while on Windows Phone. They make enough money on Android alone with the licensing. We know it was a billion dollars from Samsung alone.

Paul: Nobody wants that.

Leo: It's a business. I know there is pride and so forth, but also, they are making some money, they can sustain this for another year. I think that Brad has an interesting point that strategically they can't let go of this. But if in a year Windows 10 hasn't buoyed it then maybe they do let go. It makes sense to hold on for now.

Paul: I just think that with Windows Phone we are on this constant cycle of, you know, this next thing that is coming up, this is going to do it. It really hasn't happened.

Brad: I actually got to corner Joe Bellifori at the January 22nd event at the Bellevue Brewery. First off he was getting hounded by people who came who were asking all sorts of things. I was like Joe, I've got a couple of questions for you. He said, sure, can we walk away for a minute? I think that he was trying to escape. I said your message to people like myself, like Paul, and Mary Jo, anyone else who wants a high end phone for 3 years has been just wait a little bit longer. When Windows Phone 7 came out it was missing some features, and it was like, okay, when we go to 8 we are going to dump 7 and then it will be 8. Just keep waiting for 8. Then it was just keep waiting for 8.1. Now they are saying, okay, you want something else? Just wait until this summer. At some point you just get tired of waiting. Then what do you do?

Paul: What did he say?

Brad: Nothing.

Leo: He looked at you...

Paul: Oh, there is my ride!

Brad: He was candid about it. He said that we know that it's been a struggle with us and that we have been struggling with apps. We are trying our best, but there is a lot of barriers that are beyond our control. We have to deal with the carriers who see us in a minority position where we don't have a lot of strength. We see app vendors who are looking at use and trying to decide well, is it worth the effort to try and support a third platform or do we just power push on the two most popular? He said that is just kind of where we are at. So every time that we just kind of tell you to wait it's because if we push something out now it wouldn't change our story. That, to me, made the sense that they understand it.

Paul: Oh, they understand it. I guess what I'm worried about is their inability to fix it. I made the point maybe last week or the week before that 2 years ago at Mobile World Congress they introduced Windows Phone 8, and the Wallet application, and TapnGo Payments, whatever they call them, and they were going to roll out an Orange in France and maybe the rest of the world, and it never happened ever. Two years later ApplePay is taking off, Samsung bought LoopPay, they have Samsung Pay coming this summer; Microsoft rolls into Mobile World Congress and they introduce a folding keyboard. It's like seriously.

Leo: But we have a folding keyboard.

Paul: It folds Leo, it folds.

Leo: With all due respect to Joe, all that he is observing is the vicious circle that Microsoft is in. Is it that the carriers don't like it because it's not an important phone? Nobody develops for it because nobody is buying it. Nobody is buying it because nobody develops for it. It's a vicious circle.

Paul: What are you going to do if you are an employee of a car dealership? You are going to sell the cars that people buy. You are not going to say I happen to believe that this other car that is really cheap and will give me a lot less money if you buy it is a really good value and is the right thing to get for your family. No, I want you to buy this expensive thing over here that is really popular.

Leo: I guess that the question that we should be asking and that they should be asking internally is how do you break the vicious circle?

Paul: Well, you know.

Leo: Where do you attack it?

Paul: Microsoft has spent the last couple of years really upsetting a lot of their partners. We have talked a lot about the Surface stuff and how it upset the PC makers. But it's not just that. Windows Phone upset the wireless carriers. Windows Phone as an original vision was a phone that went after the iPhone, it was a consumer phone. It did nothing for business customers at all. Microsoft could have and should have come to market with the obvious choice for all of its business partners to adopt and they didn't. They had Xbox games, and music, and you know, they were trying to be iPhone. They were trying to be cool. That's not Microsoft. Today Microsoft's vision and the thing that they are promoting is this productivity stuff, the doer stuff, which I really like. It speaks to that New York Times article that I took such great exception with a year ago when the guy said, I'm going to try to paraphrase this if I can, but he said buy Apple devices, use Google services, and buy media from Amazon. I was like that's really cute, and it's a nice way to summarize it all, and I disagree with all of it. What about Microsoft? What about productivity? Choose Microsoft for productivity. If you are just going to throw that stuff out like that how could you not add Microsoft to this story? And this is something that Microsoft themselves forgot, and so Mobile First, Cloud First and Devices and Services, yada, yada, yada. Ultimately Microsoft is and should be marketed as the productivity company. Windows Phone needs to follow suit. It is, it's catching up, Windows Phone 8.1 have added more of the policy support that is needed in businesses and so forth, but hopefully for Windows 10 they fully embrace this across the board with Phone, with Surface, and obviously with the software and services too. That's part of it. There is a built in audience right there. Windows Phone doesn't have to be number 2 or 1; it just needs to be number 1 with Fortune 500, or Fortune 1000, or however you want to do it. They are just not there.

Leo: Alright.

Paul: Actually, Brad was talking about it earlier about the pallet of Windows Phones, that you can buy 3 or 4 Windows Phones for 1 iPhone. That message is funny, right, but actually that is what businesses want to hear. They don't really have the money to be buying iPhones for everybody, but if they are going to give away Lumia 640s like gifts in the bottom of a box of Cracker Jacks then that's something that businesses would be excited about potentially. 

Brad: One thing that you have to consider though, in that scenario, is what about the actual training to get the users up to speed on how to use Windows Phone? It is fundamentally different than say what they are holding in their pocket, so one of the benefits of everything other than Windows 8 when it launched was if you used Windows in the past you could just pick up Windows 8 and run with it. That's not really the case with Windows Phone. It's close, but it's not to the people who would say take a screenshot and they would take a picture of their screen, to that type of audience it's not always as intuitive as people make it out to be.

Paul: It's different just by being different. Although I've been watching House of Cards and they seem to be able to use Windows Phone pretty effectively.

Leo: Okay, I'm glad you brought that up. So they are using Macs everywhere, but whenever it's a phone it's always a Windows Phone.

Paul: It's always a Windows Phone, yeah. It's very reflective of the real world when in the beltway, Leo, Windows Phone has like 78% market share. 

Leo: It would be credible if it were a Blackberry.

Paul: Yeah, well actually if you watched season 1 I bet it was a lot of Blackberry. I don't know, I can't speak for Washington.

Leo: It was Apples. It was iPhones.

Paul: Was it? Okay. I would imagine that Blackberry is falling out of favor everywhere, including governments. They are just doing the consumerization of IT thing. I'm sure that iPhones are huge in these places.

Leo: This show is interesting because they show text conversations. They always have. So for a while it was the Apple style bubble, and now it's the square Windows Phone bubbles. Although, to somebody that doesn't use Windows Phone that wouldn't be obvious that it's a Windows Phone. But then they pull out a Windows Phone and you can tell. But I think that you, and I, and Brad know. The rest of the world...

Paul: I think that it was episode 1 this season and my wife said, who doesn't know anything about technology, she said is that a Windows Phone? I said yeah. She said, let me try to quote this exactly, "Pssssssst." I want to make sure that I get that as accurate as I can.

Leo: How do you spell that?

Paul: She was disdainful of that.

Brad: Speaking of seeing Windows Phones. You will laugh here in a second when I tell you this story. There is a show on the History Channel called Counting Cars. I love cars, I love all things cars. They were watching a guy, and he pulled his phone out of his pocket. It was a Lumia 925. I'm like holy cow, I know that. He drops it and the screen breaks. Right on TV. So it's like Nokia's legendary build quality went straight to the bottom because he dropped it on TV and it shattered.

Paul: The year that the 1020 came out I took it to Europe for 3 weeks. I dropped it on cobblestones all over Europe. I dropped it in Steven Binks' shower and thought I broke the tile. It became a running joke with my family.

Leo: The phone broke the tile?

Paul: It hit a tile, like a big 12 inch tile, like right at the right angle, and it went crack, like really loud. I was like, oh my god, I broke the tile. The tile was okay, but the phone was okay too. The phone to this day is fine.

Leo: That's kind of amazing.

Paul: My kids, like I would drop it on some cobblestones in some ancient city in Belgium somewhere and I would pick it up and my son was like you aren't even going to look at that thing. I just put it in my pocket. He's like you aren't even going to look at the screen? I was like, Mark, it's a Lumia.

Leo: It's a Lumia. Wow, that's an ad right there. It's a Lumia. By the way, I think this might be Denim because it says we are getting there, will be worth the wait, migrating your data step 15 of 21 and all of that. So despite the fact that there wasn't any Denim branding, in fact it said critical update.

Paul: It never says anything like that. Why would you need to know what it was Leo?

Leo: I don't need to know. I'm just going to do it.

Paul: Why would they ever do that?

Brad: It's the American way. Just do it.

Leo: We are going to take a little break. There is still more from Mobile World Congress.

Paul: Oh yeah.

Leo: Paul Thurrott is here, as well as Brad Sams from neowin.net. Mary Jo Foley has the week off. Our show today is brought to you by ziprecruiter.com. ZipRecruiter is the place to go if you are in the unenviable position of hiring at your company. Or maybe it is just you and you need somebody else. We use ZipRecruiter and have great results with it. See, the issue is that there are a lot of job boards. The internet has made it a lot easier to find people, but which job board is the right one? There are so many. With ZipRecruiter you can post once to ziprecruiter.com and that way they will put it on 50+ job boards including social networks like Facebook and Twitter with a single click. That way you find candidates in any industry anywhere in the country. All you have to do is post once. I love it that you don't get the calls and the emails. The applicants flow into ZipRecruiter's interface which means that it's very easy to screen them, and rate them, and hire them without being bugged at work. ZipRecruiter has a feature called Premium Traffic Boost which will actually increase the number of candidates more than 300%. How about that? I want you to try it; ziprecruiter.com, the place to go. We are going to arrange a free trial for you and you are going to get 30% off of your first traffic boost. All you have to do is go to ziprecruiter.com/windows, ziprecruiter.com/window. You will get 30% off of your first traffic boost and you will get a free trial. I think that ZipRecruiter really is a great solution. This is, as many of our advertisers are, an example of how the internet has really changed business for the better. Friction free. Ziprecruiter.com/windows, try it today.

Brad Sams is here from neowin.net. He is filling in for Mary Jo Foley. Paul Thurrott, of course, from t-h-u-r-r-o-t-t, thurrott.com. The u is silent. I don't know what it is actually. There is no umlaut.

Paul: Not yet.

Leo: So the update is done. Let's just quickly see if this is Denim. This is the 1520, which I love. Windows Phone 8.1.8.10.14219.341 is installed.

Paul: What? Say that again? Say that one more time.

Leo: 8.1, I'm sorry 8.10.14219.341. But you know what? I can find out by going to Settings, right, and...

Brad: Provided you don't have that bug or whatever that was.

Paul: You might. Wait, did you ever have the dev preview on this system?

Leo: No.

Paul: Go all the way down.

Leo: Go all the way down?

Paul: Now to info and extras.

Leo: Extras and info. Tell me about your Lumia phone. Loading, I have to think, who am I, Denim!

Paul: Now do this, now do this.

Leo: Now do this? Take a picture?

Paul:  Go to Start. Yeah, but go over to the app list. Go down to L.

Leo: Lumia, yeah.

Paul: Do you have Lumia Camera?

Leo: I do.

Paul: I think that you have Denim.

Leo: I have Denim. Lumia Beemer? Do I get a BMW with this? Lumia Focus. I downloaded a few of those, right? The real test is how fast I can take a picture. By the way, the phone is hot. Hot, hot, hot from that update. Alright, now watch. Ready?

Paul: Leo that phone is hot. You are right.

Leo: It's hot. Let me press the button on the top. Let's see it focus and take a picture. I think that it did it so fast that I didn't even know it.

Paul: So here is the thing to do...

Leo: It's instant. Look at that. Oh. I'm holding down and now it's shooting. That's a 4K video? As long as I continue to hold it. Neato.

Paul: The other thing is that there is a Rich Capture button that look like a magic wand there right on the tool bar. If you turn that on it will give you that kind of auto HDR auto everything.

Leo: HDR, nice.

Paul: If you flash isn't able to do that.

Leo: Oh look at that. Much, much better.

Paul: Now go to the camera roll from the top left. Top left?

Leo: Sorry, I don't remember where to swipe. Anything? Thank you Cortana, I wasn't talking to you. Go away. Camera. Swipe left.

Paul: No, there is a button in the top left.

Leo: Oh that. I'm sorry, I use so many different phones that I forget the UI.

Paul: That's okay. You see? Wait, wait, wait, go back.

Leo: So that is the Rich Capture?

Paul: Does it say processing up in the corner?

Leo: It does. It's still saving.

Paul: Yeah, even though it is taking those pictures really quick it is doing stuff in the background.

Leo: Oh. Neato. This one is not a high, actually that is the camera, oh no, that is the video, that's why it's moving along.

Paul: Yeah.

Leo: Neat. It is still saying that.

Paul: Go back to the video. Tap the screen. Now tap in the lower left corner where it says select moment or whatever.

Leo: Yeah, there is a moment? I can take a moment? Oh, I don't have moments installed.

Paul: Wait, that is interesting.

Leo: I will install it. So that's not part of the regular...

Paul: That's interesting. I thought that was in there by default. But that will give you the ability to take out the pictures frame by frame.

Leo: Neato. I love the way that they handle this camera where they integrate the additional features right into the camera.

Paul: Into the camera, yeah.

Leo: Yeah, that's a really nice way to do it.

Paul: It's huge.

Leo: You know what? This is an awesome phone, but as much as I love the UI, the form factor, the hardware, everything about it; if it doesn't have my Google apps I'm screwed. It does at least, the calendar now is syncing, the contacts are syncing, so I at least get that.

Paul: It does Google account stuff. It does Google email.

Leo: Yes, that's right, I've got Gmail in my email.

Paul: That works.

Leo: So all I'm missing now is Google+, Google Photos, and Google Voice.

Paul: Let me show you our collection of lackluster rip off apps that do the same thing.

Leo: There are quite a few of those. I know, I know, I know. It is such a great phone it just kills me.

Paul: It's like the difference between Disney World and one of those travelling fairs where they don't actually latch the rides to anything, they just sit there on the pavement, and the little roller coaster goes by, and it lifts a little as it goes by.

Leo: Somebody said where do you put the phone? It's so big. No, no, it fits fine right here. No problem at all. I carry big phones. I think that whole thing about oh, it's so big, nobody says that anymore. I have a Nexus 6, the same size. The iPhone 6+ is close to the same size. The Note that is my daily driver, you know...

Paul: I think the iPhone 6+ shot this up you know? Apple does it, yeah, it's good.

Leo: Oh, it's fine now. Apple does it. Well okay. Now that the Apple Watch is out I'm going to get my Microsoft Band.

Brad: They might be back in stock eventually. 

Paul: Exactly. By the time the watch comes out you might be able to get a Microsoft Band again.

Leo: I'm so glad. So in real time on the show I actually got my Denim. That's nice. It was pretty quick. It did that in half an hour.

Brad: It wasn't too bad, no.

Leo: What else? There is a new Windows Phone from, who is that, Acer? Acer, what is that all about?

Paul: I wish I could find this. I do have this in my house. Years ago I bought, probably from Xpansis, an international Acer Windows Mobile 6.5 device. You know, Windows Mobile 6.5 was terrible, but that phone was beautiful. I always, as we kind of moved forward, thought, oh, I wish these guys would jump on Windows Phone. Then, of course, they do and what they release is you know, a little stripper phone like the drug dealers would use and then throw away or something. So it's a low end device, but I'm just glad that they are there and I'm hoping that for Windows 10 they will come out with some kind of a high end flagship type device. 

Brad: I would love for them to build an Acer S7 into a phone. That's my laptop, the Acer S7. I love that thing.

Paul: Yep.

Brad: Where they actually put some thought into it.

Paul: Can you hear my cat? She's very prrrrrrrr.

Leo: So what did you think? I know that we don't normally talk about this, but what did you think about the S6? It's going to have Skype, OneNote, and OneDrive.

Paul: I think that it is beautiful, but the big thing that I care about is camera quality. It looks great on presentation, we will see in real life, but I don't like the glass back. Honestly I like the plastic back on the previous phones because you could take the battery out.

Leo: Yes, right. They will have to have great battery life on this one.

Paul: That never bothered me. The thing that bothers me on the S5 is that crazy aluminum fake thing on the side. It's so terrible. The design is terrible. But these phones look beautiful. The thing that really puts this phone over the top for me is the edge, the one with the two little curves, the side screens. The usage there is a little hokey, but the look of it is beautiful. It really is a unique looking phone.

Leo: The usage isn't the same as the Note Edge. The Note Edge, which is the first one that we saw, I didn't like. It was 2 screens, one is flat and then there is a curved screen attached to it. The curved screen does all sorts of things like go to screen savers, but it is upside down. So I noticed that they fixed that. They sold the point that you could put this on the desk and you could see your notifications on the edge without anybody noticing.

Paul: But you actually had to flip it around to see them.

Leo: Flipping around wouldn't do it, you had to put it face down or something. I don't know, it was upside down. I don't know.

Paul: I think that it was supposed to be face down.

Leo: No, but then it covers...I could not get it to work. I put the left hand in mode everything, it was always facing the other people.

Paul:  Honestly, one of the big deals with this thing is that it has Android 5. My wife got a Note 4, and you look at this thing, and it's like god, the Samsung stock UI is so old looking. It's just ugly.

Leo: You know what I did with mine? I carry the Note 4. I put, I know this isn't the Android show, but you put a different launcher, you put lollipop icons.

Paul: Let me explain to you how uninterested my wife would be in this.

Leo: But this looks a lot like lollipop now.

Paul: Listen, I wish.

Leo: But it isn't lollipop.

Paul: It's like the Microsoft lock screen, whatever that's called for Android, is wonderful. That would be cool.

Leo: Yeah, all of that stuff.

Paul: Maybe someday Microsoft will do a Windows Phone looking launcher.

Leo: I tell you, I look at this 1520 and I say if only. I would love to carry that.

Paul: What carrier are you on with the 1520?

Leo: Well I was on an unlocked one, and then if you remember I bricked. So Microsoft sent me an AT&T one, so I am on AT&T and that's why I just got Denim.

Paul: So there is Denim through AT&T?

Leo: Yes, it's an official Denim AT&T update.

Brad: Nice.

Leo: Which just came. People are saying that that is coming out.

Paul: I also got it on the 1520.

Leo: It's another one, I think the 925 that has not yet.

Paul: Well the 1020 hasn't gotten it. Let me think, what else are we looking for?

Leo: Somebody in the chatroom says that he hasn't got it yet.

Paul: On the 1020?

Leo: No, no, I want to say on the 925 or something like that. You got it on the 925? Okay, so somebody in our live studio audience has it already. Anyway, I think that AT&T is pushing it out.

Paul: Excuse me one moment, the cat must leave.

Leo: The cat must go. Kill cat. Cat must go. So what do you carry around on a day to day basis Brad?

Brad: Well, 830.

Leo: I like the green. That's pretty.

Paul: By the way, there is another one, the 830, that hasn't gotten the latest. It came with Denim, but it's like half Denim. It doesn't have the latest camera stuff.

Leo: You are only half Denim Brad.

Brad: It's a good phone. The problem is that I love everything about this but the specs of it. I really wish that it was a high end device. I really wish that there was a little bit faster processor, a higher spec camera, but the actual form factor of it is fantastic. It's a good size for me and it has wireless charging, but it's a mid-range phone at the end of the day. Nothing spectacular.

Leo: Do you plug those strange looking headphones into that phone? What are those orange headphones that you are sporting there?

Brad: So these earbuds here are...

Leo: Oh, they are pretty.

Brad: I think that Paul pointed out that I may be the only person in North America who has them right now.

Leo: Can you hold them really close to the camera? I think that people want to see what that form factor is. It looks strangely like the Apple headphones, doesn't it Paul?

Brad: They very much do resemble them.

Leo: They are like Pods. Orange Pods.

Brad: So these guys are supposed to be like 17 Euros. I don't know if they are actually coming to the states. I couldn't get that out of them if they are coming stateside. They are essentially just meant to be your run of the mill headphones, and they sound like run of the mill headphones. The audio, to be honest, is pretty flat in them, but they are quite comfortable. They are all plastic, which I was really hesitant about because I usually use earbuds with the silicone tips. But these fit into your ear canal really well and they stay in there so I've walked around with them. I wouldn't go running with these in your ear, but they are not bad. For 17 Euros I really like the color; it matches my charging plate and kind of contrasts the back of the phone. It's just kind of got that Nokia influence of bright, bold, and mostly functional type things. One of the things that I wish it did have, and I'm grabbing the wrong side here, is there is only a mic and a 1 button on here. There is no volume up and volume down, which can be a little bit annoying if you are like outside. Usually I have been wearing them while shoveling snow and I want to turn the volume up, but you can't do it from the headphones.

Leo: So will those start coming with the phones?

Brad: I don't know. If you look at the announcement, and it was really odd, the just said, hey look, we built these, and they call these Eargonomic headphones.

Leo: Oh lord, oh lord.

Paul: Say that without self-loathing if you can. They are eargonomic.

Brad: You can very much tell that the marketing people are like how can we spice up these $20 US dollar headphones. They said, oh, we will call them eargonomic and we will make them a little bit different shape. I don't really know if they are going to come in the box or not. They just kind of said, hey look, we built these headphones, and I said how can I get ahold of these because I need to do a blogpost about it. That's when I started to try to chase the people down who might be able to get them to me.

Leo: We made them for you.

Brad: They said that they had to go all the way back to Vietnam where these were manufactured to get them. They come with a little tag on it that says Microsoft Mobile.

Leo: Wait a minute. They told you that we had to go all the way back to Vietnam? 

Brad: They took the corporate jet all the way to Vietnam.

Leo: But they are shipping them from Vietnam to their markets?

Brad: Yeah, that's just where they are being manufactured.

Paul: Eventually.

Leo: But for you Brad we went all the way.

Paul: By the way, so it's weird how long these things take, right? So when did they announce these, CES?

Brad: No, I think somewhere between CES and Microsoft announcement.

Paul: So the charging plate that you have, the 902 or whatever the model was; they showed me that in August of last year. They just started shipping those within the last 30 days.

Leo: Is it chargonomic?

Paul: Chargonomic?

Brad: I believe these are going to be available at the end of March. I think that's when they said that they are going to start shipping. I don't know how widely available or in what markets, but they have not told the rest of the world. So they are coming. If you need a cheap pair of earbuds, and they cost $20 or less, and you are just kind of saying, you know what, I'm just going to go cut the grass.

Paul: I always toss something like that in my travel bag because if your good headphones don't work you want to have something.

Leo: Yeah, I keep a pair too.

Paul: Even if it's just blocking out airplane noise.

Leo: Exactly.

Brad: Well these will definitely not block out airplane noise.

Paul: I mean just by virtue of plugging your ear or whatever for a little bit.

Brad: But they are not bad. We will see how they market them. I would imagine that they are just going to be a little bolt on type charging thing just like these charging plates.

Paul: They look beautiful in their promo pictures because they will always tie them in with a similar colored phone. So you will see those with like an orange whatever Lumia phone. They have green versions and all of that kind of stuff.

Brad: Yeah, like the charging plate, it matches perfectly.

Leo: You know, Senheiser used the phrase eargonomic about 5 years ago. I Googled it. So I don't know, you know? Great minds and all of that.

Paul: And also the opposite of great minds. Badly damaged minds.

Leo:  So alright, how about this HP Spector? This is kind of cool.

Paul: Have you seen this Leo?

Leo: I haven't, but it's a Signature PC?

Paul: Not exactly. This is something that HP has made and they are selling. They are selling it exclusively through Best Buy retail stores in the United States if you want to buy it in a store, which means that Microsoft cannot sell it, which means that there can't be a Signature PC version of it.

Leo: Oh, Microsoft has to sell the Signature PCs?

Paul: Yeah, but one of the cool things about it is that it's about as crapware free as you can get from a PC maker. There are a couple of things in there, but...

Leo: From HP that's saying a lot. They are kind of known for it.

Paul: Well, the interesting back story to this, and this guy is a friend of mine so I want to be upfront about this, but I mean honestly, the guy who is responsible for all of this great stuff happening from HP is a guy named Mike Nash, who used to work at Microsoft. He just actually got promoted, but he was for the last few years running their consumer PC division. Now I think that he is basically overseeing all PCs. The Stream 11 and 13 laptops, which were such a big deal last holiday season, the Stream 7 and 8 tablets; those are his babies. So now he is taking this kind of approach to the higher end part of the market. The thing that I really like about the Spector is that it looks like a laptop. It looks like a really high end laptop. It doesn't look exactly like a MacBook Air, which I think that a lot of Windows laptops do. It's still very much a premium device though. It also does that 360 thing where it flips around into a tablet, but if you were just looking at it you would assume that it is an UltraBook. There is nothing about it to suggest that it transforms in any way. So you do have that capability, but instead of costing like, you know, the S7 that we were talking about earlier from Acer, or the Samsung Ultrabooks that I have been using, or a ThinkPad X whatever, these devices start at like $899 for like a i5 version. The version that I am reviewing is $999. These are not, they are higher end devices, they are not budget busters, but they are also not $1,500, $1,800, $2,200, which is typically what we see for this kind of device. So it really is kind of the Stream mentality of how much can you pack in but apply to the mid to high end of the market. It's just a gorgeous, gorgeous device.

Leo: This is exciting, because this is the third, I think, really good looking Windows 8.1 laptop. I have the new Dell XPS, which I love, the Broadwell. Lenovo has a gorgeous, I can't remember what they call it, the X1 Carbon.

Paul: The X1 Carbon obviously.

Leo: And then this. This is great.

Paul: So one of the other big deals here is that they worked with Microsoft to make this. This was actually a collaboration.

Leo: Ah, there you have it.

Paul: So Gabe Aul, the guy who is doing Windows, worked with HP on this. The funny thing from Gabe Aul is that they basically made this offer to all PC makers. They want to Windows to be as good as it can be obviously, and they have offered to work with all of them. They didn't say that none of them have said yes. If there is a group it's a small group, and one of them is HP. They are the first to come out with an actual machine based on this collaboration. They have lots of facts and figures about all of the improvements that they have been able to make with boot time, resume time, battery life, etc., etc. This machine is just absolutely phenomenal, and it just kind of came out of nowhere. I'm really happy about this.

Leo: Is it a convertible? I'm seeing these weird hinges.

Paul: Yep, yep.

Leo: So that goes all the way around to the other side.

Paul: But when it is in clamshell mode no one would ever look at it and say, oh, that's a tablet kind of thing.

Leo: It looks like a regular laptop.

Paul: Yeah, yep. There is a lot going on here.

Leo: I'm not crazy about that on/off switch on the side. Acer does that too, and I hit those every time.

Paul: They have to do that because it has that tablet functionality. 

Leo: Oh, it has to be accessible of course.

Paul: The other benefit of that is that you also get hardware volume buttons that aren't on the keyboard. So they are also on the side, they are on the other side, but you know, this is like anything else. For a reviewer who is going from machine to machine you would look at that and say, oh, this is in kind of a weird place. It would be hard to get used to that. If this is your machine then it is where it is and you are just used to it.

Leo: Yeah. No, it's more that I accidentally hit it on the Acer from time to time. I will just get used to it.

Paul: I think that a lot of people scan the computer looking for the power button.

Leo: Well, I do that, but that is every Windows PC because there is no standard. It's in all sorts of places.

Paul: When you open up any Windows Laptop for the first time the funny bone music should just play so that you can find it. How long is it going to take?

Leo: This looks really nice.

Brad: It does. It looks like a fantastic machine. It's good for HP too, right? Dell has their flagship, which is the XPS13, which mine should be showing up here in a couple of weeks.

Leo: Oh Brad, I love it. It's such a nice system and I can't wait to get Windows 10 on it.

Brad: It's going to be really tough for me. It's going to be really tough because I love, Paul knows and Mary Jo knows; I love my Acer. I love it to death.

Leo: Yes, you have the S7?

Brad: Yes.

Leo: I do too. I replaced the S7 with the XPS.

Paul: How do you feel about the power cord which I believe is 19 feet long? Some kind of elephant toy.

Brad: Not only the is the power cord terrible, but also the connection into the laptop is also quite bad. It's almost like a headphone jack type thing.

Leo: I've had it for 2 years, though, without any issues.

Brad: Neither have I, but when I first pulled it out of the box I was like oh.

Leo: Oh, this is not going to go well.

Brad: I will be curious. Paul, when we go to Build later in the year...

Paul: Yeah, we can compare these.

Brad: What machine I'm going to take. I'm only going to take one. I might take a Surface and the laptop, but I will take one laptop and it will be hard to see if I'm going to take the 13 or if I'm going to take the S7.

Paul: I'm going away to Colorado next weekend. In fact, I need to talk to you guys about the schedule, unfortunately, because Mary Jo is gone now.

Leo: Oh great, so it's going to be Dr. Pizza and Brad.

Paul: Yeah, you never know.

Brad: Brad is right here.

Paul: And I'm faced with I want to take one machine. Right now this HP is it. It's absolutely it.

Leo: These bezzles are awfully big compared to the XPS. It is touch and Quad HD is available, but I would think that the XPS would be smaller dimensionally.

Paul: It would be, yeah. Look, I'm a big person, so for me there is something weird about the small size of the XPS 11 that forces me to almost hunch over it whereas I realize it's not like the keyboard is extending out to the edges of HP, but there is something about that real estate that just makes it feel more comfortable to me. It's just full sized.

Leo: And you will probably not get the Quad HD. I do like it that you can get 1080p in touch, right, unlike the Dell. I had to get the Quad HD, and it's awfully, as you pointed out Paul, the touch targets are just too small on the desktop.

Paul: Yeah, by the way this thing gets 12 hours of actual battery life, not 12 hours of EPA rated baloney.

Leo: That's better than my Dell I think. That's good.

Paul: It's good, the battery life is good.

Leo: Nice, so you think that you will get this one?

Paul: Yeah, as I always say, if there was a 15 inch version it would be a no brainer, instantly I would buy this right now sight unseen.

Leo: You like the bigger screen?

Paul: I really do like the bigger screen, yeah. But, that said, this one I took to Puerto Rico and I will take it to Colorado next week. And barring a review laptop, unless the next one came in or something, I will take it to Build. This would be the machine that I would use.

Leo: It sounds like a euphemism. I'm taking this one to Puerto Rico.

Paul: If you know what I mean.

Leo: If you know what I mean.

Paul: No, I mean that I'm literally taking it.

Leo: He's literally going to Colorado.

Paul: It's not really.

Leo: Paul Thurrott of thurrott.com. You still go to Colorado? I thought you went there for Pinten? Now you just go there for fun?

Paul: Well, as it turns out, two of the people that I work with at the new job live in Ft. Collins, Colorado, which is where we go.

Leo: Back we go.

Paul: So we are having like a team meeting, and because two of them live in Ft. Collins we are going to go to Ft. Collins. So I'm going to stay in the same hotel that I always stay in.

Leo: It's kind of ironic.

Paul: I'm going to try to get the corporate discount from Penton if I can.

Leo: Hey, I used to work for Penton. It's good.

Paul: The code is...

Leo: That counts, yeah. I know I have a new mug, but otherwise I'm still a Penton guy.

Paul: Yeah, it's just a weird coincidence.

Leo: Let's take a break.

Paul: I love it out there. It's the beer capital of the world.

Leo: You know what? My son is in Boulder and I love going out there.

Paul: Boulder and Ft. Collins is the fertile crescent of Belgian style beer.

Leo: Also here with us from Neowin, Brad Sams; great to have him! Neowin.net. We´ll take a break and shave, everybody.

Now Brad doesn´t know about this but halfway through the show each week we like to break out our shaving. We start shaving, we break out the Harry´s, and you now, we want to be clean shaved since Paul and I are manly men, every hour we have to shave. Every hour I get my 12 o´clock shadow here, no. Harry´s is for the guy who shaves a lot. Doesn´t like to shave, there is a better way. Harry´s, Harrys.com. I´m a big fan. We sent you the Harry´s , do you use the Harry´s Paul? Yeah, Steve Gibson´s a big fan. This is the Truman set. So there´s sets, you start with a set, if you go to harrys.com. The Truman is $15 dollars, includes both sets, the Truman and the Winston which is I think $25. Includes a handle, the Winston´s an engraved metal handle, the Truman is plastic. Actually Steve prefers the plastic handle but that´s a matter of personal taste. But they all have 3 blades, they all come with the shave gel foaming shave gel and the handle, for $15 bucks, in fact I´m going to save you even more in a second. But these aren´t just any blades, these are not ordinary blades. First of all Harry´s blades cost about half as much as the drugstore, you know the Gillette fusion blades at the drug store, they don´t have to lock these up. And because they own the factory that makes these in Germany and they sell direct to you, you not only save money but you´re going to get a better blade. They engineer these blades for precision, for reliability, I never cut myself with a Harry´s blade, it´s just the smoothest, cleanest shave you ever had. You can choose Harry´s cream which I really like, or this is the new foaming shave gel, if you´re used to fa oaring gel you´ll probably like this, it just, it´s amazing. I guess partly because the blades are so well engineered, they´re so sharp. But it just gives you the smoothest, easiest shave, it will take the drudgery out of shaving every hour or every day or every week even. So I want you to try it out, if you go to Harrys.com use the offer code windows on checkout, and you´ll save $5 bucks. Harrys. Harrys.com. And then every month I get my Harry´s blades and I get a refill on the I use the shave cream, the stuff that comes in a tube, that´s the original Harry´s and I really like it but you can also get the shave gel which is by the way they now have an after shave lotion which you can add to your monthly package. It´s kind of like a gift in the mail every day. Harrys.com. Use the offer code Windows for an extra special deal. Paul Thurrott.

Paul: And to be clear, smooth skin is a gift.

Leo: It´s the gift that keeps on giving to our loved ones. That´s the worst thing in the world, you go in for a kiss and she goes no! Shave first!

Paul: I´m like a caveman, my hair, it actually, I sort of turn into a 5 o´clock shadow just in the recording of the show.

Leo: Yeah, you and me, both.

Paul: But I also have the same, because I´m so indelicate in everything that I do. I will, I´ll come downstairs from having shaved and you sort of like touch your face and you realize there´s a huge patch like unshaven stuff like in the corner.

Leo: One of our chatters in the chatroom iPad 94497 says I got Harry´s for my husband he loves the razor. Good, good, good. Harry´s, we love it. Um, Paul Thurrott, Brad Sams, moving on, I think we´ve done Mobile World Congress.

Brad: I think so too.

Leo: Now let´s do Windows 10. We have to do our regular weekly windows 10 check in.

Paul: You know what? It´s interesting because both Brad and I are on the show. This would be the ideal time for Microsoft to deliver the next.

Brad: It would be fantastic.

Leo: And? How would you know?

Paul: Twitter would be a blaze. You know, get off the show, it´s happening.

Leo: But it is imminent, you think?

Brad: It is.

Paul: Yeah, It was originally expected last week right?

Leo: Is this build 10002?

Brad: No, well, we don´t know.

Leo: One hundred thousand twenty two? Ten thousand?

Brad: I had this conversation with somebody, we´re trying to figure out what do you call it? I set it on one hundred twenty two.

Leo: Yeah, I like it. It´s ten thousand twenty two or one zero zero, duh.

Brad: So this Build has leaked to one specific person and I believe this actual build comes from a partner not specifically from, I mean obviously comes from Microsoft but Microsoft has partners and they say hey here´s a build to keep testing your stuff on and I believe that´s what this is. Now, what´s interesting actually about this build if you look at the water mark in the bottom right corner it´s the same water mark we get on the Windows Insider build, so this is actually from the same release brand that we will eventually get for everybody, we just don´t know if it´s going to be this specific build. It seems kind of silly if this actually is the one that they´ve been sitting on it now and not releasing for no apparent reason. Having spoken with Gabe, it doesn´t seem like they just make builds and say okay this is going to be the one and then we´re going to wait 2 weeks to deliver just to wait 2 weeks.

Leo: i love it, I think it looks gorgeous. I love the icons, the clean look.

Brad: It´s really coming along, it really is maturing, as long as people who didn´t, sorry go ahead.

Paul: The only bit I´m a little nervous about and you don´t see it in fall explorer or any kind of the classic US but when you look at the universe labs this kind of new ultra spartan why they have the toolbars like literally in the spartan application or any of the new apps that have like a toolbar with these little lines, I don´t think there are any examples of it in this screenshot set unfortunately. I´m a little worried that that stuff is a little too austere you know, like I´m okay with it but I can picture people not thinking it was nice looking. Because it´s always that kind of a soft gray color, obviously there´ll be a dark theme but I don´t know.

Leo: Are the icons controversial at all? Because they´re very different.

Brad: Yes, they´re a religious high point for many people that if these icons are not what they deemed to be appropriate they will write off the entire build. I mean really they could´ve just taken Windows 7, got it new icons and called it Windows 8 and people would´ve been thrilled. Nothing else different. So I don´t, got to be careful how I phrase this, I don´t believe those icons will be the ones that ship when it hits RTM in June.

Leo: These almost, actually now that I look at them, look unfinished, it looks like they´re dummy icons.

Paul: By the way, see the arrows on links and download, those are the type of icons, those are the types of things that you see in that toolbar that I was talking about, they´re just, they´re kind of, I don´t know, they look out of place.

Brad: They´re just there.

Leo: Let the kvetching begin.

Brad: Yeah, so it’s, um, don´t get too comfortable with this, specially, specifically I should say the recycling bin icon, I would say don´t get too comfortable with that one.

Leo: That is hideous. It kind of looks like material design Google´s Lollipop look, it’s the kind of new thing that´s kind of flat, no transparency, no drop shadow kind of a thing. It is modern.

Paul: Yeah, for now. By the way, that´s not the toolbar I was talking about, but those icons there are same thing. I just worry they´re a little too hieroglyphic, you know this is kind of a weird quality to them, I don´t know.

Leo: But we shouldn´t really spend a lot of energy on that.

Paul: No let´s spend the whole show on it.

Leo: So as Brad points out, it might not look like this.

Paul: Leo if you think back to how icons looked in Windows 1.0.

Leo: Yes, this is no, yes, um.

Brad: So the next build is, which is not present I believe, in that release, the10022, is spartan supposed to be showing up. Microsoft actually said publicly that the next insider release spartan will be there,  which is why I don´t believe that 10022 is the actual next public release. Correct. At least whoever, the individual with it is not showing it off. Yeah, I mean that´s a pretty big deal right?

Leo: There is a leaked video though.

Brad: There is, there is a leaked video of Spartan.

Leo: With Cortana.

Paul: There´s no build number there.

Brad: Um, I can´t remember, I can look.

Paul: This video has the kind of toolbar that I was talking about. You can see them in the app and you can see them in the Windows Phone version of this app in the Microsoft video, you know, it´s, it´s,it´s Spartan, I mean.

Leo: Wow it´s really Spartan. Holy Cow! It´s clean as a whistle.

Paul: i guess I´m just nervous that people will not have an emotional connection with this kind of thing, it´s a little too, it´s so light and vague.

Brad: Yeah, well there is a dark theme, that is there. I will say that I was, I´ve been writing about the Cortana integration and just Spartan in general since I don´t know, about Septemberish with Mary Jo, and writing about it and seeing it are really two different things, and I actually think it makes a lot of sense. I´m actually kind of pleasantly surprised that okay you know what, Cortana in the browser, yeah you can actually see how that is useful because what it´s doing is, you can see it here, it´s queering things in the background for you, so, it´s contextually aware and it can pull up like the menus and the times and all that for you without actually having to tell it to do so.

Paul: The other thing that is really obvious when you see this kind of sidebar, pain thing, whatever this is, that´s a phone display right there isn´t it? You know, like when you do this on the phone you´re going to get the same display but it´s going to be full screen.

Brad: And I´ll be really curious, kind of circling all the way back around, if Microsoft can properly position Cortana on the desktop to actually help sell phones?

Leo: So to be clear, especially for those who are listening not watching, in this video no one´s speaking, you would maybe double click a word and then right click on it and it and one of the choices is ask Cortana. Does Cortana talk? Or is it all just kind of a non-speaking, in other words Cortana can be  more than speech right?

Paul: Yeah the stuff they´re showing off is no talking but you could talk to Cortana.

Leo: Yeah I understand, but, when I say Cortana I think Siri it´s all about talking and this isn´t in fact this is just an intelligent system.

Pail: So Cortana ultimately is just a front end to Bing and other web services right? I mean If you think about how you would use this in a browser it´s about getting more information, talking is not going to help you, telling you how to get to some restaurant in a web browser on your pc makes no sense. The information they´re providing there is very similar to the stuff we see in Windows phone today with local scout or that Bing experience they have on Windows phone today or obviously Cortana if you have a newer version of Windows phone. It´s contact sensitive and useful, but it´s also presented in a way that I think makes sense for the ui.

Brad: So we´ll see, it´s supposed to be here in the next build.

Leo: It´s an intelligent system, it´s more than just voice and I think that´s very intriguing and she´s personified, when she responds she says I think I found it. things like that. Even if she´s not saying it out loud, the text says it. I find that very interesting.

Paul: Somebody emailed me and asked me about searching for events in the calendar app in Windows Phone and it is a curious fact that Windows phone calendar app does not have a search capability. I thought well, okay but Windows phone has Cortana, could you use Cortana to search your calendar? And as it turns out, actually yes, you can. So basically, I suppose you could do it with typing I didn´t try that, the only way that I have tried to search calendar now that is has worked on Windows phone was to talk to the phone, you know, find Denver in my calendar.

Leo: That´s really interesting, wow.

Paul: Yeah, very strange, but it worked.

Leo: And, um, we´re trying to decide, because we´re getting to the point where we want to do some apps. Now we´re going to do some iOS and Android, but we´re thinking, you know, back and forth, I said, I put down my foot and said we have to do an app for Windows but what if we did a universal app?

Paul: Right.

Brad: That´s the way to go.

Leo: Is that the way to go?

Paul: Yeah.

Brad: Without a doubt.

Leo: Because then you get the phone but you also get the desktop and you get the tablet and you get everything in between.

Brad: And you also, well you can´t see it but there´s an Xbox behind me hooked right up.

Leo And you get the Xbox, oh!

Brad: If you´re going to build an app I would be very happy if I could just slap it on my Xbox behind me, that way I don´t have to give up one of my monitors to watch.

Leo: Is that the promise?

Paul: Yep.

Brad: Yeah

Leo: Alright, so there you go.

Paul: Also get the key raspberry pi audience Leo.

Leo: You know you laugh but I think we have the highest percentage of raspberry pi users in our audience of anything. I mean this is a raspberry pi crowd right? So Windows 10 on raspberry pi, man that sounds good to me. We could make, oh, dedicated twit hardware right? For $40 bucks you could buy a Twit box.

Paul: Like a Twit kiosk.

Leo: Yeah, wait a minute, I´m liking this. $40 bucks you get a twit box, it´s all in there.

Paul: Is that a twit in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?

Brad: Oh dear God! And we´ve hit the bottom.

Leo: Yeah we have. Wouldn´t be the first time and it won´t be the last. So good and the universal apps, okay that´s encouraging, that´s really encouraging. Now I just have to find a universal app developer. Do such things exist?

Brad: Just say you want 5 years’ experience in building universal apps.

Paul: Right, right. You got to have standards. Not a second rate organization, we´re not stupid.

Leo: What will the salient experience be actually?

Paul: The salient experience?

Leo: Yeah, what would be important if I´m, obviously nobody has experience doing universal apps, should I look for somebody who has experience doing Windows Phone apps? Windows desktop apps? Which?

Brad: i would say for the modern apps.

Leo: Modern apps, okay so there you go. So a modern app developer would be able to do that.

Paul: Yeah I think maybe the modern apps is maybe the closest to the sense that those would be the apps that would auto change to display orientation and different size display and so on.

Brad: One of the guys that built VLC for the Windows phone, Windows desktop and rt, you´ll have to double check the facts on this, but he built the vlc as a universal app and I believe he said he was using 80% of the same code to target all 3 different environments.

Leo: And we get the Twit box for free.

Brad: And the Twit box is thrown in. Give a Lumia away with it too, while you´re at it.

Paul: It´s like a raspberry pi case that´s been customized. The Twit color scheme and logo.

Leo: Detoa in our chatroom says C sharp or C++.netdev with xaml experience. That sounds about right.

Brad: Microsoft is going all Xaml lately, that´s a good way to go.

Leo: I think this is the last best hope, not only for Windows Phone but just in general. The idea that you could, for humanity, I think peace in the middle east relies on right ones run everywhere.

Paul: Forget the Iranian nuclear program, xaml.

Leo: Yeah. One Windows. Xaml. Microsoft is active, I know builds coming and that´s where everything is going to be focused on, but they´re really promoting this.

Paul: Every time I go to Build in particular, but I would say any trade show like if i was going to go to TechEd, if I´m going to go to Ignite this year, I´m obviously  as like press you kind of, there are sessions that we have that are kind of outside the stuff, and there were other events like parties and things, you kind of sit in the press room the whole time and you go out with everybody ad you know we start throwing food at Dr. Pietz and then we get kicked out, you know, the normal stuff, but.

Leo: The usual stuff. Bill Ford´s out of beanbags, things like that.

Paul: Yeah, right, Daniel´s over in the corner eating what appears to be white paste, like superglue stuff.

Leo: Yeah, he´s scooping it out with his fingers.

Paul: Yeah, so, I always intend and even plan and schedule that I´m going to go to normal sessions and try to learn something like anyone would because there are people spending thousands of dollars to be at this thing you know. And then when the actual event comes, it doesn´t happen right.

Brad: It´s usually what happens, is, to what Paul is saying, I get to see my friends 4 times a year, essentially I get to see Paul once a quarter, I get to see Mary Jo once a quarter, Daniel and Peter and all those guys once a quarter, and so you go with the best of intentions, you map it all out, and then you kind of look at what the content you´re giving and you go you know what I can get 6 posts out of this, I´ve justified my expenses, you guys want to go get beers? And that´s pretty much what happens.

Paul: And you find a lot of willing people. Yep, And then stuff goes in the bag and gone. One thing I try to do is you know a lot of the sessions will be on video later.

Brad: If you can take all the Microsoft writers with you, nobody´s competing, so nobody´s putting content out.

Paul: Actually that´s smart, you have a strategy behind it, that´s good.

Brad: Oh, I´ve ruined it.

Leo: Well it´s like college, it´s like college. You go with every intention of studying, but 4 years go by and all you´ve got is a bong that the water hasn´t been changed in months and a beer belly.

Paul: It´s a kind of fungus that´s been growing in the fridge.

Brad: You know what I used to do in college when I´d go study? I used to sell pizza in the library.

Leo: Smart! Make a little money on the side.

Brad: Yeah, I would go grab a couple of large pizzas and walk around the library, yeah, during finals week.

Paul: My wife just related this story to me, when I was dating her she was in college and when someone in her dorm would order pizza, the pizza guy would come with 5 extra pizzas because they could always sell them immediately.

Leo: That´s interesting. Is there anything it can´t do?

Brad: I don´t think so.

Paul: Oh boy. What are we talking about?

Leo: What happened that suddenly changed this whole show just went off track. Did you know there are 60 thousand users testing Windows 10 for phones? Did you know that? He wrote the article folks.

Brad: So here´s the interesting thing about that article. I got these numbers and in those numbers were also that there were 2.8 million Windows insiders as well. Microsoft this week at Mobile World Conference confirmed the 2.8 million number that I had written about in that same article before they announced it, so to me that really gives credit instead of the numbers that I was passed along because it came from the same sheet is accurate. Yeah so it really just kind of backs up the information.

Paul: How many of those users do you think are using Lumia 635s? 58 thousand?

Brad: The thing is there´s a hundred thousand Microsoft employees right? Roughly and that number includes Microsoft employees. So I would imagine a significant number of those people are internal as well.

Leo: I do like seeing that though, that´s always encouraging when you get a lot of beta testers out there.

Brad: Well, specially for the number of phones that were.

Leo: Yeah, that´s all of them isn´t it?

Paul: Well no, no. In other words they only supported like wow.

Leo: That´s mean, I´m sorry.

Brad: You´re pushing Paul´s buttons.

Leo: It is a big percentage though, it´s not an insignificant percentage.

Brad: Well Paula and I were chatting when they announced the devices and I believe Paul´s words were I have 27 Windows phones at my house and not one is applicable to the program.

Paul: Right! How is it possible that not even one of these damn things will run.

Leo: My, my, my, my, my.

Paul: I did finally get it going on the 635.

Brad: Well that´s good.

Leo: So, I you want to keep a secret, you shouldn´t tell NASA apparently, yeah no, just don´t tell NASA what you´re up to. Apparently in this video of the Hololens where NASA talks about OnSight their software breakthrough for exploring Mars, about a minute fourteen in there´s a picture of that which shall not be named.

Brad: Yeah so Paul was there and he´ll back this up. When we got to try on the Hololens, they made us put everything we had in like a locked box.

Leo: You´d better call Saul, you had to put it all in post office box.

Paul: I thought that was the stupidest and inexcusable thing that they´d ever make me do, there was no point, we don´t want people to see a prototype. Why? What are you talking about? I was so confused by that.

Leo There´s  the thing, the thing you should not see.

Paul: So by the way, when you get tested for sleep apnea, this is exactly the thing they put on.

Leo: Well, one of the reasons they didn´t want you to take a picture is this is very, this is not what it´s going to look like, this is the prototype.

Paul: I know but that´s what makes the thing that they are going to sell look so awesome. You know, um, look this thing is a crazy harness, it´s full of parts that you can´t touch, you know, they were very protective of it. But, I, I never understood that. They were really goofy about it.

Brad: When I got sent the link with the thing in a tip I was like, this is hilarious, this is just like the Surface Mini being in their documentation. They tried very hard to keep everybody from taking a photo of it and then what do they do, they put it in one of their own videos.

Leo: Oh is that a Microsoft video? Not a NASA video?

Brad: Well it´s a Microsoft-NASA mashup high word or whatever you want to call it.

Leo: Presumably somebody at Microsoft saw it before it was released. Oh it´s alright! Who cares, it´s NASA! It´s supposed to look have wires coming off of it and look.

Brad: It is a cool feature, that was my favorite demo though of all of them.

Paul: Oh by far it was awesome.

Leo: I can´t wait.

Paul: I probably stressed this at the time. the thing that made it the most awesome for me was, I thought this was the dumbest thing I´d ever seen in my life, I was not interested in this and it was going to be dumb, and I was just going to go through it because what else am I going to do? I´m stuck here. And then I did it and I was like, oh my God this is awesome! It was awesome, and so I , yeah, I mean, it was just, defied expectations.

Leo: We talk a lot about the Oculus Rift and all that, and everybody talks about virtual reality, and that´s, you know, even in a lot of the news cycle for the last 2 years. But I´ve always thought in my mind, that´s not what I want. I want augmented reality, I don´t want virtual reality, I don´t want to seal myself off. Yeah immersive is great for gaming, there´s some useful things for immersive but I really love the idea, straight out of Daniel Suarez of a world where I´m still in the world, I see things on top of it, I get more information, I think that´s what we, first of all you´re more secure because you can look around.

Brad: So what´s interesting too, it´s exactly to your point, Leo, here, is everybody is going VR. Microsoft is going AR. Microsoft is either going to crush this market or they´re going to get blown by with everybody else going VR.

Leo: Although Google hedged their bets, because right after the Hololens came out, Google immediately made some moves in that direction.

Brad: Yeah, they said this is what, this is what Google Glass should be.

Paul: Oh, of course. You know, it was, one of the lesser demos in some ways but the demo where you kind of repair the electro circuit and you´ve got a guy up in the corner on video and he can see what you’re seeing so he can help you with it, I means that´s the future of education in some ways, just general education. People going to Youtube today to find out how they can bake a cake or fix electricity or whatever it is and imagine how different this experience would be, where it´s interactive, it´s a really great experience.

Brad: The thing that really changed my perspective of it, and this was like a really dumb moment, when we were doing the NASA Mars demo. So you´re sitting there and they can like map out areas that they not have holograms so you´re looking at a normal computer screen, and they said okay just drag your mouse off the screen and then your mouse just went in out, into the world, like into the room. Like it´s, your mouse could go anywhere, and then you begin to see like oh my gosh, you can, the whole room is now a desktop. It was really just incredible.

Paul: Yeah NASA´s going to go from like commodore 64 technology to this like completely futuristic star trek thing and it´s just incredible.

Brad: I hope, I´m hedging, but I´m hoping we see Build that give out dev units there. I think that would make a lot of sense there, they need apps, they need everything else. We already know they´re in production, they generally spend about a thousand bucks for the give away, so it´s, I think it´s within reason to hope for that.

Leo: I don´t know about you guys, I´m going to Build.

Brad: Well they sold out Build in like 10 minutes or whatever it was.

Leo: I know. it´s like Google I/O. Everybody wants to go and get the free stuff.

Brad: They´re finally fun to play with now. Microsoft´s got some stuff that´s really worth you know, building for once again.

Leo: I like what you said Brad, I think that that´s really critical. Everybody´s going VR, except Microsoft, they´re going the other way. That´s the most exciting time in technology when you see that happen, and I really feel that Microsoft chose the right horse.

Paul: When you see AR you realize how dumb VR is.

Leo: I thought it all along. I´ve been saying this all along. that´s what I want.

Brad: VR is very cheap to get into.

Leo: Maybe that´s it.

Brad: What is VR? It´s a display

Leo: A tool display in front of your eyes.

Paul: It´s okay. Look there are verticals where it´s going to make sense gaming being the obvious one, but i just don´t see it having that kind of mass success. You know the AR thing, Microsoft has these kind of videos, they´re fake, but this notion of you have like computer displays up in the wall that´s like an icon for different things, and you know you´re doing the cooking thing where you have the ingredients floating in space and all that stuff. Clearly this is the, you look at that and yes, this makes sense, this looks good, this is something people are going to want, it´s excellent. And suddenly, you have like a Darth Vader helmet on your head.

Leo: It´s just different things. VR is about immersion, there certainly is value in being immersive in an immersive experience.

Paul: Well if I want to throw up I´ll just.

Leo: Yeah, it does make you nauseous, AR does not. AR is, I think, the future of user interface, it´s something completely different, something you´ll wear more often than you would.

Paul: What I want to see them doing and I actually I thought when they announced this, as they were announcing it at the event we were at, what i thought this thing was going to be the hololens, was a ray of cameras that you would have to put in a room and what you were going to see was literally like a hologram you know, or some set up holograms, those icons on the wall I was sort of just describing could be something displayed by something in the room, like I didn´t get that it was like glasses and then it became more obvious. You know, I mean that stuff too it´s kind of a Minority Report thing, I think it´s Minority Report, one of those Tom Cruise future movies where he´s running by and they have ads on the wall that kind of display as he goes and they´re kind of customized to him. They don´t require a head set but there´s something occurring where it senses you and it knows it´s you and it throws it up on a wall. I think that is sort of an AR/ holographic type application, you know, thing, that will also be a big deal.

Leo: Could an AR lens like hololens, why couldn´t it be immersive? Couldn´t you just fill up the lens with stuff?

Brad: So one of the issues that, and I worry that the first generation devices are going to have this problem and the marketing oversells it a little bit. So, when you´re looking through hololens there are distinctive areas where there are not holographics so in your previews top and bottom and left and right, so there´s little screens you look through, and don´t get me wrong, it´s a great experience, but you never truly feel, even when you´re on Mars, you can still see on the side, you can still see the room.

Paul: The thing is, you are immersed, so you´re usually looking at the thing.

Leo: You´re psychologically immersed, if not literally.

Paul: Yeah, I mean the effect is impressive. It really does give you, I feel like I walked on Mars, it´s really impressive.

Leo: I´m so excited, take my money Microsoft!.

Paul: The solution to immersion may simply be those shutters that they put on horses.

Leo: Blankers, you just need blankers and it´s immersive.

Paul: Turn off the lights, maybe that´s all it is.

Brad: It´s really easy to see how they get there though right? They just make bigger screens. They just make ones that wrap around a little bit on your eye.

Paul: So it becomes old lady sunglasses.

Brad: Right. I´ll wear them, I´ll wear them to go to Mars, Venus.

Leo: I think it´s not farfetched to think that you´ll see people everywhere walking around all the time with these. In a way the Google Glass just didn´t, just didn´t do it.

Paul: You thought it was terrible people talking into the air because they had a bluetooth.

Leo: Wait till you see people going like this with their hands as thy´re walking and swiping and building a Minecraft thing as I´m going to work. Think about driving though all the additional information you could get, you would´t need a rear view mirror or even a screen, you just.

Paul: Leo, someday they´re going to pass a law that´s going to require you to wear an AR headset to drive a car.

Leo: i think so. We´re being facetious kids. See the other thing that happens then is all the VR folks, now there´s a war, it´s back to war. Why does technology do this?

Paul: It´s no war. Screw those guys!

Leo: Ha, ha, ha, we won. Microsoft shows off new Office features, what are those? And where? Was that at Mobile World Congress?

Paul: This one´s you Brad.

Leo: It´s all yours Mr. Neowin. Mr. Neopet.

Brad: Well so they just kind of showed off some of their new mobile applications, it was just kind of towards the beginning there and to be honest it was just kind of the evolution of what you´d expect. It was more along the lines of like hey Microsoft actually really is building out their Windows phone applications finally, and they´re going to be sweet, and they´re finally going to match the parity level for touch interactions like iOS and Android have had. So, I don´t know, they kind of use the 640 XL I think that was kind of their bigger point. they said hey we´ve got new hardware, let´s just kind of show what Office can do. And they just kind of went through some, lets´s see, they went through some Excel stuff, a little bit of Power Point, and it just kind of, I don´t know, it just kind of showed that there´s kind of movement in these areas finally because they had been kind of quiet on that front. So nothing too exciting, but at the same time for a nerd like me who loves the fact that Microsoft is actually still building things, it was exciting to see that word, powerpoint and excel are still moving forward. So it was just one of those caveats that might´ve gotten overlooked at the beginning of Mobile World Congress.

Leo: I think you buried the lead Paul Thurrott.

Paul: I agree.

Leo: Fable legends, free to play. What?

Paul: You know, you´ve heard the phrase bleeding a rock? Writing that post was like bleeding a rock. You know, I´m not into the fable games but I sort of understand how they´re a big deal.

Leo: I don´t want to get into, first of all we don´t have any cooperative gaming on the xbox one right?

Paul: i play Call of duty so I don´t even know what cooperative gaming means but, I guess the way i would describe this thing is.

Leo: You know when you´re both in the same room looking at one screen and you´re playing with each other?

Paul: Oh, that!

Leo: Fable legends is going to do that right? I could play.

Paul: Actually this is going to be the first multiplayer only version of fable and basically you´ll always be jumping into a game with 3 other people.

Leo: Can those other people be in the same room with me or do they have to be online?

Paul: I would have to learn something about the game to know the answer to that question.

Leo: For some reason I thought it was a cooperative game.

Paul: Oh you mean like 4 people together in a room.

Leo: Yeah, you know like Nintendo.

Paul: I mean there are, I mean Xbox has had split screen experiences and you can do.

Leo: 360 did but nothing on the Xbox one.

Paul: You create parties. Those people could be in the same room it doesn´t matter where they are.

Leo: But they have to be on their own device. Lisa wants to sit next to me on the sofa and play a game with me, I have one control, she has another, we´re looking at the same screen.

Paul: You have married the greatest woman in the world if what you just said is true.

Leo: I know! And then I had to say, there´s no game that does that.

Paul: So you´re saying that on the Xbox one there´s no game.

Leo: I have not found and if somebody has found a cooperative play game on the Xbox one, I´d be happy. We just go in the other room and we play Nintendo, we play Mario Kart 8.

Brad: No judgement.

Leo: That´s why Fable Legends seems so much more exciting, I´m so sad.

Paul: We´ll support cross platform gaming back in that, generating the show off.

Leo: That´s nice, they did talk about that.

Brad: That´ll be really nice.

Paul: You got to be careful with that. You don´t want Windows and Xbox playing Call of duty together.

Leo: No, it only works because it´s such a dopey game. And, this is I think, this is Brad´s.

Brad: Yeah, got to give the typical caveat. So this is still early on and it´s not the most exciting thing for some people, but for Paul and myself and well Leo if you play Xbox one, like, I´m a big destiny player, Microsoft is working on a hardcore gamer control for the Xbox one. And they´re currently trying to target E3 2015 for the release. Now, this project is still pretty early on and it´s caveat to the green light and as we saw with the service mini could be killed at the last second. But there´s a lot of companies out there, 3rd parties, Scuf is one of them that creates these modified controllers for the Xbox one and the little birds  in my ear are telling me that Microsoft is now going down this route as well, I don´t have too much else to go on at this time, but, kind of be on the lookout for that stuff. This comes from a pretty good  place and they kind of think of it is, I´m a big Top Gear fan so, like the casual controller will be like your Jeremy Clarkson and your Richard Hammond and the hardcore controller will be like a Stig version. It does the same kind of things but somehow it´s more geared towards the hardcore gamer who wants more precision, better feedback and, um, I think there is some room to improve that stuff specially in the triggers and the shoulder buttons, and that´s kind of what I´m hearing is that 2015 for E3 they´re kind of try to push for hardcore gamer controller for the Xbox one.

Leo: I, for one, am very excited.

Brad: Same here.

Leo: How about you? I mean, Paul, there´s the hardest core of them all Mr. Call of Duty, you must be excited.

Paul: As long as it doesn´t look like a PS4 controller I guess I´m okay.

Brad: Yeah it´ll be curious, I don´t think it´s going to be.

Leo: It´s going to be 108 key keyboard with a mouse is what it´s going to be.

Brad They just ship you a Logitech mx performance mouse. Here you go. With that fold double keyboard from Mobile World Congress.

Paul: The fact remains that if Microsoft sells an Xbox accessory I´ll buy it, so yeah.

Leo: And there´s going to be a preview program on the 360, although Paul, has to moan the fact that this is not, it´s not announced, this is some guys blog about it.

Paul: I just hate the way they do things, and then they don´t answer any questions. If you´re lucky enough to be selected, pay attention to your Xbox messages, what? What is this?

Leo: I got to say, I have mixed feelings about this.

Paul: So many avid fans would be so happy to join this thing and participate and they would give feedback and nope, that´s not how we do it. Yeah, it´s just irritating. So look, I live that they´re doing this, honestly this is like any technology transition. You need to go all the way back to Apple to the Mac or whatever, you know the people, the company making the products want to kind of forget about the old thing but the truth is that thing keeps selling and it´s doing very well and I would say just to be fair, the Xbox 360 has plenty of power left. I think a year into this new generation battle Microsoft realizes like we´re never going to beat the PS4 so, what they´re probably going to talk about a lot going forward is just Xbox you know. They have a way of not breaking out Xbox One and Xbox 360 sales as it is, and why should they? They´re all Xbox, why not make Xbox 360 better? This thing is an entry level Xbox, great. And so I´m all over this. I wish they had done this a year ago. It´s smart.

Brad: Specially after the launch too. I think we´ve all seen the video on Youtube where it says how many times they said TV during the launch of the Xbox One. And it´s just like a super cut of that. It´s good to see them finally getting back into what the actual console is for, it´s for gaming. The media stuff is great, like when you build your app, I can watch it back here, but I would not buy an Xbox One to watch Windows Weekly, I would buy it to play destiny or Call of Duty.

Leo: Actually, Technosquid in the chatroom says he´s already been invited to the Xbox 360 previews, so invites are going out. Get ready. Check your Xbox. And ladies and gentlemen, I´m so happy to announce a new head less deployment option for Windows server. There you go, nano server next step in our cloud journey, bla, bla, bla, la, la, la, deep refactoring, follow the server core pattern, and that´s all we have to say right?

Paul: I have zero messages in Xbox life, screw those guys.

Leo: Oh, the hell with it. That´s why we´re doing this story so you can check. Is the nano server, what is it? Is it something exciting? What is it?

Brad: This is a great Mary Jo Foley topic.

Leo: Yes, thank you. When Mary Jo comes back, we´ll talk about it.

Brad: It´s a , from what I understand it´s a more lightweight environment, much more controlled, less secure.

Paul: Yes, if you found Server Core to be too user friendly well we´ve got something for you baby.

Brad: Keep it limited, keep it locked down. that seems to be the crux of it and I´m sure somebody´s going to write me and say you missed out the key features, well that´s to the layman's term it is what it is.

Leo: Tell you what, tell you what I´d like to do. Let´s take a break and we´ll reassemble with the back of the book, our picks and all that stuff, tips. Brad, you want to do beer? Who wants to do the beer?

Brad: I can do beer, Paul, who have a beer pick?

Leo: Anybody wants to do the beer pick? We´ll do that as well, coming up in honor of Mary Jo Foley but first a word from HipChat, we´re big HipChat users here, it´s been really a great experience actually. HipChat, well at first it kind of looks like it might be instant messenger but it´s so much more than that. We first encountered it when we were, ha, ha, ha love this, go to HipChat.com they have a great sense of humor, Their website says, don´t work in the past, mmmm, yeah. This is a great, I wonder if we´re going to see a little bit of office, oh yeah look. They hired the guy, I love you Atlassian. HipChat my friends, It’s how we communicate with our web developers in Austin Texas, it´s instant messenger like, it´s a synchronize though, so they can put something there and we can respond to it later or simultaneously have a conversation. HipChat includes video chat, document sharing, screen sharing, it integrates with 57 services the developers love like GitHub, Jira, Zendesk, has all sorts of great little plug ins, of course there´s an API so you can extend it. It is just amazing. Email? You know it´s too slow, Meetings? God, let´s not have more meetings. And regular instant messenger just doesn´t have the features, by the way HipChat is also fun. HipChat has the fun of instant messaging but also the functionality of something much more. I want you to try it and we got a way to do it free, and I´m not just talking about the premium version, there is a version oh HipChat you can use forever free, but for the next 30 days you can get the full version including all the bonus features of video and screen sharing. You don´t need to use a credit card just go to HipChat.com/windowsweekly, sign up, click on start chatting, invite a few team members, it´s yours free for 30 days, no credit card necessary, and to kind of get the ball rolling here, if you´re listening live, even if you´re not maybe you can get in on this one, the first hundred people who sign up now will get 90 days free, 3 months free. HipChat, by the way, totally secure so you don´t have to worry about, you know, having a Sony pictures moment. 256 bit ssl the whole way, for everything, the whole content. HipChat.com/windowsweekly. It´s free. Try it today, for as long as 90 days, if you get in there right away. HipChat we love them. Alright, back at the book time with Paul Thurrott and filling in for Mary Jo Foley, Brad Sams today from Neowin.net, why don´t we give, let´s start with Paul, and give Brad a moment or two to find a beer he likes. Collect himself after the excitement.

Paul: Well Brad was just talking about the kind of game focus on the Xbox which I think is the correct focus, and tied to that interestingly is, over the past year they´ve taken all of the entertainment related perks out of Xbox live gold, and just made them available for everyone for free. So in the past you needed to have an Xbox live gold subscription to use Netflix or whichever, which I always thought was the craziest money grab in the history of video gaming. But the interesting side effect of that is that Microsoft still has Xbox live gold and so how do you make this thing more attractive to people? How do you get people to still pay for this subscription? Because once you take away all the entertainment features you basically have some matchmaking stuff for death, you know, for online gaming and it´s not really very specific. And so the way they´ve done it is there are a couple of versions, one that I talked about in the past, which is that every month they away free games, the games with gold program. Usually it´s one free game on Xbox one and 2 and Xbox 360 but that goes up and down every month or I should say could go up every month and never goes down. And you know, of course, we´re in March now, so there are some great new games out there to get, but in addition to games with gold they also have something called deals with gold so people who have an Xbox live gold subscription can save significant amounts of money, usually 50 to 75% or more on often what are triple A titles, and there are new deals every week and so this week we see things like, Assassin´s creed Unity, actually in my article I now see a typo there but it´s the newest Assassin´s creed game, is $41 dollars, it´s usually $60 bucks, so that´s actually not a huge deal. The Amazing Spiderman 2 is $30 dollars since it´s on Xbox One, and on the Xbox 360 because there are so many more games, an even wider range of games, including some that i kind of want and never played, want to play like Red Dead Redemption, Max Paine 3 is in there, LA Noir, The Amazing Spiderman I said already and so if you´re on Xbox it doesn´t matter which platform and you have an Xbox Live gold subscription make sure you pay attention to the stuff because it´s not just the games with gold which are free, but it´s also these deals with gold. These things can be seen on the website and they´re also available through your console.

Leo: And in some cases US only unfortunately we should mention.

Paul: In some cases but actually, yes but these, there are deals available around the world as well, this is like, in general. Yes, this is not a US only program, some games obviously are going to be region by region.

Leo: Nice, and I love your software pick because I use this, I´ve been using this for years, it´s so great.

Paul: I was really surprised I´d never picked this one before. It´s funny and I, I recently started using this again. There´s an application called Ninite that lets you basically check through a list of very common and popular web applications usually, download and install them all in a single whack. Back in the day I could´ve sworn that you would run this application and make those selections every single time you ran it, but the way it works now is you go to the Ninite website and you check off the apps you want, I would pick like Chrome and Firefox, I pick VLC player, Adobe reader, you know, whatever. And then you click download and what it downloads is a tiny application that includes a script that will install only those exact applications that you selected. You don´t have to make the selection ever again, unless you, obviously if you want to  change it. The thing that´s really neat about it, aside from the obvious that I already said, is that this thing happens, all these installs happen silently, you never have to check an ok box, or worry about additional extra downloads, you know some applications, little things you have to step through, it cleans everything up, it automates everything, it always grabs the latest versions, it´s just, it´s amazing. So when you think about the clean PC stuff that I´ve been talking about for the past couple of months and you think about, I´m going to clean a pc or I got a new pc and I´ve got to get some pc up and running for the first time, for me this thing represents about 75% of what I have to install. There´s 1 or 2 web apps, you know app I get from the web that aren´t in here and it´s probably because they´re not scriptable and can´t be cleaned up, and then there´s a couple of big applications that I get elsewhere, Office 2013 obviously I get through Office 365 and then also Adobe and Photoshop. I mean, this is the majority or has the majority of what I blast into a new PC, and it just let´s me do it in like one click, I don´t have to go to each product´s website. And it´s free, it´s just awesome.

Leo: It´s just great, and you know we talk about clean installs a lot. And you also just want to get it up and running fast with a new system, this is just so great. Love it.

Paul: This is a great part of making that process much quicker and I think for a lot of people who dread reinstalling windows and going through the whole thing. Windows reinstalls in 10 or 15 minutes now, you do this, you install Office, Photoshop.

Leo: And it always gets the latest versions which is also nice, that´s why it´s good that it does this as a script it´s just downloading.

Paul: It´s amazing.

Leo: Yeah, Ninite.com

Paul: Sounds like a fake metal from a Star Trek movie, you know, the ninites are coming.

Leo: Brad, we´re going to let you pick something.

Brad: Yeah, so here is an app that has not gotten much attention. I use it quite frequently, an app called Dart. It´s kind of hard to see here, it´s down at the bottom, I don´t want to open it. But what Dart does and you can easily find it at the Windows Phone store, is it allows secure communication on Windows Phone, specifically texting and picture images. So what happens is, when you create your account you get an encryption key that only you know, and it´s distributed encryption chat on Windows Phone and it´s a great very easy to use, not a whole lot of features but it just gets the job done. And I got turned on to it by a Microsoft employee about a year and a half ago and I´ve actually been using it quite frequently just for various reasons. For example like my wife and I, we chat, we were doing our taxes and I needed her social security number, and so we use Dart to send it back and forth. Yeah and it´s very, very secure, so if you lose your key, you´re in a lot of trouble. You´ll have to go and create a new profile and start all over again. And it´s not like SnapChat things don´t disappear but you can pass and protect your account and it´s just a great little app, it never really got much attention but for when you need something like that it´s fantastic and it´s only on Windows Phone, so.

Paul: I´m assuming it doesn´t use the 512 bit encryption that was used by open ssl from 20 years ago.

Brad: No, I believe the encryption is called like super fish or something.

Leo: Yeah, there you go, it´s got that kommodia password. Good, good tip. I don´t know how to find it though.

Paul: I changed the notes to have a link, so, the way to find this would be to type, if you search just type Dart and then site, Windows Phone.com and it´s just Dart.

Leo: Dart, it doesn´t have, it´s Dart from the social section, it´s just dart. The iron pigeon protocol, yeah baby. What else you got for use?

Paul: The Iron Pigeon, so I assume that´s related to pigeon messaging from back in the day.

Leo: It´s spelled differently so I don´t think it is. It´s spelled like the bird not the.

Brad: I don´t know, somebody who´s a little bit more tech savvy might be able to dig into that, but I know from personal experience that if you lose your encryption key you´re in some trouble and you´re going to be starting over because I did that. i wrote it down quickly.

Leo: It was called crypt chat, you might´ve used it as crypto chat before, that was a couple of years ago. I´d like to know whenever you use encryption you kind of want to know what are they doing? Who are they? What are they doing? It´s my biggest problem unfortunately with Windows Phone is the weird 3rd. party apps like Authenticator, I don´t want to use some 3rd.party Authenticator.

Paul: Well those are Microsoft.

Leo: I know, I know, but there´s like 800 other ones and it´s hard to find the Microsoft ones. Yeah you don´t find them.

Paul: Often times those come up first.

Leo:  Now ladies and gentlemen Mr. Brad Sams will demonstrate his amazing balance, I don´t know.

Brad: I´m sitting here, where is this going?

Paul: You didn´t tell him there is a hazing process?

Leo: Yeah, He has to stand on one foot, no. Who wants to do the beer pick of the week, this week?

Paul: Well I´ve got one but then if you want to add one that´s absolutely fine. So, I´ve talked a lot about Blue Hill´s Brewery in fact you can see their posters there on the floor behind me. These are my buddies in Canton next door. The thing that is the most notable about these guys, aside from just the quality of the beer that they make, is that they make a lot of ipa style beer that is not incredibly hoppy. To me this is just amazing because I really don´t like over hopped beers but my absolute favorite beer is one of theirs and it´s called fortis pagus and they do a new rendition of it every year. It´s a barleywine beer which is kind of an unusual style, it´s a winter, temporary availability type beer. best probably wine beer I ever had. The funny thing is, in writing about this, barleywine beers tend to be very almost can be syropy, they´re fruity and sugary and they´re always high in alcohol. The reason I picked this now because I probably picked this beer before, midstream this winter they actually came up with a new version of which they´ve never done before,  and we just grabbed a bunch of that last weekend and it´s actually even better than it was before. And they have some cask beers that are private that I´ve tried , this is bringing it closer to those things, it´s very interesting. But, I looked up, What is a barleywine beer? So a lot of beers have a specific definition of what makes this beer whatever it is, I guess it´s obvious in retrospect, but from a flavor profile a barley wine beer is really just a lot like a Belgium triple, it´s dark, it´s often syrupy and fruity and sugary like I said. But the reason they´re called barley wine beers is because they´re high in alcohol, that´s the only reason and they can use different yeast and all that kind of stuff through American style, they tend to be hopper but there´s Europe, English styles. But the reason they´re called barley wine beer is that it´s a combination of barley which is beer and wine which is higher in alcohol than beer and they are beers that are as high in alcohol as wine. That´s the only reason they have this name. It has nothing to do with taste or color or texture or anything like that, it´s literally, we´re going to make a beer, barley, that has the same amount of alcohol in it as wine, it´s a barley wine beer. That´s why they´re called barley wine beer.

Leo: Tasty! Beef barley soup, does it taste like that?

Paul: No, it does not. It´s not like lentils. No. I, I this beer is wonderful.

Leo: Is it a trade of Windows people that they´re big beer drinkers?

Brad: Yes, we have to. It comes with the job.

Paul: Alcoholism runs high.

Leo: So Brad you too, like your beer.

Brad: I do. I like many alcoholic things.

Leo: Alright. What do you got for us?

Brad: So, there´s a brewery here in Cincinnati called Rhinegeist and they make an IPA called truth, and it´s just again, I believe it´s locally made they have Cinci made all over their apparel and their cans, so i´ve never seen it anywhere else.

Leo: That´s just to fool you.

Brad: Yeah, it´s the tourist trap in the town that I live in. But it´s an ipa, much like Paul did. And they say it has a tropical fruit aroma with grapefruit and mango notes. It´s actually quite delicious and it´s something that I pick up pretty frequently actually, I have a couple upstairs as we speak and now I kind of want one.

Leo: So I should´t be concerned about the skull on the front?

Brad: Uh, no.

Leo: Okay, nothing to worry about here. That actually looks quite good.

Brad: Yeah, it ranks pretty well on beer advocate as well, so. It´s delicious, it really is. Cincinnati isn´t really known for having their independent pub but we´ve got I think 5 or 6 independent breweries right downtown.

Paul: They look like they have little sleestak toppers on them.

Leo: I know, if you can, get the featured cans if you can.

Paul: That must be like the pull they give out to restaurants and bars.

Leo: Yes, oh that´s the pull, okay.

Brad: Yes, that´s the beer tap.

Leo: Truth from Rhinegeist. Our beer pick of the week. We got 2 for you. I love it.

Paul: See Mary Jo goes away and we start talking more about beer, who saw that one coming?

Leo:  Thank you Brad Sams for being here, we appreciate it, neowin.net

Brad: No problem, it´s my pleasure.

Leo: He´s on the twitter @bdsams. Mr. Paul Thurrott of course is at the brand new thurrott.com, his new home on the internet and a great place to go to get all that Thurrott goodness you´re used to. Half the calories. We do Windows weekly every Wednesday, 11:00 a.m. Pacific, 2:00 p.m. Eastern time. Remember the time changes on Sunday so next week, it´s still going to be 11:00 a.m. Pacific, still going to be 2:00 p.m. Eastern, but now it´s going to be 18:00 UTC.

Paul: I´ll email Tony, I have to fly to Colorado next Wednesday, so I might have to do the show later in the day.

Leo: That´s not going to work. I don´t know. Scheduling might be difficult. Yeah, um, we´ll confab.

Paul: This came up very suddenly.

Leo: No, it´s fine. And of course Mary Jo´s not here, so.

Paul: Which makes it a little weird.

Brad: We can just have 2 hours of Leo talking.

Leo: Nope, just saying I hate Windows, I hate Windows, I hate Windows, I hate Windows.

Paul: The show seems a little bit different this week.

Leo: Yeah, possibly we could do it at another time, I promise, there´s all these other shows you know now. But we might be able to, we move Before you buy out of the 3:30 slot, so we might be able to do it from like from 3 to 4 something like that. Pacific. Something like that, anyway, I´ll check with the powers that be. Actually we could flip you with twig. Twig is at 1pm nominally right now. Would that work for you?

Paul: I think I would not quite be at the beginning. I get in at 11:30 but by the time I get up to the hotel it would be 1, actually that´s 12 right?

Leo: Yeah, so you might make it.

Paul: I might just make that. I could probably do that.

Leo: Let me see with Jeff and the other guys if we can do twig in your slot next week and we can do you in their slot, or a little later. I think that would probably be the easiest thing, we´ll be in touch.

Paul: I´m emailing Alex and Tony right now.

Leo: Thank you. Thank you Brad, thank you Paul, thank you all for watching again. Next week might be at a different time, watch the calendar, but normally 11:00 a.m. Pacific .  2:00 p.m. Eastern. on Wednesdays. 18:00 is the new time UTC. for Windows Weekly.  You can also get on demand versions if you get confused, if I get confused, just go to Twit.TV/ww , Youtube.com/windowsweekly , or subscribe on iTunes or the Xbox store or your podcast app, you´ll get every episode that way, thanks for being here, we´ll see you next time on Windows weekly!