Windows is Now an App for iPhones, iPads, Macs, and PCs (theverge.com) 57
Microsoft has created a Windows App for iOS, iPadOS, macOS, Windows, and web browsers. From a report: The app essentially takes the previous Windows 365 app and turns it into a central hub for streaming a copy of Windows from a remote PC, Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365, Microsoft Dev Box, and Microsoft's Remote Desktop Services.
Microsoft supports multiple monitors through its Windows App, custom display resolutions and scaling, and device redirection for peripherals like webcams, storage devices, and printers. The preview version of the Windows App isn't currently available for Android, though. The Windows App is also limited to Microsoft's range of business accounts, but there are signs it will be available to consumers, too. The sign-in prompt on the Windows App on Windows (yes that's a mouthful) suggests you can access the app using a personal Microsoft Account, but this functionality doesn't work right now.
Microsoft supports multiple monitors through its Windows App, custom display resolutions and scaling, and device redirection for peripherals like webcams, storage devices, and printers. The preview version of the Windows App isn't currently available for Android, though. The Windows App is also limited to Microsoft's range of business accounts, but there are signs it will be available to consumers, too. The sign-in prompt on the Windows App on Windows (yes that's a mouthful) suggests you can access the app using a personal Microsoft Account, but this functionality doesn't work right now.
MS Inception: An App to Run Windows Inside Windows (Score:5, Funny)
But wait, it's not available for Android? So, in a classic Microsoft move, they're making sure even their apps have compatibility issues. It's like Skype and Internet Explorer had a baby, and they named it 'Exclusivity'.
And oh, the sign-in tease for personal accounts – classic Microsoft, giving us a taste of the future, only to say, 'Just kidding, it's for business only.' It's like they're channeling their inner Clippy: 'It looks like you're trying to sign in with a personal account. Would you like help switching to a business one?'
Comparing this to previous services, it's like Windows 365 went on a date with Azure Virtual Desktop and decided to adopt Microsoft Dev Box's features. The family photo must be quite something – a perfect blend of confusion and ambition.
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Blue Screen of Death
We need new cheap jokes. This really isn't a problem except for bad hardware or bad driver software for hardware.
I honestly cannot recall TSing a stop error and it not end up being one of these things.
Re: MS Inception: An App to Run Windows Inside Win (Score:2)
The only reason we no longer have BSODs is that Microsoft made the machine just reboot instead of displaying one. Is that progress?
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I got it from a bad Windows OS update. Well, not really, it was a frozen black screen. But it made me boot into safe mode and go back to the last known good point.
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There was a time not long ago when Windows had a stranglehold on the market. The US DOJ even brought charges of a monopoly against Microsoft [wikipedia.org]. But the monopoly seemingly crashed under its own weight and doesn't exist anymore.
Because Microsoft did stupid things like buying Nokia and forcing them to use Windows. And Microsoft bought Skype with No Plan. You know, dumbshit like that.
Re: MS Inception: An App to Run Windows Inside Win (Score:3)
I think MS still has well over 90% of the desktop/laptop market tied up, the rest being shared largely with MacOS and, to a very small extent, Linux - please tell me, at what point did the Microsoft "monopoly" collapse?
I haven't looked into the article, but I suspect the reason Android was not considered as a target platform was because of the extreme variability of Android hardware (CPU/Mem-wise) compared to Apple's new M1, M2, and now M3 CPUs and fast processors in their iPads.
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Collapse is a strong word, but OSX along with Chrome, and the mobile OS' have clearly cut into Windows marketshare over the years.
Re: MS Inception: An App to Run Windows Inside Win (Score:5, Informative)
For desktops (source: Statista):
Windows - 69
MacOS - 21
ChromeOS - 3
Other Linux - 3
Other - 4
Overall (source: Statcounter):
Android - 37
Windows - 31
iOS - 17
MacOS - 9
Chrome OS - 2
Other - 4
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I’m curious about the “other” category in desktops.
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There are weird linux and android derivatives for desktop in some countries that aren't really linux or android as far as I know. Red Star OS for example is a North Korean OS that is sorta kinda Linux on desktop, sorta kinda Android on mobile.
I would guess it's at least in part these operating systems.
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On modern desktop in any meaningful numbers? Unlikely. At least country-specific OS packages are going to be installed on tens to hundreds of thousands of desktop machines meant for bureaucrats in that region. OS/2 is mainly what, ATMs?
Re: MS Inception: An App to Run Windows Inside Win (Score:4, Interesting)
I think MS still has well over 90% of the desktop/laptop market .. please tell me, at what point did the Microsoft "monopoly" collapse?
The point when a lot of people stopped using a Desktop or Laptop as their primary computing experience. Casual and business users still use Desktops and Laptops for fewer and fewer purposes; more and more is replaced with Smart phones, Tablets, and Chromebooks. The Windows App is not the move of an innovator, but a company trying to find a place for their major product before it's too late.
They have a receding Monopoly inside a shrinking market. In regards to the desktop market... it's like Dr. Crusher's experience after the warp bubble experiment - they're the master of a universe that is shrinking.
Re: MS Inception: An App to Run Windows Inside Win (Score:4, Insightful)
please tell me, at what point did the Microsoft "monopoly" collapse?
Likely at some point before Windows became an app for iPadOS.
I remember seeing something about how Microsoft sponsored some televised event or events, NFL football or something, and as part of the sponsorship the people on screen were to use Windows Surface tablet computers in prominent ways. This didn't go well because the on screen talent kept calling the tablets an "iPad" even though they were clearly not Apple products. The word "iPad" has, at least to the people in the TV program, become a genericized word for any tablet computer. That shows the Microsoft monopoly on portable computers has been broken, assuming it ever existed in the first place.
It used to be that "computer" and "Windows" was nearly synonymous in our language, Windows was a genericized word to a point. That doesn't hold any more. I've seen people run Windows on Apple hardware before, a trivial task when Apple was using Intel processors, because Apple makes quality hardware and a computer without Windows was viewed as a "toy" or for some niche purpose. It looks like now that Microsoft has to go where the users are by offering Windows for iPad than expect the users to come to Microsoft by default because of their hold on the market. People don't need Microsoft any more, so now Microsoft has to actually put some work into remaining relevant for the first time in a long time.
One sign of the collapse of the Microsoft monopoly was the shift away from Microsoft formatted files as the default means of information exchange. If something wasn't a Word or PowerPoint file then people didn't know what to do with it, now people trade PDF and HTML files instead and think nothing of it. I don't know what people do for spreadsheets today, I don't deal with such things often, so Excel may have a kind of monopoly there still.
Giving a single point on when Microsoft lost its monopoly position is like giving a single point for the fall of the Roman Empire. Rome wasn't built in a day and it didn't fall in one day either, it was a series of events and any one of which could be considered the point at which the empire fell. Setting the point on the loss of the monopoly would require defining what constitutes a monopoly in fine detail, and I doubt there would be universal agreement on that.
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It still has a stranglehold on the market, just people care more about phones now.
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This is just Microsoft's version of Citrix Workspace which has existed for more than 20 years. I remember when the first iPad came out, I posted about being able to use it for something useful by streaming a Windows desktop on it.
The difference with Citrix being that you have the option of streaming Linux and using secure browser among all the other apps they've built to enable almost zero trust at the hardware level.
Microsoft and Citrix have been working together on this for quite a while, so this was al
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The Remote Desktop App has existed for a while, and allows you to run Windows remotely on other devices.
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The Remote Desktop App has existed for a while, and allows you to run Windows remotely on other devices.
Yes, but that required the end user to have a Windows computer on the far end to receive the RDP request. This service is essentially Microsoft hosting that Windows computer in Azure on the user's behalf.
The concern is that Microsoft will decide it's not worth hosting the Windows desktop anymore, leaving users with an RDP client and nothing to connect to. Keep in mind that the home versions of Windows don't enable RDP hosting, so users would need a Pro or Server version of Windows to take up the slack *and*
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The concern is that Microsoft will decide it's not worth hosting the Windows desktop anymore, leaving users with an RDP client and nothing to connect to.
That's a general threat of any "software as a service".
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Just advertise it as, "Windows - The Game", now available for Apple devices.
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Just advertise it as, "Windows - The Game", now available for Apple devices.
A game which nobody wins? What fun!
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So it's like ET [bbc.com]?
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I thought the point was that they also provide the computer on the other end, for a price, of course.
The regular RDC still requires you to provide the computer on the other end.
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"Finally, a way to experience the thrill of a Windows update on your iPhone – because who wouldn't want that? "
Former Windows Phone users obviously.
Both of them.
Windows: Endgame (Score:3)
*This* is the "final" version of Windows.
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That's the end goal, of course. Microsoft wants you to rent Windows from them. No more paying $130 for Windows Home. It will become $19.99 per month in perpetuity. If you stop your payments, you lose all your data. The ass rape for Windows Professional and Windows Server will be ever more brutal than it is now.
$32.00/mo for 2 vCPU 4 GB RAM 64 GB Storage (Score:3)
$32.00/mo for 2 vCPU 4 GB RAM 64 GB Storage.
if you want to game that may be like $200-$1000/mo to get the needed gpu / cpu / ram / disk.
Re: $32.00/mo for 2 vCPU 4 GB RAM 64 GB Storage (Score:2)
You want to 'game' with a virtual machine across the public internet?
In the name of God, why?
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Because if done decently you can play 99% of the games out there without needing $2-3K worth of hardware investment up front? The only games that may suffer are super twitch FPS titles, and even then likely only at super competitive levels. And if you are gaming at those levels you will have your own dedicated rig with all the latest bells and whistles. So you aren't the target audience.
Stadia was literally a shining example of this before google shut it down, which is still a damn shame. Especially for meg
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once can do that quite easy under 700 bucks, sure its not going to be 4K 120Hz maxed out settings with raytracing while never dropping a frame but you can get pretty damn close
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1: Why bother to play a game if you have to lower your graphics quality to the basement just to play it, and even then will likely have framerates consistently dip below 60FPS causing stutters? The only advantage of the cheaper PC is no internet connection is needed to play games... if you can find any modern games that DON'T phone home and / or require some kind of internet connection anyways.
Older games that don't require connections have a lot smaller hardware requirement lists, so likely wouldn't benefi
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there's a huge range between bottom basement and 4k 120Hz
the real world says all new games are limited by current consoles, which is powered by a laptop based APU from a few years ago, so yea its not that fucking hard. When we are talking bottom basement, hell cyberpunk can run medium settings at 1080p on a core2 and geforce 1050, that's like a free computer with a 40$ GPU
get real
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>talking about COMPUTER gaming
>Consoles blah blah blah
Oh, you can run medium settings now, on a game that is 2-3 generations old, and has had three years of optimization? Sign me the fuck up! Oh, wait, I played it (and many other games from the same time period) at max settings 4K 60FPS for $14 a month. I could have played at 1080P 60FPS for FREE.
Especially since you claim it for a card that wasn't supported when the game first came out to even run "low" settings, at 30FPS. And on a CPU that is 7+ gen
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We can only hope.
Smuggling Windows phone? (Score:2)
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Really!? It seems like you might have been the only one.
I never even touched a windows phone. I happen to use an iphone (and have since I went 'smart') but maybe not for next phone. I'll have to talk to some reverse-switcher friends.
What did you like about the winphone? What do you miss about it?
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What did you like about the winphone? What do you miss about it?
They had very good (for a smartphone) UI with live tiles that allowed you to access a lot of information at a glance. You could also configure live tiles to display on the lock screen. So such things like weather could be looked up without unlocking your phone. Yes, now most phones also do that now.
Also, Win10 phone was really good at granular permissions and working when these were denied. For example, maps would work offline and without GPS enabled.
They also had full drive encryption by allowing bitloc
will apple try to enforce the rule that xbox games (Score:2)
will apple try to enforce the rule that xbox games have where each game needed to be it's own app on the store?
but doing that may just make the EU crack down even more on them over the app store rules.
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apple forced each remote game to be it's own app (Score:2)
apple forced each remote game to be it's own app and not into say one app called xbox remote play.
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I couldn't be more thrilled by this excellent news (Score:2)
"Windows is Now an App for iPhones, iPads, Macs..."
What fabulous news! Because having your privacy raped by only one multinational corporation at a time just isn't enough.
This is news? (Score:2)
Why in Hell would anybody put Windows on phone? (Score:2)
Most people reading Slashdot today were not around to remember all the illegal things Microsoft did to gain market dominance, their too young.
Remember DrDos? Office97 not writing Office95 format, Browser in OS. FUD?
Now they suck as much "anonymous" data from you as possible.
If people learned more about Microsoft's history, they won't mod me down.
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Most people reading Slashdot today were not around to remember all the illegal things Microsoft did to gain market dominance, their too young.
This is /. not reddit. 99% of the users here are old enough to have complained about Edison and his stupid lightbulbs replacing perfectly fine oil and gas lamps.
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Hey, I resent that comment!
I'm old enough to remember thinking that the new fangled coal gas lamps in houses were a bad idea because they didn't smell as nice as beeswax candles!
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Going for gold (Score:3)
..in the olympics of bad ideas
A browser is NOT a suitable OS
A phone is NOT a suitable substitute for a computer
Each tool has its place
On desktop (Score:1)
On desktop we call that rdp.