Windows 11 Announcement

Things I liked:

  • Snap Layouts, Snap Groups and Desktops
  • Native Android support via Amazon Appstore
  • “Commerce Engine”
  • UI changes

Things I disliked:

  • Teams being intrusive as Skype (lol)
  • “Widgets” panel

I actually liked this announcement. It brings parity to current-day expectations in operating systems. Sure, it breaks what you’re used to at some points, but isn’t that the usual?

Either way, MS has always wanted to target both traditional and touch interfaces, they have to make their UX changes count. What matters to me is that it stays dense enough without sacrificing functionality while also being usable when you’re using touch or a mouse. Microsoft has the potential to get this right, and with the right amounts of patience, you could already do so with Windows 10.

The Commerce Engine stuff is an interesting curveball they’ve thrown here when you think about the Epic v. Apple trial. Just like AOSP, it’s in MS' best interests to open up their system to accommodate other vendors that can maintain their own storefronts. I wonder if third-parties will really use this, because I hope it turns out well.

Oh Teams. Reminds me of Skype, and that one amuses me because they bought that one with a lot of money and it just…. died. MS kept adding it by default and made it annoying as heck too. But hey, Teams became hugely successful and now they’re deciding to replace it with this.

This is “minor”, but I really just hate MS trying to feed apps that I don’t want, and they make it especially annoying to shut up. If they treat Teams the same way they did with Skype, it’ll be the first thing I’ll disable on Windows. That said, Teams is a breath of fresh air from Microsoft, and I hope they keep improving it to stay up top just like their other newer approaches to software, like VSCode.

(FaceTime doesn’t get this hate from me on Apple because—it isn’t annoying! Simple as that! If Teams hides on my system tray eating memory while doing nothing, I will kill it just like Skype.)

Finally, I’m not excited with the widgets panel. It’s like MacOS' implementation of it in Big Sur and it just stays hidden and forgotten. Both companies should just follow what Android did and place widgets at the homescreen/Desktop. That way, I’ll actually have time seeing the widgets and appreciate the slideover panel better.

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