Microsoft’s finest and worst of 2024, not surprisingly, centered round AI. When Microsoft was attempting to power Copilot upon us, it didn’t go so effectively. However when it used AI to boost what was already working, the outcomes have been rather more profitable.
For the previous few years (2021, 2022, and 2023) we’ve recapped what I name Microsoft’s wins, fails, and WTF moments: Microsoft’s highs, lows, and the moments the place you questioned what on the planet that this firm was as much as.
We’re not going to try to piece collectively the corporate’s enterprise technique (Azure and Copilot, principally). As a substitute, we’re sticking to the enjoyable stuff: Floor, Sport Move, and the insanity that’s Microsoft’s AI. In case you’re upset, write us a nasty e-mail after which use Copilot to rewrite it in a “skilled” tone. We’ll get to it…someday.
Home windows on Arm: WIN
After I reviewed the Microsoft Surface Pro 11th Edition this previous June, powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon X Elite, I examined the applying compatibility, too. Sure apps like Slack, Google, Drive, VPNs, and a few video games have all both refused to run or just struggled, whereas the expertise of utilizing an outdated printer on a Snapdragon X platform simply hasn’t been all that nice.
However by the autumn, Google Drive had been ported to Arm. Slack runs flawlessly. VPNs together with Nord now run natively on Arm. AMD and Intel provide full x86 compatibility, after all, and I can’t see PC gaming migrating to Arm for fairly a while — except Nvidia delivers on a rumored Arm chip, probably. I nonetheless see myself hauling out an x86 laptop computer if I must print one thing on my outdated Brother printer, however the Home windows on Arm ecosystem seems to be increasingly more like the future of productivity PCs. Proper now, my every day driver is the Arm-powered Surface Laptop, even with an Intel Lunar Lake laptop computer sitting on my shelf.
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You truly listened! You probably did one thing about it! Bravo, Arm ecosystem. Whether or not you find yourself successful or not, competitors is among the strongest market forces accessible. And we’ve all benefited.
Microsoft Recall: WTF
It’s exhausting to name Microsoft’s Recall something however a fiasco, nonetheless it will definitely performs out. Recall was imagined to be the one characteristic that drove customers and companies alike to Copilot+ PCs and Home windows 11’s 2024 Replace. I liked the concept, although I identified it will gobble storage by the truckload. Privacy advocates freaked out. Recall met with delay after delay whereas the idea was reworked to incorporate opting out and the ability to remove Recall entirely.
As a substitute, Microsoft ended the 12 months by seeding developer builds to both Snapdragon X Elite-powered PCs or (in December) PCs powered by Intel Lunar Lake/AMD Ryzen AI 300 PCs. Surprisingly, Recall form of pale from public view whereas the vacation season ramped up.
Mark Hachman / IDG
Microsoft seems to have completed an honest job making Recall opt-in. In my Recall hands-on, although, I discovered Recall’s crime was inconsistency: It could snapshot some issues, and never others. That left me not sure of whether or not I needed to rely upon it or not. At this level, “who is aware of” ought to be Recall’s slogan.
Home windows 11 2024 Replace: FAIL
Between the 4 Microsoft Home windows Insider launch channels, plus the differing timelines for each Home windows on Arm (June, with the discharge of the Floor Laptop computer 7 and Floor Professional eleventh Version) and x86 (October, with launch of the Windows 11 2024 Update) and the various timelines of particular person Home windows apps, this 12 months has been a nightmare so far as understanding what’s popping out and when. And that even assumes Microsoft holds to the timetables.
Now, after dictating that customers completely should adhere to the Home windows 11 {hardware} necessities, Microsoft is now publishing guides to upgrade to Windows 11 on unsupported {hardware}? Between that and the consumer version of its Extended Security Updates plan for Home windows 10, it looks like Microsoft is starting to panic.
Floor Professional (2024): WIN
Microsoft’s Floor Professional eleventh Version has had over a dozen iterations to get it proper, so the truth that the Home windows pill succeeded isn’t shocking. Right here’s the best way I see it: The Surface Pro 9 (5G), its predecessor, was an Arm pill with a Qualcomm Snapdragon SQ3 chip inside that carried out effectively when working Microsoft’s core apps. This 12 months’s superb Surface Pro 11th Edition continues to broaden the 9’s competencies into extra mainstream apps.
Mark Hachman / IDG
This pill wasn’t excellent — the OLED show wants tweaking, and the brand new Wi-fi Flex Professional keyboard supplied possibly an excessive amount of vary? However if you happen to’re the kind of one who prefers a Home windows pill, the Floor Professional delivered. Even the occasional app incompatibilities have acquired immediate consideration, which was refreshing.
Floor Laptop computer 7: WIN
Due to Microsoft’s unexpectedly compressed evaluate schedule, I didn’t have an opportunity to check out the Floor Laptop computer 7 till after my colleague Matt Smith praised it to the skies. I believe he’s proper. For now, the Floor Laptop computer 7 is my every day driver, if solely as a result of the unique Floor Laptop computer Studio might have crapped out on me.
For me, 2024 was the 12 months that producers gave up on supplying charging ports at press occasions, that means that hauling round a power-sipping laptop computer was a should. Proper now, the Floor Laptop computer 7 provides the perfect mixture of lengthy battery life, an important display screen, and a cushty keyboard. Do I need to use one thing with complete x86 compatibility? I might, however the Asus “Lunar Lake” laptop computer available is just a bit too laggy proper now. For basic workplace work, the Floor Laptop computer 7 has been a star.
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Sport Move tiers: WTF
My colleague Michael Crider summed it up neatly: Microsoft’s Game Pass just got Microsoft 365’d. What was as soon as a comparatively understandable two tiers of gaming goodness now’s primarily 4, or 5, and now some plans give you free video games, and others don’t. I’m simply fortunate that I’ve gathered factors in Microsoft Rewards over the previous few years and don’t have to consider it.
Floor Studio 2+, RIP: FAIL
Nobody beloved the Floor Studio’s inexplicable alternative of cell elements, however folks fell exhausting for its mammoth, swiveling touchscreen that invoked pure technolust in whoever seen it. And now Microsoft has discontinued it.
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Farewell, Floor Show. We weren’t the primary to ask for it, however we gained’t be the final. What a possibility, now misplaced.
Microsoft Copilot: FAIL
Wait, the foundational AI instrument that Microsoft reoriented its total firm round is a failure? From a client perspective, sure, it’s.
Copilot is now an app, and a crappy one at that. Copilot’s angle, fortunately, has developed from a prissy assistant to one thing a bit extra easy, however gone too are the choices to set the tone as inventive or informative. It’s simply not particularly useful. Bing has additionally eliminated Copilot-driven outcomes from its Bing outcomes pages, and I can’t determine whether or not that was pushed by person backlash or as a possibility to avoid wasting cash. Copilot can’t even management your PC any extra.
Mark Hachman / IDG
What’s Copilot at this level? Is it nothing greater than a enterprise subscription, Copilot Pro, which is already being bundled into some consumer plans as a result of it may well’t promote? Whereas it’s most likely truthful to say that Microsoft remains to be determining who will use Copilot and for what functions, “innovations” like Copilot Vision simply go to indicate that Microsoft appears to be reinventing options that Copilot supplied beforehand, free of charge. I’d wish to say that I “get” Copilot, however proper now it’s only a sticker slapped on no matter Microsoft desires to promote you subsequent.
HoloLens 2, RIP: FAIL
The HoloLens has been successfully lifeless for years. Nonetheless, Microsoft confirmed to UploadVR that it’s now actually lifeless as a business product, even because the U.S. Military continues to futz round with the militarized HoloLens IVAS. Even when the HoloLens is lifeless, Microsoft is teaming up with Meta and the Meta Quest 3/3S to stream Windows to them.
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The unique debut of the HoloLens was one of many best demos I’ve ever seen. If solely Microsoft might have gotten it proper.
Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024: FAIL
I’m not a flight simulator fan, however Microsoft’s Flight Simulator 2020 felt like a meditative tour of a world I might by no means go to, particularly throughout the pandemic. Its actual power was that Microsoft got down to create a “digital twin” of the actual world.
Flight Simulator 2024 takes that to a different stage, and that’s not all the time nice. Microsoft solely hundreds 50GB of information onto your PC, regardless that it shoots for a digital Earth that’s as photorealistic as potential, all the way down to particular person automotive site visitors and even animals. That leaves tons of information to be streamed from Microsoft’s servers, which buckled under the load. (I barely made it out of the launch display screen, myself.)
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Sure, the result is apparently close to phenomenal. However for me, MSFS2024‘s expertise didn’t impress, particularly as studies say simply taking part in the sport sucks up 81GB of information per hour. For gamers with knowledge caps, that makes MSFS2024 just about an inconceivable proposition.
Microsoft Copilot+ PCs: WTF
A brand new processor, a brand new Home windows characteristic replace, a flagship Home windows characteristic — the entire planets seemingly aligned for a brand new, powerhouse PC branding initiative? Nicely, Recall bombed. PCs with Intel’s Lunar Lake and AMD’s Ryzen AI 300 didn’t receive the Windows update which might ship them Copilot+ PC options — and they still haven’t, Recall aside. Copilot?
It’s not all dangerous! Increasingly functions have been ported to Arm, which makes Copilot+ PCs that extra highly effective. However once we’re writing tales about how to fix Copilot+ PCs, you’ve failed.
Generative AI inside Home windows: WIN
If I have been inventing a collection of inventive apps inside Home windows, I’m undecided I might put all my chips on the legacy Paint app. However with improvements we noticed this 12 months in Paint (Cocreator) and Pictures (background erase and generative take away) Microsoft is displaying that there’s nonetheless room for sensible, inventive expression inside Home windows. Paint, Pictures, and Clipchamp strip these inventive processes all the way down to their essences, then construct up.
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AI is used to good impact in issues like Paint’s Generative Fill and Erase, with out going too loopy (the exception is Cocreator, whose real-time AI generative artwork doesn’t actually work). However even Clipchamp is getting AI-generated templates. AI, and native AI, represents fertile alternatives to enhance the Home windows core apps.
Personally, I ponder if Microsoft doesn’t have one thing up its sleeve for Home windows Sound Recorder. We have already got pictures and video — enhancing audio enhancing inside Home windows with some AI goodness looks like a no brainer, proper?
Windows95Man Paperclip: WIN
Positive, this might need nothing to do with Microsoft per se, however how are you going to not root for Teemu Keisteri, the Finnish consultant for Eurovision 2024? Windows95Man caps off our record of the perfect wins, fails, and WTF moments of 2024 with the smash hit (?) “Paperclip,” which celebrates Microsoft’s iconic icon, Clippy.
We’ll see you in 2025!
