The Windows Forecast is a look at the future of Windows that comments on the latest news for Windows Insiders, as well as other major announcements in the Windows space each and every week. My name is João Carrasqueira, and I’ve been covering the world of Windows professionally since 2018. If there’s something you’d like to see covered, you can reach me at joao@xda-developers.com.
Another week, another edition of The Windows Forecast. We have somehow made it one whole edition without complaining about how the Windows Insider Program makes no sense anymore, but for this second edition, we’re back on track. Let’s take a look at what’s going on in the fun and sometimes frustrating world of Windows.
Windows Insiders get new features after everyone else
Enrolled in the Canary channel? That’s a shame
Image credit: Microsoft
The big story of the week has to do with the Windows 11 updates rolled out for Patch Tuesday and the new build that was made available to Windows Insiders the following day. See, among the many features in the Patch Tuesday updates was the newly-added ability to share local files directly from the Windows Search box on the taskbar, and that feature was made available to Windows 11 version 24H2 as well as version 23H2.
The next day, Microsoft rolled out a brand-new build of Windows 11 to Insiders in the Canary channel — you know, the one where you get to test the latest platform changes and features before anyone else. What was in that update, you ask? Yes, the same ability to share local files from the Windows Search box.
We have a Windows Insider program that was originally designed to let passionate fans test new features before anyone else. A program that now has four channels: Canary, Dev, Beta, and Release Preview, and features are supposed to star tin the Canary channel and slowly make their way through the other channels before making it to a stable release. And here we are, somehow getting to the final step before taking the first one.
And if you think that’s a one-off, the same Canary build added a new simplified Chinese font that supports some new Unicode characters. That Chinese font was added to Windows 11 builds in the Beta channel last week.
I’m sure this can be explained away with all kinds of reasoning, but it doesn’t change anything if you ask me. People signed up for the Insider program to get things early, and the different channels were supposed to trade off stability for faster releases. Now, none of it means anything. You can join the most bleeding-edge channel there is and still sit idly while regular users get new features you can’t try yourself. It makes no sense. Of course, I’ve already complained about this extensively when the Windows Insider Program turned 10 years old, so I wouldn’t expect anything to change so quickly.
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Does anyone actually use Phone Link?
All these features just pass me by
Source: Microsoft
Another big update for Windows Insiders this week was the addition of a new integration in the Start menu that brings content from the Phone Link app front and center. This isn’t entirely new, and it’s been in testing in other channels for a while, but whenever I see stuff like this, I have to wonder if I’m the only one who doesn’t really care.
See, the idea of Phone Link is kind of intriguing to me. Accessing content from my phone on my PC could be useful, but the reality is that I never want to. Why take calls from my phone on my PC when my microphone quality is probably much worse there, especially over Bluetooth? Why send texts using Phone Link when apps like Beeper exist and make that link perfectly already? And I legitimately can’t think of many situations where I would want to edit a photo from my phone on my PC before sharing it. Maybe if I had a better phone camera, or if my phone supported the more advanced features only available in Samsung devices, I would be more interested. But as it stands, I see all these features being added and I just don’t care at all.
Though I am curious if this kind of integration could be used for other features in Windows. I think a small Widgets panel next to the Start menu could be interesting. Or if third-party apps can plug into it with different features, that could be really neat. I guess we’ll have to see if that’s something Microsoft is planning.
Celebrating the anniversary
Better late than never, right?
Nothing screams “anniversary celebrations” like being a week late to your own party. This week, Microsoft published a blog post celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Windows Insider Program, which first opened up on October 1st, 2014. As much as I can joke about how late this all is, there is something very cool in there. The Insider team collaborated with the Microsoft Design team to make a pair of special wallpapers celebrating the occasion, and they legitimately look really nice. Available in both light and dark themes, the wallpapers mix UI elements all the way back from Windows 95 (or earlier) with some modern iconography and imagery for a beautiful result. I highly recommend downloading (you can do that here) these wallpapers because it’s the kind of stuff that I feel only the Microsoft Design team would really do this well.
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Ironically, some of the UI elements depicted here still don’t have dark mode support in the actual Windows 11 you can use. That Display properties dialog still exists for screen savers, with that old Windows 95 look and no dark theme support. But what matters is that the wallpaper looks great.
See you next week!
It wasn’t a major week for Windows news, but we did get some goodies between Patch Tuesday updates and new Insider builds. We’ll be back next week to talk about more Windows news, so stay tuned!
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source: https://www.xda-developers.com/the-windows-forecast-insider-program-meaningless/
