Going All In: My experiences with the Microsoft/Apple Ecosystems (Part 3)

After a few weeks of considering my options, I decided that switching back to a windows PC would be the best bet for me. The same power at more than half the cost was simply too tempting. So I sold my iMac and built a new PC from the ground up. For the time, my new PC was quite the beast. In fact, the system I use today is still built around that core investment.

I was relieved to see that Windows 7 was indeed a huge improvement over Vista. All of my audio and driver issues were things of the past, not the mention the OS itself seemed to have a bit more polish and spark to it. I did, however, immediately miss quite a bit about my iMac. The seamless experience and ease-of-use was gone. I found myself spending a little more time “under the hood” with my Windows PC than I liked. But more importantly, I found that my user experience as a whole, was turned upside down. You see, I had spent the last few years submerged almost entirely in the Apple ecosystem.  Mobile Me, iTunes, iPhone… At the center of all of that was my iMac. Sure, I could check my Mac.com email address on the web, and yes, there was a Windows version of iTunes. But upon installing it I immediately noticed how subpar the iTunes experience was on Windows. The whole app was much more sluggish than it was under OS X. I just didn’t feel right.

Then, the fateful day arrived when the unthinkable happened. I dropped my iPhone in a parking lot and shattered the screen. I had to decide at that point, do I get another iPhone or look into another option? Android phones were popular, but received nowhere near the support they have today. Plus, I found I had really grown to dislike a number of Google’s services. So Android was out. It was at this time that I began to consider Microsoft’s new fledging mobile offering: Windows Phone 7. Windows Phones were not popular at all. But I was very impressed by what I saw. The mobile OS was simply lovely and intuitive. Yes, it was radically different that iOS or even Android, but that was ok with me. The biggest downside to using a Windows Phone was (and still is) the lack of quality applications available. The basics were all covered (Facebook, Twitter, etc) but some of the more specialized apps simply didn’t and still don’t exist on the platform. Regardless, I decided to go ahead and take the plunge. I switched from iPhone to Windows.

Believe it or not, I fell in love with Microsoft’s mobile platform. I found it to serve my needs very well. Shortly after, Microsoft announced Windows 8 for PCs. This was a new radical version of Windows that looked a lot like my Windows Phone. It seemed MS now had a long term vision to try to bring parity to both their mobile and desktop operating systems. Most of the public shunned Windows 8, but personally, I had no issues with it. By this time, I found that I had fully immersed myself within the Microsoft Ecosystem. In fact, for the most part I still do. I use Outlook mail, Bing, OneDrive, Windows Phone. I’m a loyal customer.

Flash forward a few years to the present. Now Windows 10 is current backbone of Microsoft. Despite what you may read online, I find Windows 10 to be a fine OS. It does NOT spy on you or take control of your PC as some people claim. It’s Windows as it always has been, but just with a bit more polish and modernization. It’s a fantastic operating system. But that praise aside, over the last year or so, it’s become obvious that Microsoft again seems to be grasping at straws when it comes to certain aspects of their business. It’s been a long time since that days of Windows Phone 7, but Microsoft  STILL cannot seem to get developers on board with their mobile division. Windows 10 was supposed to change this. The Universal Application feature of Windows 10 meant that an application could run on any Windows 10 device anywhere. Be it a PC, Tablet or Mobile Phone. That has so far, not panned out as promised. Also, Microsoft recently reneged on their promise of unlimited online Storage via OneDrive for certain users. (They did this AFTER an aggressive campaign where they practically begged customers to upload their entire MP3 libraries to the service for easy streaming). To put the icing on the cake, their new music application “Groove” is a terrible mess. Despite receiving constant updates, I do not find it to be a piece of software I can use in my day to day life. I am a BIG music fan. I have a digital music library of almost two-hundred gigabytes. Groove does not feature basic tag editing features, or other services offered by a number of other music management applications. In fact, Groove feels like incomplete software. It’s great on my mobile phone for playback. But as far as a desktop app, it lacks severely.

So where does that leave me? I tend to be brand loyalist. I drink Coke, not Pepsi. I wear Levis, not Arizona. But… I like both Microsoft and Apple – yet, I have problems with both. At the moment, I’m pretty much “all in” with Microsoft. I use their services, OS and hardware. But I have to admit, as far as mobile goes, the app gap is starting to hit hard. There’s a ton of great applications I would love to use that are simply NOT available on the Windows mobile platform. I’ve resisted it for so long, but it’s starting to become a real issue. Mobile banking on my phone? Nope. The latest mobile game, authenticator, or productivity app? Nope. So you might say to yourself, “Just switch.” But here’s the problem… I’m weird. If I exchanged my Windows Phone for an iPhone, I’d then get the urge to move away from Windows entirely. Because, I’m just the kind of guy that likes everything to match and play well together. I know this because a few months back it happened…

My wife’s cell contract came due and she decided to buy a new iPhone 6. While we were at the store, I decided on a whim: ME TOO! So I bought one for myself. I liked the phone fine, but when I got home I immediately felt resentment at having to install the sluggish Windows-version of iTunes. It gnawed at me to the point where days later, I marched into the Apple store and came home with a $3,000 iMac. I was back in Apple land, baby! But, then it hit me just how insane the whole scenario was. Sure, at the time, I was able to afford these luxuries, but were they REALLY necessary? Plus, while I found myself enjoying all of the things I really liked about Apple again, this time I found that I actually missed a bunch of things I’d grown to like about Windows 10! Before it was too late, I took advantage of Apple’s return policy and took both the iMac and iPhone back. No harm done in the long-run. But I realized just then how effective this whole “ecosystem” strategy can be. Let me break it down for a normal person: Perhaps you’re an iPhone user, and you’re thinking about switching to Android. Easy enough right, but wait… all your contacts and online photo albums are backed up using iCloud. What a pain to switch all that! They’ve got their claws in you…

So as it stands now, I’m still a Windows user. I legitimately like and enjoy most of Microsoft’s products, but I’m worried about their strategy. At this point, I guess you could say I’m putting Microsoft on notice. I’m going to lay low for the remainder of the 2016 to see how their plans for universal apps and enhancements to their existing products go. A year should be sufficient time for them to show me, as a consumer, that they have a solid plan to bring excitement back to their platform. If not, I may have to seriously assess my tendency to stay true to their brand. Time will tell. MS has some really great products out there these days. The Surface line of tablets is FANTASTIC and blows away the iPad in my opinion. The Microsoft Band is probably, functionally the best fitness tracker/smart watch on the market. What’s killing them is mobile. No one cares about Windows Phone and a result, no one is developing for it. Windows 10 could be the key. In theory, any native Windows 10 app will also work on mobile. So both Windows10 desktop and mobile can benefit from this interoperability. But so far… even that is stagnant.  They have to make this Universal Application system desirable to developers. But I’m not sure how they can effectively do that. Their bridging technologies, so far, don’t seem to be garnering much interest. Time will tell. Lots of us are watching,