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On my laptop I use 99% Desktop, on my Surface RT I use 99% Metro (music/video/web basically). I play music on it all day, most days.

about 19 hours ago on Most Windows 8 Users Rarely Use Any Windows 8 Apps

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Worse than that – I just went back to using a PNG because although the gradients worked in different browsers they looked different!

about 19 hours ago on IE 10 is actually...pretty good?

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I’d still prefer something to be difficult rather than impossible. Also – it comes with a keyboard anyway?

2 days ago on Microsoft recruits Siri to bad-mouth the iPad in new Windows 8 tablet ad 1 recommend

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How’s this one? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2Gmvg8m1Qc

The ad in the original post is just the ad The Verge chooses to post, because they know it will generate lots of discussion, or maybe they just find it interesting? To be fair though if they posted the phone one I just linked above it would doubtless generate a giant shit storm as well.

But it isn’t pushing work stuff at all, is it?

2 days ago on Microsoft recruits Siri to bad-mouth the iPad in new Windows 8 tablet ad 1 recommend

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sigh – I said “the desktop in Windows RT”. As far as I know you can’t drag files on/off a USB in Metro, but you can open them (and files from a lot of other places), see the post by Firefly7475 up above this one.

If I have a movie on a NAS drive how do I watch it on iPad? I have to get a NAS with Airplay? How do I get it onto the iPad to take it with me somewhere else – without a computer?

Scenario for you – I am at my parents’ house and I want to get one of their home movies onto an iPad. They don’t have internet, or have very limited bandwidth, so I can’t just put it up online somewhere. How do I do it?

2 days ago on Microsoft recruits Siri to bad-mouth the iPad in new Windows 8 tablet ad 1 reply 1 recommend

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I have a third-party app to watch videos on my Surface RT (mobile.HD).

I can go “open file” and open a video off a USB, off a NAS… anywhere really. In fact I watch video off my NAS all the time.

3 days ago on Microsoft recruits Siri to bad-mouth the iPad in new Windows 8 tablet ad 3 recommends

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Nobody? Did you ever read Penny Arcade?

http://www.penny-arcade.com/2013/02/22/the-ms-surface-pro

3 days ago on Microsoft recruits Siri to bad-mouth the iPad in new Windows 8 tablet ad 2 recommends

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The desktop in Windows RT is exactly the same as the Desktop in full Windows, except you can’t install your own programs in it because it is ARM. That’s the only difference to speak of that I could find (and no macros in Excel because those will also not be ARM).

You can (for example) plug in a USB stick and drag files on and off it, watch movies off it, whatever you want really.

3 days ago on Microsoft recruits Siri to bad-mouth the iPad in new Windows 8 tablet ad 1 reply 5 recommends

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I just noticed that this morning on the main music screen.

5 days ago on Xbox Music + Xbox Video app updates

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The new SkyDrive photo thing is great, I just wish it worked in shared accounts (in my case so I could get the same view for my wife’s photos).

5 days ago on Parallel Universes. google.com and live.com 1 reply

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I am a lot like your brother. I was using Windows with an iPhone, some Google products but not a lot… so I switched to Windows Phone, ditched all the Google for MS and couldn’t be happier.

It’s just so easy when your calendar/contacts in Outlook (desktop) sync up with the calendar on the web or on your phone… and if I had an Android or Apple phone I can see what a nightmare that could end up being. My photos on my phone automatically get sent up to SkyDrive when I am on Wi-Fi. All that kind of stuff.

You have probably just inadvertently also pointed out why so many people in Microsoft Tribe get so vocal when there are Google and Apple stories on the Verge… like the story about the Google music service, and the amount of people who commented about the Xbox Music Pass – Microsoft does some good stuff, but they can’t seem the get any credit or recognition.

If you use it, you tend to like it – but way too many people dislike it without using it.

5 days ago on Parallel Universes. google.com and live.com 2 replies

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I think it has more to do with closing the Zune division within the company. Xbox is actually the most ‘media’ kind of brand left inside MS, so it makes sense to move it into there, and if they are moving it why not rename it? Zune hardware failed, I don’t think that means Zune software necessarily did as well.

I think with the next Xbox coming there will be some sort of movie/TV service as well. Within the Zune software (that they replaced) you can buy episodes of TV shows, watch trailers… I think that will come back again rolled into Xbox Video.

Also there was talk of MS actually making their own shows, there was a rumour they were going to make a new series of Heroes.

6 days ago on How Google beat Apple to a streaming music service

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I downloaded this for my kids on the weekend – http://pikpok.com/games/turbo/ – it has simultaneous release on iOS, Android, Windows Phone.

I think if that becomes normal Windows Phone mindshare will increase – so on TV or print there’s a Windows Phone icon there alongside the other two.

Fun game too.

6 days ago on What Windows Phone needs to do to get a jump on Android

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I suggest they wanted to (when they announced it 6-8 months ago) and then got side-tracked by some other Xbox stuff that seems to be happening…

8 days ago on MS should probably just give up in the consumer space

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My kids each “own” an iPhone – a 3GS. My wife and I use a Lumia 820 and a Lumia 920. I bet those are still counted by Apple as well. To be fair they are in use I guess – just without a SIM.

8 days ago on MS should probably just give up in the consumer space 1 recommend

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I didn’t mean first, I meant before Google Play. And they were.

I think they do have a competitive product, it’s just that people have their heads up their asses and just can’t believe that could be possible from Microsoft. I think it’s a problem with the general perception of MS as a company, not the products themselves.

8 days ago on MS should probably just give up in the consumer space 2 recommends

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I like it here in Australia.

8 days ago on How Google beat Apple to a streaming music service 1 recommend

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Don’t the Apple TOS exclude apps that provide duplicate functionality? They could always not approve it if they have a competing service – not that I think they would.

8 days ago on How Google beat Apple to a streaming music service 1 reply

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I believe there was talk of them funding a new series of Heroes? http://www.neowin.net/news/rumor-microsoft-may-revive-heroes-tv-show-for-xbox

If the new Xbox launches with Xbox Video to match Xbox Music it will be interesting to see what happens, especially if they actually start behaving more like a studio and making their own content.

9 days ago on Microsoft and Vimeo?

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OK, sure.

Going back to the original post for this whole conversation though – it doesn’t change the fact that Xbox Music does a lot of the same things as Google Play, and it did them first, and no-one seems to either know of acknowledge that.

9 days ago on MS should probably just give up in the consumer space 1 reply 4 recommends

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You can cloud match, I tested this out the other day:
- ripped a disc on my laptop
- did the match album info thing
- did add to > music in the cloud
- it shows up on the Surface
- can set it to download there, so play a local copy of the files

Of course it depends on the album being in Xbox Music.

9 days ago on MS should probably just give up in the consumer space 1 recommend

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When MS announced Xbox Music they also announced they would do apps for iOS and Android, see http://gigaom.com/2012/10/14/xbox-music-android-ios/ or http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2012/10/xbox-music-officially-announced-for-windows-8-ios-and-android/

No idea where those apps are though – six months later.

9 days ago on MS should probably just give up in the consumer space 1 reply 5 recommends

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I still think the vast majority of people who buy any phone would use the first-party apps most of the time; be it maps, mail, calendar, music, whatever. I still think there would be more iPhone users using Apple Maps than Google Maps – if the total downloads of Google Maps is even 10-20 million that’s really not that much compared the total number of handsets out there. I can’t be bothered looking up real numbers though.

9 days ago on Google has Microsoft by the balls and there's not much it can do in return. 1 reply

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My point is that anyone in another ecosystem won’t switch to Google regardless of how good it might be, because they will never experience it.

I still know plenty of people with iPhones who use (and defend) Apple Maps rather than download Google Maps.

10 days ago on Google has Microsoft by the balls and there's not much it can do in return. 1 reply

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Thinking of this logically I am a really big fan of this functionality;
- I take a photo on my Windows Phone
- I walk into the house and it gets uploaded automatically to SkyDrive (this happens whenever I am on Wi-Fi)
- I go to SkyDrive on my laptop, click “all photos” and get a nice timeline of all my photos

Does Google do the same thing? Is this what Apple does with iCloud? To be honest I have no idea. I don’t even really care, I just think it’s really nice. If Google does this too will I switch? No. No more than I would drop Xbox Music for Google Play, why bother when I am pretty happy with what I already have?

The point I guess is I don’t even know if Google services are better – I don’t use both and compare, and I don’t think many other people do either. Do you? Do you have first-hand experience that tells you gmail is really that much better than outlook.com? Or did you just read someone else’s take on it? Google Docs vs. Office 365?

10 days ago on Google has Microsoft by the balls and there's not much it can do in return. 5 replies 3 recommends

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“The combination of a store, cloud storage, and streaming service means that All Access is currently unique in allowing customers to browse, play, and manage both purchased tracks and subscription tracks in a single unified interface — something that no other service currently offers”.

Doesn’t Xbox Music allow you to do this? I can browse, play and manage music in there?

Xbox Music does do matching – so I can rip a disc, match it to the cloud, listen to it on (streaming) on other devices, or even download it for local playback.

I am pretty sure I can use Xbox Music to “browse, play, and manage both purchased tracks and subscription tracks in a single unified interface”.

10 days ago on Google hints at Play Music for other platforms, says YouTube integration 'likely' 1 reply

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You are claiming people are making unsubstantiated claims that other people are making claims?

You are in these forums often enough to know some people are actually claiming “WP sucks no one is buying it” pretty much every day.

14 days ago on Market does not decide if an OS is good 1 reply 1 recommend

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If Windows Phone has too few handsets in the market for Google to bother developing first-party apps for it, does it also have too few handsets for Google to bother to try to stop third-party apps?

I basically agree with you – I think they won’t do anything publicly, but suspect there might be a few phone calls from one to the other behind the scenes.

14 days ago on Microsoft YouTube App Is A Rule Breaker; It Strips Ads, Downloads Video 1 recommend

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I don’t use Office at all, but it is nice to have it there on the off chance that I ever get an attachment or something, although to be honest I would have been just as happy to have the RT with free web apps.

My RT is basically a music player, games machine and web browser. I have a Nokia/JBL PlayUp speaker so I pair it to play music, sounds great. It has basically replaced my wife’s laptop though.

14 days ago on Anybody else using Windows RT without using Office?

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I think the biggest problem for Sony wouldn’t have been the way people were purchasing music – it would have been the way they weren’t paying anything at all for music! Remembering that Napster was only around from 1999 to 2001. I think that environment made it easy for Apple to come along and say “hey, we can sell this stuff online for $0.99, at least you’ll be getting something”.

I think it Apple can get this service going pretty quickly they won’t have missed the opportunity. I think it is more likely that people will use the first party service available on their devices, e.g. iPhone/iPad will be iRadio, Windows Phone/Windows/Xbox will be Xbox Music and Android will be Google Play. So if Apple’s market share in smartphones falls that might be a bigger issue than how long it takes to get it to market.

16 days ago on Apple's iRadio talks stall as Google rushes to license new music service 1 reply 1 recommend