I am questioning whether it’s true that Microsoft is attempting to implement more brand-based marketing, ecosystem lock-in, and a walled garden by rebranding Remote Desktop as a Windows App. Yes, I agree that everything now uses “app” in computer terminology; at least, it seems so. What if one day even the OS kernel is called an app too? Lol
I’m going to start referring to kernels as the os app. Just to fuck with people.
The inner app
The Appfather
Let me start a team for my team in Teams.
Does the team for your team have a theme in Teams yet?
If you don’t know how to set up themes in Teams, you can ask Tim from the theme team on Teams.
You can probably add “website” to the list.
Hm, this one intrigues me: what is commonly referred to as a website, without actually being a website?
A webapp. Or the <use our app instead> apps.
I think they meant all of the apps that are just a website with a wrapper.
This infuriates me to no end. I have a web browser thank you
Well, and there’s also just lots of webpages implemented as an SPA – Single-Page Application.
Which you might be able to register in your browser as a PWA – Progressive Web App.
And which are just generally equally as interactive as an app, so good luck explaining the difference to folks who don’t care about implementation specifics…Electron apps should be taken out back and shot
Honestly? They’re based for being so easy to make
For the record, I am a C/Dart/Rust native dev 2+ years deep in a pretty big project full of highly async code. This shit would’ve been done a year ago if the stack was web based instead of 100% native code
Easy to make? Have you worked with JavaScript before? It’s an absolute mess and full of footguns.
And I assume your project doesn’t use async code for shits and giggles? Async code is just as hard in JavaScript except that everything is single threaded anyway.
And even assuming that it really is easier to make: I’d rather have fewer well made applications than hundreds of crappy ones. Each fucking application having to redistribute a whole ass browser is insane, and they’re all slow despite needing massive resources.
Yeah this is on me, I’ve never done web dev in my life. Always been low level shit for me. (The project is a highly networked system with isolates, async/await, futures, etc)
But damn man comparatively JS/TS seems a lot easier ¯\_ (ツ) _/¯
That is true, Typescript and JavaScript look easier. And heck if all you want to do is make the money dance on your web page it really is easier.
But writing actual application? That does actual work with error handling? Hell, no. It honestly baffles me that anyone would use JavaScript of their own free will, unless that’s the only language you know.
Agreed. So you wrote a shitty web page that breaks constantly, but you still wasn’t me to download it as an “app” so you can track me better? No thanks.
The top bit got me recently, I hadn’t needed to remote into my desktop in a while and searched “Remote” and “RDP” and found nothing. Eventually I found it was renamed to the windows app and finally logged in but was baffled as to why they would do that.
I use Remote Desktop it a lot, and was warned about the changing name beforehand. And yet when one day the old application disappeared from my dock, I had the same reaction. I thought company IT or a macOS update might’ve screwed me over.
I’m used to it now, but that was a strange day.
This is the dumbest rebranding ever. If I tried really hard to make it as dumb as possible, I’d still not be able to come up with such a horrendously bad idea.
Even if they renamed it to “Now You Too Can Have Magical Long Fingers and Vision” it would be somewhat descriptive of what it does.
They could have named it Window window but that might have been too descriptive
Like how many people were involved in this decision? Let’s just call it “computer program”.
Marketing really has just ran away with everything. I wonder what they’ll rename the console as
Yep - ‘open with m365 copilot’ has such a ring to it. Why they threw out their decades recognisable office branding is beyond me
The App Box?
Worse than Twitter to X? At least windows app is loosely related to the original overall branding
It would be more like renaming twitter to internet website, which yes, despite everything, is worse than X.
The problem is that everything that runs on windows is a windows app.
I was in a computer store a few years ago watching a young guy trying to sell a tablet to an older woman. He said “the good news about this is that it can’t get viruses because it runs apps”.
If you assume that she will only install official apps, that they are sandboxed and Apple doesn’t allow viruses in App Store apps, then that statement seems fine to me.
Every networked computer has some risk of getting a viris of course.
everyone knows viruses are allergic to apps
Ill bet anything they laughed about that in the breakroom
I’d bet they believed it themselves.
*chefs kiss
Then: w4r3z, appz.
Recently the right column says AI all the way down.
mstsc?
Not sure if this fits this comm, but I hate that the act of buying a phone plan and inseting a sim card is now referred to as “activation”.
“Activation” is the iPhone forced internet-setup thing, not the fact that you use wifi-only instead of cellular. 🤦♂️
Activating your SIM card is the best term.
I thought it was activation before the iPhone existed
Activation fees certainly did.
Perhaps it isn’t exactly a new term, but I hate that term regardless. A smartphone can do many things without a cellular connection, a cell plan is not an “activation” but a feature upgrade.
You’re not even right. You are genuinely activating the SIM card and anyone around you paraphrasing to “activating a phone” is also correct, because nobody cares what other meaning you personally wish to ascribe to the task.
You understand that SIM cards aren’t actually active until they’re connected to the network for the first time, right?
Correct. But SIM =/= Phone
You have heard of the concept of using your phone as a Wifi-Only Device, right?
Why are you buying a phone plan if you’re not using the mobile network?
I know one person who does this. It’s simple: apple discontinued the ipod touch. He had no other choice than to get an iphone without a sim
No, I mean the context is, when you buy a phone from Best Buy, the sales person uses deceptive language to frame it as if your phone will not function unless you purchase a plan by asking “Would you like to activate your phone right now”, implying its locked and can’t even be used for Google Voice/VOIP calls, and as a multi-function tool (GPS, Camera, Notes, E-Reader, Audio Recorder, etc…).
Deceptive Corporatist language.
Aha, okay, much clearer what you meant now. Yeah, they surely get a kickback for each new subscription.
