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Microsoft has unveiled its own wish list for its OEM partners in 2022, highlighting the features the company wants companies like HP, Dell, and Asus to emphasize and the hardware designs it thinks are most likely to be attractive to customers. Some of the design emphases make sense — 2-in-one convertible device shipments have grown over the past few years and represent ane of the few expanding PC markets, even though they oasis't grown quickly plenty to make up for the overall decline in PC sales.

On the whole, yet, the company's concept of what information technology wants PC manufacturers to build in 2022 suffers from a last lack of imagination. As the image below shows, Microsoft wants OEMs to build devices that focus on three hero features — Windows Hi, Cortana, and Windows Ink. Let's discuss each below:

Windows Hello: This is Microsoft's biometric hallmark system that can allow users to log into a device using a fingerprint or facial recognition rather than a countersign. The trouble with positioning Windows Hullo as a major hero characteristic is it "improves" a relatively pocket-sized facet of device usage. If you demand to log into a device 10-15x per day, biometric authentication may relieve you a few seconds compared with simply typing a password. Biometric authentication suffers from its own security issues, still, and generally isn't covered past the same fifth Amendment protections that protect citizens from having to reveal their passwords. The security-witting might adopt to have a device that offers both biometric and password protection, just precious few people are going to purchase a new device because it offers enhanced biometric authentication options.

Cortana: Microsoft really wants you to exist using its data collection and monetization digital assistant, Cortana. At WinHEC this year, the company detailed plans to heighten Cortana's capabilities with Virtually-Field and Far-Field back up, as well as Wake on Voice capabilities. Near-Field at greater distance and Far-Field both require advanced microphones with additional capabilities over and higher up unproblematic ultra-curt-range communication.

cortana-far-field

I practise not recommend or utilize any voice assistant technology, including Siri, Google Now, Amazon Echo, or Cortana. I'm personally not interested in handing every detail of my life over to corporations, and companies similar Samsung have demonstrated device security and information protection are far too lax for me to feel comfortable trusting these products. Setting that aside, these upgrades to Cortana'southward capabilities volition undoubtedly meliorate the service — but once again, is anyone going to purchase a loftier-end premium laptop solely considering you tin talk to it from further away? Probable not.

Windows Ink: Windows Ink is Microsoft'due south term for the enhanced stylus capabilities it introduced with the Anniversary Update. These features are only bachelor on touch on-enabled systems, and they can be useful in the right contexts — but again, stylus support and touchscreen drawing are niche features, not mainstream draws. Like the Surface Punch and Surface Studio, these capabilities are smashing for specific markets and meaningless outside of them.

Microsoft is having the same problem Intel and AMD have had, albeit in a somewhat different course: Absent-minded compelling performance improvements, the company is stuck trying to come with situational software updates that can drive engagement. Merely just as Intel and AMD'south overall level of ability efficiency comeback over the past few years depends a great deal on your workload, Microsoft's ability to offer full general improvements to users is largely task-specific.

Windows is a victim of its ain success

Microsoft's other problem is its operating systems have matured to the bespeak where they offer most of the features nosotros used to buy new hardware trying to achieve. One of Windows XP'due south major selling points was information technology could exist kept up and running for weeks at a fourth dimension. In the pre-XP era, consumer Bone uptime was generally measured in days if y'all were lucky. I've been in this concern long enough to remember writing guides for how to do an in-place reinstall of Windows to clean the garbage out of the registry and system files without losing whatever data. That's crazy, if you pace back and think about information technology. System stability was so miserable, it made sense to tell people to reinstall their unabridged operating system at to the lowest degree once a year, unless they literally installed nothing and never caught a virus. It used to be much simpler to innovate new PC features, considering PCs used to lack a great many of the capabilities we now look out-of-the-box.

Windows 10'southward support for DirectX 12 is the closest thing we've seen to a operation game-changer in years, and gamers have rewarded that comeback past moving to Windows 10 fairly aggressively — Windows ten 64-scrap is the Os used by 48.97% of gamers as of Dec 2022, according to the Steam Hardware Survey. The adjacent most-popular flavor, Windows vii 64-flake, is used by 29.02% of the market place. Clearly, consumers are willing to motility to Windows 10 when they perceive an advantage to doing so. Microsoft's problem is, it hasn't come up with a manner to channel those improvements into the mass consumer market. Biometric authentication, Cortana, and stylus back up may help move a few premium machines when existing equipment wears out, but it's not going to spur new hardware adoption.

Now read: Windows ten: The best hidden features, tips, and tricks