The competition between Apple and other tech giants has perhaps never been more fierce. Unlike many providers of tech hardware, however, Apple doesn’t just compete with hardware manufacturers like HP and Samsung, they also compete with software providers like Microsoft and Android. Like all competitions, in some cases Apple struggles to keep up while in others, competitors struggle to keep up with Apple.
Recently, Microsoft announced that they would be offering two major feature upgrades per year. While manufacturers and software providers rarely offer reasons for their decisions, it may be this is Microsoft’s attempt to compete with Apple’s policy of offering free OS upgrades since the release of OS Mavericks in 2013.
If Microsoft wants to truly keep pace or continue to compete with Apple, however, they are going to have to do more than just offer a few feature upgrades. Namely, they will need to actually get their OS operating properly in the first place. While offering feature upgrades might help them remain competitive with a state-of-the-art base operating system, the truth is Windows 10 is plagued with issues that make feature upgrades less of a perk and more of a nightmare.
Part of the problem is that Windows 10 still seems to have some initial kinks that have not yet fully been worked out, leaving many users wishing for better stability before new features are introduced. This is probably even more true now, considering that when some users tried installing the Windows 10 October Update/1809 as early as October 2, they suddenly began to see their photos, files, bookmarks and other data disappear. (https://www.windowscentral.com/microsoft-prepares-re-release-windows-10-october-2018-update)
Before the new features even rolled out, users were already having difficulties upgrading from Windows 7 or 8, upgrading to the latest version of Windows 10, playing DVD’s, saving a web page as a HTML file in Microsoft Edge, turning off pop-up blockers, opening files with the right default apps and a host of other issues. If that weren’t enough, users that upgraded also found themselves with significantly reduced storage space. This is because Windows 10 doesn’t actually write over the older version of the software, but instead lives side-by-side with the old version, taking up a great deal of space.
While this may not seem like a benefit to some, the reasoning behind it might be sound. According to Microsoft, it allows users to go back to using a previous version of the OS if they don’t like the new one.
Dil Bole Oberoi
