Dieter Bohn Microsoft is making a folding Android phone

Phew! What a day. Microsoft announced so much today that it’s difficult to keep track of. Not going to hassle you with a lot of preamble here, because there’s so much for you to go watch and read. Microsoft is making a folding Android phone. I say again: phew!

If you only have time for one article, this is the one: The biggest announcements from Microsoft’s 2019 Surface event

But I encourage you to make more time. We have a bunch of great videos and articles and there’s more coming. Even if you’re not a Microsoft user, it’s worth knowing what they’re up to. As I argued in the last newsletter, these keynotes reveal what a company thinks about itself. What Microsoft thinks is that it can be successful on more than just laptops and Surface tablets — and the Windows OS is just one of many different delivery vehicles for providing you apps and services.

Ha I promised you no preamble and here I started getting going. More later, for now here are the links to the hands-on, videos, analysis, and much more.

- Dieter

+ Microsoft Surface Pro X and Surface Pro 7 hands-on: it’s ARM vs. Intel

Here’s Tom Warren’s hands-on with the new Surface Pros. As you might expect, I’m most interested in the Surface Pro x, but both are worth a look.

+ Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3 comes in two sizes and with two different processors

Microsoft Surface Earbuds first listen: live transcribe your life

Sadly, this detail from Dan Seifert’s hands-on is a deal breaker for me. I need at least noise isolating headphones because the BART train I ride every day hits 100 decibels on the regular.

They rest inside your ear without blocking your ear canal. That means they don’t block outside sound all that well, and Microsoft says that’s by design. They are more comfortable than most earbuds, however, and they managed to stay in my ears once I got the right size tips on them.

+Inside Microsoft’s new custom Surface processors with AMD and Qualcomm

Microsoft didn’t throw Intel under the bus at this event. Plenty of the devices announced run Intel and Panos Panay took special care to lavish praise on those processors. Still: first party Microsoft devices running non-Intel chips is notable. As is the fact that the company felt it needed to customize them instead of just taking something off the shelf.

Microsoft Surface Neo first look: the future of Windows 10X is dual-screen

Tom Warren spent some time with this folding device. The really interesting thing about Microsoft announcing it so early is that it isn’t Osborne-ing anything. What would you not buy because you’re waiting for this? I don’t know the answer to that, which is a good sign that it really is a new category of device.

+ Windows 10X is Microsoft’s latest stab at a ‘Lite’ operating system, specifically for foldable PCs

I will admit I don’t fully understand what’s going on with Windows 10X. Why did Microsoft need to make a “new” OS here instead of building in some kind of dual-screen mode into Windows 10 proper? I think there are nesting answers to that question, but I’ll need to give it a think before I want to take a stab at enumerating them.

Microsoft’s future is built on Google’s code

Microsoft’s browser is based on Google tech and now so is its mobile operating system. This raises a lot of questions! Here’s yours truly trying to make sense of it all.

The latest Pixel 4 leak is an app that automatically transcribes your voice memos

As a journalist with atrocious handwriting, this is going to be huge for interviews. I currently use software called Otter.ai, but I might replace it with this if it’s good (and if there’s an easy way to access these transcripts via the web).

Also, 9to5Google has basically dedicated the last 24 hours to posting marketing material and apps from the Pixel 4. Just go to their homepage and scroll.

+ Finally: Siri will soon default to the messaging apps you prefer, not just iMessage

+ Duet now turns Android devices into Mac and PC displays. I do wonder, though, how many people could actually take advantage of this.

Apple’s noise-canceling AirPods spotted in latest iOS 13 beta

If Google also announces Pixel Buds later this month, we could have truly wireless headphones from Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and Google all released this fall.