What’s holding me back from going full Microsoft

Microsoft has really made some attractive improvements in their services and devices in the past couple of years, and Windows 10 really solidified their approach. I’ve been considering ditching my dependence on Google and switching to Microsoft for everything, but unfortunately Microsoft just isn’t there yet in my opinion.

Here’s what I’m looking to do:

• Switch from Android to a Windows handset
  • Longer battery life
  • Smooth
  • Amazing camera
  • Cortana integration with Windows 10 on my desktop has me excited, especially since Google killed off Ok Google in Chrome
  • Continuum is cool but not necessary
• Switch from Keep/Evernote to Onenote for all my notes
  • Love the sheet workflow, you’re not constrained within the container and can add elements anywhere
  • Notebooks workflow are cool
• Switch from Chrome to Edge
  • Feels faster and smoother than Chrome (whoa man)
  • Starts quicker
  • Isn’t trying to be an application framework
  • Onenote integration is cool
  • Better tab management (see the arrows? much better than the nipple monster of doom in Chrome) 
• Switch from Google Play Music to Groove
  • Fast
  • Can upload own music like GPM
  • Better desktop app (not some web app)

Here’s what’s stopping me:

Windows Phone:

• Poor support for Pebble (I have the Pebble Time)
• I ran headfirst into the lack of apps problem with Simple, a bank I use
• Authy has no plans to support Windows Phone (manageable, I can just get texts for 2-factor auth)
• Not really that much better for the price compared to my trusty 1+1 from last year.

Onenote:

The only thing here really is location notes with Keep, which I’m sure Cortana would be sufficient, and easy sharing of notes with Onenote (can share URL, but have to open the URL on the web, log into Onenote, and then click Sharing to actually get a shareable URL anyone can view). Also, I couldn’t sync encrypted sections on the Android app, not sure if this applies to Windows Phone as well.

Edge:

• No extensions (need muh adblock and don’t want to fiddle with hosts file)
• Still some bugs when I tear off tabs and some weird performance issues (drag an image around on a page, really choppy. Doesn’t keep me from using it though)

Groove:

• No recommendation system. Not sure if iHeartRadio fixes that, but I depend on Google Play Music’s recommendation system to discover new music.

Some additional issues include the fact that Microsoft still trying to forcefully make money off of Office. I wish it was more like Google Docs, which is free. I mean yeah you can edit stuff online with the Office apps but I would prefer the Windows 10 apps to be free. Hard to justify $10 a month for Office when Google Docs is more than sufficient.

Inbox for Gmail is also cool, but I wouldn’t mind using the Windows Mail app.

I’m going to wait a year and see how things improve. Next year I’m probably going to get a new phone around this time, so we’ll see how the hardware and services offering from Microsoft is. The new Lumia 950 devices are cool, but I’m a bit torn on the liquid cooling setup. On one hand I’m like “holy crap, liquid cooling in a phone? that’s badass” and on the other I’m like “holy crap liquid cooling in a phone? get your crap together Qualcomm”.