The lack of true multi-tasking has long been a criticism thrown at the iPad, but this may (or may not) be about to change, and we may (or may not) learn more about this at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). The big event begins June 6.
Let’s mingle, let’s mix it up
The evidence for the change is sparse — it consists of additional WebKit code for a multitasking mode that suggests freely-resizable windows. What this might mean in practice is that you’ll be able to open multiple windows on iPad and resize them as you like, closer to the Mac experience.
Developer Steve Troughton-Smith speculates the code could feasibly support new iPad OS-powered devices as well as providing a user experience similar to a Mac desktop.
Apple continues to bring both iPad and Mac user experiences closer together, while continuing to respect the differences between both. That vision extends to complementary use, as evidenced by Universal Control announced in 2021. The latter lets you use a Mac and an iPad together with one mouse and keyboard to control both and improved partnership across the platforms — you can drag-and-drop items between devices, for example. The sum of both devices used together becomes bigger than the parts, while both devices retain their uniqueness.
Now with bigger engines
With Apple Silicon, both devices now have much bigger engines. With this in mind, it is quite interesting that despite Apple’s use of Mac-class M1 Apple Silicon chips across most of the iPad range, little is known of how it plans to exploit that processing power in iPad OS 16. Apple won’t have powered-up the range for no good reason, but speculation has been conspicuously absent in recent weeks.
What we have heard consists of improved notifications and vague noises about “new ways to interact with apps,” and “fresh Apple apps.” What little we also think we know suggests improvements to notifications, health apps, and potentially a platform for future development of the company’s anticipated AR glasses.
Given the speculated code-name for Apple’s next macOS iteration is “Mammoth,” it makes sense to anticipate big news around the company’s platforms. What changes we see for the Mac will be echoed in the iPad, and vice versa. It makes much more sense that Apple has mammoth plans for its productivity devices than that it doesn’t.
The direction of travel
Thinking back a year, Universal Control was probably the most anticipated feature announced at WWDC last year. Apple’s iPad desiderata has also been articulated with Slide Over, Split View, the still multi-window shelf and so on. Even the introduction of the capacity to build apps in Swift Playgrounds shows a direction of travel toward more functionality to fully exploit the capabilities of these machines.
Apple has significantly refined the multitasking experience in iPadOS in recent years, enhancing features such as Slide Over, Split View, and the dock. For example, iPadOS 15 added a new multitasking menu at the top of apps, as well as center window, a new multi-window shelf, and a more intuitive experience with Split View. The latest speculation about resizable windows is by far the biggest claim yet for what’s to come, and hints at another round of multitasking improvements in iPad.
What might this mean for business?
So, what does this suggest for you and your business?
What it means is straightforward. Apple continues its mission to deliver user experiences that feel equally familiar on both iPad and Mac. That doesn’t mean identical experiences — each platform has its own unique qualities — but does encompass everything from identical keyboard shortcuts to pointer and keyboard support. This attempt also means that iPads are becoming capable computer replacements for a growing number of tasks.
One of the best barometers for this growing functionality is in Photoshop for iPad. That application appears to be in accelerated development and just weeks ago Adobe added two incredibly powerful tools to the iPad app — content aware fill and remove background.
As iPad functionality continues to improve, the product family becomes an increasingly viable alternative platform. That’s important because the innate mobility of the iPad also gives Apple a chance to develop completely new solutions built around the inherent technology it now owns. Think kiosks, wearables, e-paper devices, smart entertainment systems and so on.
In the shorter term, any improvements Apple does make to iPad OS will have an immediate impact on mobile professionals who now use the tablet instead of a notebook when on the go. Improvements in multi-tasking simply make the devices more capable, while improvements in functionality and the class of apps they support will do the same.
It’s also important to note — particularly as millions of Windows PCs hit EOL — iPads already provide viable, robust, and more secure alternatives for numerous tasks at relatively low TCO. Any improvements in capability and functionality can’t hurt the platform.
That Apple must continue to put momentum behind the iPad range is clear. While shipments climbed to peak of 17.5 million in Q4 21, component-related logistical problems slashed sales to 12.1 million in Q1 22. While Apple retains leadership in the tablet market, it will want to consolidate and progress that market; multitasking improvements should help it achieve that. That its tablets now boast high-end Mac processors makes this an obvious aim. That so little is known concerning Apple’s plans for iPad OS 16 (along with little insight into iOS 16), means all eyes (virtual and otherwise) will be on Apple’s WWDC announcements June 6, Swiftly approaching.
Apple’s recently announced Tap to Pay feature lets merchants use their iPhone to accept payments from a product or service using Apple Pay, with credit cards or digital wallets. No dongle is required, as the feature makes use of the device’s built-in NFC chip and third-party merchants services such as Stripe.
The service isn’t quite live yet but is being made available across Apple Retail. Its introduction marks a powerful step forward and will arguably be a big boost to small and medium-sized retailers across the US, who can now expect to use payment services alongside third-party facilitators such as Stripe with their Apple devices.
In conjunction with Apple’s Business Essentials service, the company now has a great offer for SMBs — robust devices they like, easy-to-deploy payment services, and device management/integration services (and support) to maintain devices used in stores.
A cynic might argue that these two services will deliver a great deal more benefit to businesses than any Facebook ad, but a critic may not.
What about Apple Account Card?
The jury remains out on the Apple Account Card. Available now in Wallet in the U.S., the virtual card displays the credit balance you might have associated with your Apple ID.
If you have received an App Store or Apple Store gift card, then the balance that would have been added to your Apple ID will now show up in Wallet on your Apple Account Card. You can then use that balance to make purchases at Apple. So long as you are in the US and are running iOS 15.5 or above you should be able to ‘Add Apple Account’ in Wallet.
Ensuring all your finances are available in Wallet means this new way of accessing Apple ID-related funds makes logical sense. What isn’t known (yet) is the extent to which Apple might plan to tie the feature to Apple Pay Cash, Apple Card, and any anticipated move into the “Buy Now, Pay Later” (BNPL) market.
Persistent speculation this year has claimed Apple intends to march into BNPL services. Any such plans may, however, have been put aside in response to current global economic uncertainty, which is prompting smaller players to restructure their business.
Their restructuring could, however, translate into an opportunity for well-heeled Apple to in, with its brand helping overcome consumer resistance to such services.
In conjunction with BNPL, Apple Account Card, Apple Card, and Tap to Pay, the company would then offer an end-to-end set of complementary solutions that put Apple at the heart of the customer journey across US retail. This potential certainly exists, and Apple Business Manager (plus the still evident surge in sales of Apple’s products at every part of the enterprise) would once again provide an attractive foundation for small retailers seeking straightforward tools with which to manage this increasingly Apple ecosystem.
Apple America
The one glaring omission in the plans so far seems to be the US-centric approach Apple has taken in nearly all these services. Account Card, Apple Card and Apple Pay Cash are not yet available in Europe or elsewhere, for example. While impressive, Apple Business Manager isn’t yet signing up non-US businesses. And while we’ve heard speculation the company may offer more of its payment services in Europe, those rumors haven’t yet transformed into reality.
What has become reality is that Apple has successfully convinced US consumers (and retailers) to adopt mobile payment services. The company faced some resistance when it first launched Apple Pay, but it now accounts for 92% of two billion US mobile wallet transactions made in 2020. There are also over six million Apple Card users in the US.
“Things happen fairly slowly, you know. They do. These waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you’re going to surf.”
Taking all the above into account, in the case of payment services, at least, Apple is making a strong bid to become a ubiquitous presence across the US retail industry — and other markets may well follow as the company expands its services business.
Microsoft, we need to talk. Lately, you’ve been doing things with your desktop software that make me question whether you’re really listening to your customers.
I keep seeing you code and roll out items that make no sense. First, let’s agree that users run Windows because there is some key application or feature they need. (Otherwise they might have moved to another platform by now.) This recent tweet resonated with me: “The value Windows has to consumers and businesses today isn’t the eye candy. It’s running 30+ years of apps, many of which should’ve been retired long ago. If you started over, you’d have to jettison that – and the platform would be worthless to most.”
Eye candy doesn’t really help; in fact, it can get in the way of making a satisfied Windows customer. But I’m seeing a lot of eye candy lately.
For example, recently in Windows 10 and 11 you rolled out a new feature called Search Highlights. It’s touted as being an improvement to the search experience in Windows by surfacing important and meaningful events, files, and resources to users. Search Highlights works slightly differently for regular and enterprise users. For the former, it will show meaningful information like holidays, anniversaries, and other educational moments based on the user’s region. Enterprise users, on the other hand, will see relevant files, contacts, and other organizational information.
It’s important that you realize that this idea of “regular users versus enterprise users” no longer makes a lot of sense in this work-from-home world we now live in. Offering a user different views and actions depending on which Windows machine they’re using is confusing. Stop thinking a “normal” user should be treated differently than an “enterprise” user. We both want an operating system to just flat-out work. Just make sure my PC boots when I want it to and is functional. When you dribble out features this way, you wind up leaving people thinking they’ve been infected by a virus and wondering what to do. Those of us who manage Windows machine have to answer questions about these “improvements” over and over. (For the record, if you want to get rid of Search Highlights, the instructions are here.)
My point is that many times these upgrades aren’t what people want. They don’t want search “highlights,” they want search to just plain work.
The current Windows 11 experience is another work in progress with mixed results. As noted by Rafael Rivera, Windows 11 25120 is testing a new desktop search box on the desktop, where the results are always shown in Microsoft Edge — ignoring the configured default browser. (For Windows 11 Insiders, if you want to see this feature, you need to download a tool that allows you to enable optional testing. As Rivera notes, you download the ViVe tool, open an Elevated Command prompt and navigate to the folder where the extracted ViveTool is. Enter the following command in the command prompt: vivetool addconfig 37969115 2 and it will enable the search box.)
Yes, Microsoft, you’ve told us these “trial balloons of code” may not end up in the final released feature releases. But it’s interesting to see what you’re spending your time on.
Maybe you should look at some feedback for items users really want: a better weather widget, for instance. Seriously. Go into the feedback application in Windows 10 and you will see a bug that has been upvoted more than 1,400 times. The issue here is that the hourly section of the Weather app no longer shows hours, at least for some users.
Now, I can see the hours showcased in my Weather app, but clearly others are seeing a problem. Therein lies the problem of the ”dribble changes” you’ve been doing. Something will suddenly change and it’s unclear whether the issue is a bug, a temporary problem, or something intentional. Often, when a change is announced, it may be weeks before anyone actually sees it show up on their computer. And by then, many users will likely have forgotten about it. Or they think their computer’s been hacked or has a virus. When Search Highlights arrived, some users thought something was wrong with their computer. And with the Weather widget, is it a bug or a feature? We don’t know.
Even for business users and IT help desk admins, this pattern leads to confusion. When someone calls the help desk with an issue, the admin might not know about it because the change hasn’t occurred on their workstation. So they then have to remote into the workstation to understand what’s going. This is less than ideal.
And now you’re taking the “dribble” approach to Office, pushing everyone who’s chosen the Semi-annual Enterprise channel onto the Monthly channel — meaning changes and tweaks will show up more often. (This often happens in my office; one day I’ll see a certain behavior in Office and then the next day, it changes. Then I have to dig into the build number of Office to determine what happened and why.)
Microsoft, you may need to dribble out changes this way so you can gauge use and resources. But for those of us who use computers, it’s often jarring and confusing and forces us to investigate why something is suddenly different. You could fix that by being clearer when you make changes to our systems.
The iCloud login process provides plenty of value without requiring a great deal of thought. Here’s what do need to know about iCloud login and how to get the most from it.
The iCloud System Status page is the best way to understand the extent to which iCloud supports Apple’s ecosystem. Look and you’ll find 65 services listed there. These include many you may never have heard of before, some you may not use, and a variety of services you may already rely on at work, such as the Device Enrollment and Volume Purchase programs.
iCloud login is the key to this part of the Apple Garden.
When you are logged into iCloud on a device using your Apple ID, (and this includes some non-Apple devices when using specific iCloud-supported apps or services, such as Music), you can access some or all these services.
Apple
Third-party developers also use iCloud, thanks to Apple’s CloudKit framework and tools they use to build apps that sync across devices.
Underpinning all of this is your Apple ID and iCloud login.
Apple ID and iCloud login
Your Apple ID is the key to iCloud and all Apple’s services.
When you sign into a device with your Apple ID, you also sign into iCloud. It’s really important to protect that information, which is why your Apple ID should be protected with a complex alphanumeric passcode you can remember (and must also be protected by two-factor authentication).
On Apple devices: You can login to iCloud on an iPhone, iPad, Mac, or Apple TV. You need to be signed in using the same Apple ID on all your devices to use iCloud to sync data and services across all of them. If you keep two separate Apple IDs, you cannot easily share them both on one device as the system’s philosophy is to protect one user.
On Windows: You can also access some iCloud information and Apple services on a Windows PC using the iCloud for Windows app. You can access a limited number of services (Music, TV+) on other devices using specific apps.
Online: Finally, you can also access data stored on iCloud online through a standards-compliant browser at iCloud.com. There you can access Mail, Contacts, Calendar, Photos, your iCloud Drive data, Notes, Reminders, and use Find My, Pages, Numbers and Keynote. You can also manage various Settings, manage Family Sharing and a variety of other tasks via iCloud online. Therefore, it is important to ensure you use a strong passcode to secure your account.
How to login iCloud on Android: The only way to access iCloud from an Android device is to use a browser to access iCloud online. You can’t sync apps this way.
Where is iCloud login?
iCloud login should happen automatically when you enter your Apple ID as you setup your Apple device. If for some reason you fail to set the system up then, or plan to change your device to work with another Apple ID, you will find iCloud in Settings (iOS, iPad OS) or System Preferences (Mac). You should create a backup first.
On Mac:Tap Apple ID>Overview>Sign Out (or Sign In) and follow the steps provided.
On iPhone/iPad: Tap Apple ID, scroll to the bottom and tap Sign Out and follow the steps provided to sign in with a different Apple ID.
When signing out from iCloud you will lose all the data stored on the device, but it should be maintained in the iCloud account you have been using.
How to merge Apple IDs
If you have multiple Apple ID’s, you are out of luck. Apple puts it quite brutally, telling us: “If you have multiple Apple IDs, you can’t merge them.”
However, Apple does enable Mobile Device Management solutions to put data separation in place to secure business data on personal devices (see below).
If you suspect someone is logged into your iCloud account from a device that does not belong to you, you should visit Sign in and then click Devices. You will now see all the devices logged into that iCloud account.
You can also see this in iPhone/iPad in Settings>Account Name where you will find a list of all your devices; on a Mac, in System Preferences>Apple ID, scroll down the list at the left. You can also check which devices are logged in using iCloud for Windows in Account Details>Manage Apple ID.
Apple does warn you when new sign-ins take place: If you have two-factor authentication enabled anyone attempting access to your account will require a verification code provided via one of your trusted devices or phone numbers. In the event someone does login to your iCloud account, you should receive an email telling you this.
The company also has various access controls in place to protect iCloud for Windows.
What is iCloud Data Recovery?
You may have heard of iCloud Data Recovery. It’s a recently introduced Apple solution to help people who have lost access to their account for some reason. It lets you regain access to much of your data, but can’t restore your Keychain, Screen Time or Health data, as that information is encrypted. Even Apple can’t get to it.
You’ll find iCloud Data Recovery Service in the Account Recovery section under Password & Security. You should choose to either enable your Recovery Key or assign a Recovery Contact.
In the latter scenario, that contact will be provided with a code with which you can access and unlock your account. The Recovery Key option provides you with a unique key you should write down and store in a bank vault or somewhere, as anyone with access to it can grab your account. For best results, add someone you trust to act as a recovery contact, though you can also set up a recovery key.
iCloud data separation
If you use a work device, or have a personal device that has been enrolled (usually via Apple Business or Apple School Manager) and is then controlled by a Mobile Device Management system like those provided by Apple Business Essentials, Jamf,Kandji, Mosyle and others, it may be possible to separate personal from work-related data. This process takes place during the user enrollment process, when IT can apply cryptographic separation to keep work and personal data apart. It means that if an employee leaves the company the former employer can delete any work-related data from the device without impacting the user’s own information.
This system can also be automated, which is the way kiosks and shared iPad fleets in schools can be returned to factory fresh in between use.
Do you have further questions about or insights to share concerning iCloud or iCloud login? Please let me know.
When Apple announced recently that it was discontinuing macOS Server, the move didn’t come as a huge surprise. Apple has been deprecating and removing its core services for a while, and moving others – such as Caching Service – into the macOS itself.
But let’s take a moment to say goodbye and contemplate what we will do without it.
MacOS Server has a long and storied history. It pre-dated Mac OS X by a year, launching initially in 1999. One of its cardinal features was Open Directory, which launched within Mac OS X Panther Server. It was Apple’s answer to Microsoft’s Active Directory and was a powerful solution for managing Macs, user accounts, and any settings on a Mac bound to it. It also integrated nicely with Active Directory, making it a solution for mixed Mac and Windows environments.
Open Directory was one of the last services standing in macOS Server.
At one point, it was a complete solution – particularly for small and mid-size organizations – after the Leopard Server release of 2007, which included a simplified setup option. In fact, as Apple killed off several enterprise hardware products (the xServe and xServe RAID), the focus of macOS Server changed from being a product for large enterprises to one that better serviced small businesses centered around a Mac mini server (though any Mac could run macOS Server).
While lower-end Macs as servers could reliably power smaller organizations, their hardware limited their use in large businesses. The Mac Pro was the only remaining Apple product capable of functioning as a truly enterprise server.
What was left standing
After Apple removed almost all of macOS Server features in 2018 and suggested some alternatives for organizations still based around it (most of those options were open-source versions Apple had built into macOS Server), very little remained of the main product. The only services still in place were Open Directory and Profile Manager. And Profile Manager was a lightweight Apple device manager console that was more limited than competing enterprise mobility management (EMM) solutions.
What comes next?
Although macOS Server is no longer available through the Mac App Store, the company says existing customers can continue using it if they already have it installed. While that concession might be helpful in the short term for Mac-based or Mac-centric organizations, it isn’t a signal that macOS Server will continue and users can happily keep using it. This is little more than a life raft or stop gap.
Yes, you can use it, but not forever. You need to find a replacement ASAP.
What should you replace macOS Server with?
Since organizations have had four years to migrate most services, ideally to the cloud, the only services that will likely need to be replaced now are Open Directory and Profile Manager.
Your best option for replacing Profile Manager is to use a third-party enterprise mobile management (EMM) vendor. It’s important to note that EMM solutions that can manage iOS devices and Apple TVs can also manage Macs.
For organizations that are Mac-only or Mac-specific, options include JAMF, Kandji, SimpleMDM, and Addigy.
For small businesses, Apple has created a base EMM tool known as Apple Business Essentials; it provides cloud-based Apple device management, but is limited to organizations with 500 or fewer employees.
Multi-platform and Windows-based networks should consider EMM tools from the primary vendor that’s already a part of your enterprise stack (Microsoft, VMWare, Citrix, Ciso, etc.) or choose another product if it delivers feature or user-experience benefits you’d like to have but that the primary vendor does not offer.
Apple Business Manager and Apple School Manager
Apple does have some cloud-based tools for larger businesses in the form Apple Business Manager and its companion Apple School Manager. Organizations typically use these in conjunction with Managed Apple IDs as an authentication and user-management solution. You can directly interact with these tools — and in some cases, you will need to do just that, depending on your user/device authenticator.
Apple Business Manager, for example can link to Azure AD. If you use a different cloud-based authentication solution (such as Google Workspace or Okta), you’ll need to check if they can integrate with Apple Business or School Manager. One reason to use a third-party EMM solution is that these tools will generally manage any user/device authentication and access capabilities and manage and secure Macs and other Apple devices.
Going forward
Although macOS Server carries some nostalgia for people (including myself) who have used it for years, Apple has long made it clear that it intended to move out of the data center and head toward cloud services. The good news, though, is that you have plenty of options, even if your organization is still built around macOS Server.
You have to be deeply committed to multiple forms of denial to not recognize that the world is changing. And while not every change is positive, one that makes more sense than most is the chance to create distributed. remote workforces at scale that are more flexible, diverse, and resilient than what we had before.
It’s time to seize the moment
For two years, technology has supported a new era of flexibility. Many employers now recognize that remote work can be just as — and sometimes more — productive than the in-person experience, while employees have enjoyedthe flexibility of working when it’s most productive to them, reducing risk of burning out.
Among other things, the upside of the dark cloud that is the pandemic has been seen in better family relationships, a much easier commute, and the opportunity to hire more diverse workforces as marginalized groups gain representation. Introverts have found it easier to make valuable asynchronous contributions to their company, while more garrulous folk occupy endless hours in Zoom team meetings. The data, the experience, and the results, speak for themselves. It is possible to do great work remotely.
Is everyone at Apple involved in product design? Of course not; the majority of Apple’s staff hold business roles just like at any other giant corporation. They are in sales teams, customer service, analyst roles, regional managers, accountants, and all the other jobs that make up any company. Only a relatively small number of these people are involved in product design. To argue that the entire Apple enterprise is the tech equivalent of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory is to ignore the fact that for every talented Oompah Woompah in product development, there’s probably a couple of hundred people in support roles that can easily be handled remotely.
The argument that employees who aren’t happy can simply get another job is also deeply obtuse and somewhat unrealistic. Certainly, Apple’s people are smart. But surely it’s time the company listened to its workers, rather than seek to oppose them. It’s an opportunity to reinvent the future of work. And undoubtedly, building effective digital replacements for casual collaboration is a product design challenge worth solving.
A recent Future Forum survey found that employee experience scores have declined across the board as workers are made to go back to the office, while a Topia studytells us an astonishing 94% of employees think they should be able to work from anywhere, as long as they get their work done.
That’s the point, isn’t it? Using technology to augment human potential, as a “bicycle for the mind” rather than ignoring tech to enslave the body.
I know of at least one huge multinational telecom services company that used digital processes to enable 90,000 employees to work effectively together during the pandemic. It worked closely with staff to make sure the tools it provided were the ones employees required, and as a global systems integration services provider, its people in turn empowered businesses with tens of thousands of employees to stay productive.
It can be done.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky thinks so. He believes the age of the traditional office is over, urging the creation of local collaboration spaces where small groups can gather when they need to — office as a service, with a focus on employee experience design.
The inevitability of gradualness
The thing is, changing workplace practices are utterly in keeping with the wider digital change transforming every enterprise. Automation is part of this, but by no means all of it. Industry 5.0 will be all about digital processes that augment human capabilities. That means humans and machines working together to accomplish more; automating and digitizing those “water cooler moments”is inevitably going to be part of that change. And are water cooler moments actually so valuable? Did Jony Ive, the man of the $530 Hermes measuring tape, really get ideas for a new Mac when queuing at that cooler with Sally from accounts?
I don’t think so.
Even my favorite-ever iMac design, the iMac G4, was visualized when then-CEO Steve Jobs and Ive were effectively working remotely, in this case when walking around Laurene Powell Job’s flower garden.
There are numerous studies that show simply going for a walk with others is one of the best ways to boost creative thinking, problem-solving, and collaboration. (Recognition that water cooler moments are overrated is presumably why Apple built a park in the middle of its HQ.)
I just hope it lets its workers walk there, rather than forcing them to stand by water coolers desperately trying to have s great idea.
All through the pandemic I came across reports refuting arguments emanating from authoritarian managers that people working from home were in some way being “lazy.”
This is nonsense
Employees worked their hearts out to keep businesses going, people put in more hours, became incredibly motivated, and the only widely reported problems were that not everyone had a comfortable place to work from, lacked bandwidth, and that many managers didn’t respect the work that was being done.
Some began to show a massive disrespect for people’s work/home life balance. Working from home should not mean taking a management call at 7 p.m., or being required to have a camera on you at all times. Working should be about clearly defined goals, targets, achievements and recognition. Presence, darling, is history.
But for many workers, including those at Apple, the reward for heroically holding businesses together during a global disaster is to be told they are lazy and must get back to the office.
What kind of reward is that?
What kind of motivation do you think that edict will provide? When the undercurrent seems to be that employees must conform or “get another job,” no company should be terribly surprised to see loyalty shrink, respect for authority atrophy, and productivity fall.
Why do your best work for a company that sees you as easily replaceable?
At Apple, around 76% of employees aren’t happy at with the company’s remote work plans. No wonder they want to unionize.
And these arguments extend beyond technology and its capacity to bolster what we can do. They go beyond the need to design employee experiences people want to spend eight hours a day in. They connect directly to an approach to help solve some of the really big problems we face.
Think about diversity
Apple knows how difficult it is to recruit from among under-represented groups. Every HR report on this matter I read (and I read lots of these things) tells me the perception that tech is some form of boy’s club is part of what stops people from joining the industry.
Remote work boosts diversity by helping to break that cycle of toxic masculinity, and enables less well-represented groups who can’t necessarily work in a 9-to-5 culture (such as new parents or people of disability) to join workforces. In other words, remote working should be seen as a tool to enable enterprises to deliver more diversity in recruitment. It’s all about creating flexibility and breaking down the power of negative perception by disempowering negative workplace culture and replacing it with more inclusive models. I know Apple recognizes the challenges of accessibility, so why this blind spot around the future of work?
Collaboration, imagination, technology driven innovation, and thinking different about all of them should be easy oceans for Apple to swim in, particularly if it remains dedicated to its mission of helping the crazy ones to change the world.
Though perhaps the abject failure of FaceTime to define video collaboration reflects a lack of vision at the company, a company that could now help build a new future of work, one which embraces both the square pegs and the round holes. Perhaps someone else will make solutions for the crazy ones in future?
I recently started a new job at MongoDB as a Principal Community Manager, spearheading the MongoDB Community Champions program. In that role, I faced two challenges.
First, I was joining a brand new, fully remote team. Not only was I new myself, but the team as a whole was just beginning to form, with new members coming on board a couple of times per month. This team was also spread across several time zones, with about half of them older, established members who’ve been with the company for a long time and know each other pretty well, and the other half entirely new faces.
Second, the Community Champions program started during the pandemic. As a result, program participants from around the world had very little opportunity to meet each other and meld as a group. I wanted to find out more about what they wanted to discuss and learn, so I could use that to plan out the first few months of programming. I also wanted to give them a chance to talk with each other about their interests.
I ran these scenarios past a friend of mine, the fabulous Donna Benjamin, and she suggested an extremely useful tool from the Open Practice Library: Lean Coffee.
What is Lean Coffee?
Lean Coffee is a structured but agenda-less meeting. Participants gather, build their own agenda, and begin talking.
You start with a Kanban board with To Discuss, Discussing, and Discussed columns. Optionally, you can add an Actions section to write down anything that needs following up after the meeting. Participants get a fixed amount of time to brainstorm topics to talk about. Each topic is then written on a sticky note.
All sticky notes are placed in the To Discuss column and clustered by grouping similar topics together, also known as affinity mapping. This is followed by a round of dot voting, which is exactly what it sounds like: voting by placing a dot on a sticky note to indicate your choice. At the end of the process, you might have a board that looks something like this:
Image by:
(Angie Byron, CC BY-SA 4.0)
The most popular topic moves to the Discussing column, then you set a timer for 5-7 minutes and start the group talking. When the timer goes off, everyone votes again on whether to keep going for another few minutes or switch to the next topic. Stickies are moved and topics are discussed accordingly until the allotted meeting time runs out.
Lean Coffee all but guarantees you’ll be harnessing the passion and interest of the group, since these are all going to be things they want to talk about. It’s also great because the format is extremely lightweight; you can do it with just a whiteboard, a few pens, and some sticky notes in person or with virtual tools that emulate them, such as Scrumbler.
So how might Lean Coffee work in practice?
Real-time remote team building
This is an example of utilizing the Lean Coffee pattern as intended: to foster a conversation among people who may or may not know each other, but for whom you want to try and surface commonalities and spark discussion.
First, choose a time that works best for your team as a whole. This is critical, because if your focus is on building up team cohesion, you do not want some of your team to feel left out. Lean Coffee can stretch or shrink to fill whatever time you have available, but an hour is a good amount of time.
Since you will be using virtual tools, you may want to begin with a short icebreaker exercise to get folks used to the tool and the voting process. For example, you could put up a couple of open-ended questions on sticky notes and allow people to vote on which one they want to answer as a group. Next, run the Lean Coffee exercise as documented: Set a timer, let each person drag over sticky notes and write down their topics, cluster the responses together, then discuss!
During our first run of these, we talked about everything from where we would most like to travel to what our favorite kinds of food were and what hobbies we had. There were insights and laughter, and the team came away feeling it was a really positive experience.
Asynchronous topic gathering and discussion
With the Champions, it is impossible to get everyone on a call at the same time due to the international nature of the group, everyone’s personal schedules, and so on. But it’s possible to run a modified, more drawn-out version of Lean Coffee for this situation.
First, walk folks through how the tool generally works and what they should do. You can do this live on a video meeting or via a prerecorded video. For topic gathering, set the time limit for something like a week to 10 days to accommodate peoples’ various schedules, vacations, sick kids, and anything else that might come up. Expect that because the deadline is extended and there’s no real-time component, you will need to send one or two gentle reminders to folks to participate. You should also expect that, despite your efforts, there will be some drop-off in participation.
After topics are in, you can cluster them as you do in the synchronous version. Since you can’t talk through this in real time as a group, you will probably want to add headers above each cluster to explain your thinking. Some of our clusters were Best Practices, Learn about Product X, and so on. For clusters that already clearly have consensus, you can wait for the voting process or just go ahead and move those to the To Be Discussed column proactively.
Repeat the “timer” (and the gentle reminders) with the voting process, leaving a week or so for folks to get their votes in. If there are a large number of topics generated, you may want to allow each member more than one vote—up to three, for example. By taking the highest-clustering and highest-voted topics, you effectively have a backlog of meeting topics. Set a meeting schedule over as many weeks or months are needed and work your way down the topic list for each meeting.
This approach is definitely not as dynamic and exciting as the real-time version of Lean Coffee, but the basic mechanics serve the same purpose of ensuring that the members are talking about things that are relevant and interesting to them. This is also a useful approach if you, like me, need to track down one or more people (such as product managers or engineers) in order to have a useful discussion about a given topic.
Lean Coffee for remote and in-person collaboration
Lean Coffee is a versatile, fun, and engaging way of allowing relative strangers to meet each other, interact, find common ground, and learn from each other. Its simplicity allows it to be modified for a variety of remote and in-person gatherings and used for a variety of purposes.
There are dozens of other patterns like this in the Open Practice Library, so you should definitely check it out!
Windows 11 has been released, but behind the scenes, Microsoft is constantly working to improve the newest version of Windows. The company frequently rolls out public preview builds to members of its Windows Insider Program, allowing them to test out — and even help shape — upcoming features.
The Windows Insider program is divided into three channels:
The Dev Channel is where new features are introduced for initial testing, regardless of which Windows release they’ll eventually end up in. This channel is best for technical users and developers and builds in it may be unstable and buggy.
In the Beta Channel, you’ll get more polished features that will be deployed in the next major Windows release. This channel is best for early adopters, and Microsoft says your feedback in this channel will have the most impact.
The Release Preview Channel typically doesn’t see action until shortly before a new feature update is rolled out. It’s meant for final testing of an upcoming release and is best for those who want the most stable builds.
The Beta and Release Preview Channels also receive bug-fix builds for the currently shipping version of Windows 11.
Not everyone can participate in the Windows 11 Insider program, because the new operating system has more stringent system requirements than Windows 10. As outlined in this Microsoft blog post, if your PC fails to meet the minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11, you cannot join the Windows 11 Insider Program.
Use the links below to find information about the Windows 11 preview builds that have been released:
For each build, we’ve included the date of its release, which Insider channel it was released to, a summary of what’s in the build, and a link to Microsoft’s announcement about it.
Note: If you’re looking for information about updates being rolled out to all Windows 11 users, not previews for Windows Insiders, see “Windows 11: A guide to the updates.”
Dev Channel
Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 25115
Release date: May 11, 2022
Released to: Dev Channel
This build has a new feature called suggested actions. With it, when you copy a date, time, or phone number, Windows will suggest related actions such as creating a calendar event or making a phone call with an app. The build also fixes a variety of bugs, including one in File Explorer that displayed the error 0x800703E6 when copying files from Google Drive, and another that caused the Task Manager to become unreadable in dark mode when the CPU reached 100%.
The build has three known issues, including one in which some apps in full screen (for example, video players) prevent live captions from being visible, and another in which when certain apps positioned near the top of the screen are closed before live captions is run, they relaunch behind the live captions window positioned at top.
This build fixes a wide variety of bug fixes, including one in which the widgets board did not open successfully when using the opening gesture from the side of the screen, another in which performance and reliability of explorer.exe degraded over time, eventually resulting in a bug check, and another in which using the 3-finger on-screen touch gesture for minimizing windows could cause animations to stop working across the system.
The build has two known issues, including one in which some apps in full screen (for example, video players) prevent live captions from being visible, and another in which when certain apps positioned near the top of the screen are closed before live captions are run will relaunch behind the live captions window positioned at top.
This build adds the following new MDM and group policies for IT administrators:
Disable Quick Settings flyout
Disable Notification Center and calendar flyouts
Disable all taskbar settings
Disable search (across Start and taskbar)
Hide Task View from taskbar
Block customization of ‘Pinned’ in Start
Hide ‘Recommended’ in Start
Disable Start context menus
Hide ‘All apps’ in Start
It also updates the Family Safety widget that includes a new location sharing view that shows where your family members are using the Family Safety app.
There are also a wide variety of bug fixes, including for a bug in which an Administrative Template error no longer popped up when opening Group Policy editor, another that prevented Shift + Right-click on a taskbar icon from opening the expected context menu, and another in which app icons like Microsoft Edge were cut off on the bottom in Start’s all apps list.
The build has five known issues, including one in which the widgets board may not open successfully when using the gesture from the side of the screen, and another in which some apps in full screen (for example, video players) prevent live captions from being visible.
This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which File Explorer’s context menu sometimes did not render completely and was sometimes transparent, and another in which the Task Manager’s memory composition graph was blank instead of filled in with the appropriate color.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including one in which the widgets board may not open successfully when using the gesture from the side of the screen, another in which some apps in full screen (for example, video players) prevent live captions from being visible, and another in which the taskbar doesn’t always automatically collapse after launching an app or tapping outside of the expanded taskbar on 2-in-1 devices.
In this build, recent and pinned files displayed in Home are now searchable using the search box in File Explorer, even if they are not local files, so you can find Office files recently shared with you.
There are also a wide variety of bug fixes, including for a bug in which app icons were unexpectedly animating in from the upper left of the taskbar when launching a new app, another that caused Windows Spotlight to unexpectedly stop updating for a prolonged period of time, and another that caused Narrator to read dialog buttons incorrectly in scan mode.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including one in which the widgets board may not open successfully when using the gesture from the side of the screen, and another in which some apps in full screen (for example, video players) prevent live captions from being visible.
This build includes several minor changes to the taskbar, including having the top border line extend across the entire taskbar regardless of device type. There are also a wide variety of bugs thar have been fixed, including one in which the Search box at the top of the Start menu would flicker, and another in which Task Manager wasn’t populating the details of the Status column in the Startup Apps page.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including one in which when you enter search terms in File Explorer’s search box, suggested results may not show, and another in which after rearranging widgets in the widgets board, widgets in the pinned section may render incorrectly.
This build allows IT administrators to exclude USB removable drives from BitLocker encryption. This solves the problem of automatic or accidental encryption of storage built into specialized devices like video cameras, voice recorders, conferencing systems, and medical devices.
There are also a variety of minor changes, including one that lets you name your app folders in the Start menu, and another that puts the new Run New Task button on all pages of Task Manager.
The build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which Start’s folders were still showing animations even if you had animation effects disabled, and another in which explorer.exe crashed when dragging certain windows across snap layouts at the top of the screen.
The build has a dozen known issues, including one in which opening suggested results shown while entering search terms in File Explorer’s search box may not work, and another in which when rearranging widgets in the widgets board, you may experience problems with widgets in the pinned section rendering incorrectly.
This build lets you set family controls for browsing in Microsoft Edge, and introduces a video editor called Clipchamp that offers tools like trimming, splitting, transitions, and animated text. For real-time content capture, Clipchamp has a built-in webcam and screen recorders.
There are a variety of small changes, including a Print Queue with an updated design to align with Windows 11 design principles. In addition, Shift + right-clicking in File Explorer and the desktop will now open the “Show more options” context menu.
The build also fixes several dozen bugs, including one in which scroll bars didn’t render appropriately on some Win32 applications, and another in which custom mouse pointers reverted to the default Windows one after rebooting.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including one in which opening suggested results shown while entering search terms in File Explorer’s search box may not work, and another in which when rearranging widgets in the widgets board, you may experience problems with widgets in the pinned section rendering incorrectly.
This build attempts to increase the use of renewable energy by installing Windows 11 updates at times of the day that are more likely to have higher availability of renewable energy such as solar, wind, and hydro. This feature will only be enabled when your PC is plugged in and regional carbon intensity data is available to Microsoft.
The build also allows you to link your Android phone to your PC during setup. It also introduces a new security feature, Smart App Control (SAC), that blocks untrusted or potentially dangerous applications.
There are a variety of small changes, including an updated “Open with” dialog box that better aligns with Windows 11 design principles.
The build also fixes several dozen bugs, including one in which the Windows startup sound didn’t play, and another in which explorer.exe would sometimes crash when opening the context menu.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including one in which scroll bars are not rendering appropriately on some Win32 applications, and another in which opening suggested results shown while entering search terms in File Explorer’s search box may not work.
This build includes a new taskbar feature in which it automatically adjusts to an optimized version when it detects a device is being used as a tablet. The taskbar can then either be collapsed or expanded. When collapsed, it disappears, giving you more screen space. When expanded, the taskbar is optimized to use with touch. You can easily switch between the two states by swiping up or down on the bottom of the tablet.
In this build, widgets and news feeds are mixed into the same feed, so you can more easily see changing information at a glance. There’s also a new feature for IT admins in education: the ability to use group policy to turn off all Windows Update notifications so as not to distract students.
A variety of smaller improvements have also been made, including an expanded search from Quick Access that includes content from OneDrive, Downloads, and any indexed location.
The build also fixes several dozen bugs, including one in which pop-up dialogs (for example, when adding an optional feature) in Settings were launching left aligned instead of centered, and another in which the navigation bar in Task Manager was showing black glitches when you launched Task Manager from a minimized state. Also fixed was a long-standing bug in which the taskbar sometimes flickered when switching input methods.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including one in which the File Explorer search box may not work when typing and clicking a suggestion, and another in the Task Manager in which the Efficiency mode icon is missing on some child processes.
This build includes many new features, including the ability to group pinned apps into folders in the Start menu; the Do not disturb feature, which lets you silence notifications; and the Focus feature, which turns off a variety of Windows actions that may be distracting.
Also new is integration of OneDrive and File Explorer, which will let you see your OneDrive sync status and quota usage without having to leave File Explorer. There are also a variety of new touch gestures. A new way of snapping windows into Snap Layouts has been introduced as well.
Default battery settings have been changed in order to reduce energy consumption. Task Manager has been redesigned to be in more in keeping with Windows 11 design principles, including a new hamburger-style navigation bar and a new settings page.
A variety of smaller improvements has also been made, including drag-and-drop support on the taskbar and a faster and more accurate search.
The build also fixes several dozen bugs, including one in which Task View crashed if you held down the Ctrl key while hovering over it, and another in which explorer.exe crashed when you clicked on More Keyboard Settings in the input switcher.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
This build introduces more “natural”-sounding voices for Narrator along with new Narrator keyboard shortcuts, and also updates the media controls that appear on the Lock screen when playing music in a supported app.
The build also fixes many bugs, including one in which Task Manager crashed when switching to the Performance tab, another that caused explorer.exe to crash when dragging and dropping a file out of a zipped folder in File Explorer, and another that caused the cursor to disappear in certain apps.
The build has five known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
This build gives new capabilities to voice access, including spelling words and entering numbers, punctuation marks, and symbols and emojis. There are also a wide variety of bug fixes, including for a bug in which pressing the hardware buttons for volume up/down caused explorer.exe to crash, and another in which Settings sometimes crashed when viewing the properties of a Wi-Fi network.
The build has five known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
This build updates the flyout design for hardware indicators for brightness, volume, camera privacy, camera on/off, and airplane mode to follow what Microsoft calls “Windows 11 design principles.” The new flyouts appear when you press the volume or brightness keys on a laptop.
The build also fixes 16 bugs, including one that wouldn’t allow you to import photos from certain cameras and mobile phones into the Photos app, and another in which holding the Ctrl key and hovering your mouse over the Task View icon in the taskbar crashed explorer.exe.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
This build fixes nine bugs, including one in which the Search flyout became stuck on the screen and appeared transparent except for its border, and another in which the Widgets panel would temporarily become blank, showing only an Add Widgets button, which when clicked on opened to a blank dialog box.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
This build brings the snap groups feature to Alt-Tab and Task View, allowing you to easily choose from a number of pre-set ways to automatically arrange your open windows. The build also squashes a wide variety of bugs, including the battery icon tooltip unexpectedly showing a percent above 100, and Settings content getting truncated when the Settings window is made small.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and another in which the Search panel may not open after the Search icon on the taskbar is clicked.
This build includes a new set of photos that can be used as desktop backgrounds, plus a new widget that delivers live weather content on the widget panel. It also introduces Voice Access, which lets you control your PC and create and edit text using your voice.
A wide variety of bugs have been squashed, including an explorer.exe crash related to having websites pinned to the taskbar, and another in which Snap Group thumbnails weren’t updating in real time in Task View after you moved a group window to a different desktop.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
This build improves the way that Narrator can control Microsoft Edge. In addition, it lets you right-click on Start to quickly access Start settings and customize the “More pins” or “More recommendations” layout options. It also brings a variety of settings from Control Panel into the Settings app, including moving the advanced sharing settings (such as Network discovery, File and printer sharing, and public folder sharing) to a new page in the Settings app under Advanced Network Settings.
There are a wide variety of bug fixes, including one in which the Start, Search, Task View, Widgets, and Chat icons in the taskbar no longer unexpectedly enlarge when the system scaling is set to 125%, and another in which hovering your mouse back and forth between different desktops in Task View will no longer result in the displayed thumbnails and content area unexpectedly shrinking.
The build has four known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
This build applies the 13 themes for the touch keyboard to other input methods, including IMEs, the emoji panel, and voice typing. It also lets you use the Windows key + Alt + K keyboard shortcut to toggle the new mute icon in the taskbar when it’s showing.
There are also a wide variety of bug fixes, including for one in which snap layout options randomly put windows on other monitors, and another in which text was duplicated if the caret was moved while using voice typing.
The build has seven known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
This build lets you quickly share content from open app windows directly from your taskbar to your Teams meeting calls. In addition, a wide variety of bugs have been fixed, including one in which Clipboard history wasn’t working properly, and another in which explorer.exe crashed when using the touch keyboard.
The build has 10 known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods and the Search panel sometimes not opening when the Search icon on the taskbar is clicked.
On November 12 Microsoft noted that it is starting to roll out Cumulative Update Build 22499.1010 (KB5008400) to test the servicing pipeline for builds in the Dev Channel; the update does not include anything new.
With this build you can mute and unmute your microphone from the taskbar during a Microsoft Teams call. In addition, a wide variety of bugs have been fixed, including one in which context menus crashed when you tried to scroll through them, and another in which some devices had a black screen when coming out of sleep.
The build has eight known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
This build includes a new settings page that displays information about your Microsoft account, including your subscriptions for Microsoft 365, links to order history, payment details, and Microsoft Rewards. Note that it’s only being rolled out to a small group of Insiders at first.
A wide variety of bugs have been fixed, including one in which explorer.exe crashed sometimes when using the Desktops flyout context menu, and another in which Settings crashed in certain cases after going to Windows Update.
The build has nine known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and another in which the Search panel may not open after the Search icon on the taskbar is clicked.
This build includes a new feature that lets you right-click on either “Recommended” or the “More” button in Start to refresh the items shown there. In addition, it has a number of bug fixes, including one that caused Search to appear black and not display any content below the search box, and another that caused cellular data to not work on certain devices.
The build has 10 known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and another in which the Search panel may not open after the Search icon on the taskbar is clicked.
This build includes new emojis that conform to Microsoft’s Fluent design standards. It also lets you log in to a closed laptop using Windows Hello facial recognition on a connected external monitor if it has a camera attached that supports it.
The build also fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which the Notification Center refused to launch, and another in File Explorer in which the “Show hidden items” option was out of sync when multiple File Explorer windows were open.
The build has eight known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and another in which after the Search icon on the taskbar is clicked, the Search panel may not open.
This build has more than a dozen bug fixes, including for a bug that sometimes caused the taskbar’s hidden icons flyout to have sharp corners instead of rounded corners, and another that caused explorer.exe to crash sometimes when closing File Explorer windows.
The build also has 10 known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and widgets displaying in the wrong size on external monitors.
The build has two minor new features. When you click a VPN connection in VPN Settings, you can now see some statistics about the connection. And you can now turn off recent searches when hovering over the Search icon in the taskbar.
There are also more than a dozen bug fixes, including for a bug in which some drives did not display in Defragment and Optimize Drives, and another that caused unexpected flickering in certain apps such as Microsoft Edge when using multiple monitors with different refresh rates.
The build has nine known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and widgets displaying in the wrong size on external monitors.
Microsoft also announced that the redesigned Paint app for Windows 11 is beginning to roll out to Insiders in the Dev Channel.
The build has several minor new features, including one in which when you have a file or folder selected in File Explorer, you can now use Ctrl-Shift-C to copy the path to your clipboard. The build also fixes several dozen bugs, including one in which pressing F1 in File Explorer opened Windows 10 help instead of Windows 11 help, and another that caused File Explorer to hang when doing a search.
The build also has several dozen known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and widgets displaying in the wrong size on external monitors.
The build has more than a dozen bug fixes, including for one in which Settings sometimes crashed when trying to open the Display page, and another that made Start unreliable.
The build also has several dozen known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and widgets displaying in the wrong size on external monitors.
This build has a few extremely minor changes, including in which right-clicking on Recycle Bin on the desktop brings up the new modern context menu.
The build also has several dozen bug fixes, including for a bug in which PCs with Windows Defender Application Guard (WDAG) enabled bug-check continuously, and another in which taskbar icons flickered when you moused over them while using a contrast theme.
The build also has several dozen known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and widgets displaying in the wrong size on external monitors.
With this build, the Dev Channel moves back to receiving only builds from the active development branch (RS_PRERELEASE). This means the Dev Channel builds no longer match the version of Windows 11 that will be released on October 5th. Dev Channel builds represent the newest works in progress and are not always stable.
The build changes the way SMB compression (compression of files as they’re sent over a network) works. From now on, algorithms will not determine whether to compress files — files will always be compressed if a user asks for it.
Additionally, there are several minor changes in the build, including notifications now having acrylic backgrounds. There are also many bug fixes, including for one that caused the font in the taskbar previews to incorrect and another that crashed explorer.exe when using Alt-Tab.
The build also has more than a dozen known issues, including the taskbar sometimes flickering when switching input methods, and widgets displaying in the wrong size on external monitors.
Beta and Release Preview Channels (original Windows 11 release)
Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22621
Release date: May 11, 2022
Released to: Beta Channel
This build fixes several bugs, including one in File Explorer that displayed the error 0x800703E6 when copying files from Google Drive, and another that caused Smart App Control to block correctly signed applications.
The build has two known issues, including one in which some apps in full screen (for example, video players) prevent live captions from being visible, and another in which when certain apps positioned near the top of the screen are closed before live captions is run, they relaunch behind the live captions window positioned at top.
This build fixes a wide variety of bug fixes, including one in which the widgets board did not open successfully when using the opening gesture from the side of the screen, another in which performance and reliability of explorer.exe degraded over time, eventually resulting in a bug check, and another in which using the 3-finger on-screen touch gesture for minimizing windows could cause animations to stop working across the system.
The build has two known issues, including one in which some apps in full screen (for example, video players) prevent live captions from being visible, and another in which when certain apps positioned near the top of the screen are closed before live captions are run will relaunch behind the live captions window positioned at top.
This build adds the following new MDM and group policies for IT administrators:
Disable Quick Settings flyout
Disable Notification Center and calendar flyouts
Disable all taskbar settings
Disable search (across Start and taskbar)
Hide Task View from taskbar
Block customization of ‘Pinned’ in Start
Hide ‘Recommended’ in Start
Disable Start context menus
Hide ‘All apps’ in Start
It also updates the Family Safety widget that includes a new location sharing view that shows where your family members are using the Family Safety app.
There are also a wide variety of bug fixes, including for a bug in which an Administrative Template error no longer popped up when opening Group Policy editor, another that prevented Shift + Right-click on a taskbar icon from opening the expected context menu, and another in which app icons like Microsoft Edge were cut off on the bottom in Start’s all apps list.
The build has five known issues, including one in which the widgets board may not open successfully when using the gesture from the side of the screen, and another in which some apps in full screen (for example, video players) prevent live captions from being visible.
This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which a memory leak affected Windows systems that are in use 24 hours each day of the week, another that caused video subtitles to be partially cut off, and another in which mobile device management (MDM) policies were not allowed on Windows Enterprise editions that were upgraded to Enterprise using Azure AD-joined subscription entitlement.
This build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which File Explorer’s context menu sometimes did not render completely and was sometimes transparent, and another in which the Task Manager’s memory composition graph was blank instead of filled in with the appropriate color.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including one in which the widgets board may not open successfully when using the gesture from the side of the screen, another in which some apps in full screen (for example, video players) prevent live captions from being visible, and another in which the taskbar doesn’t always automatically collapse after launching an app or tapping outside of the expanded taskbar on 2-in-1 devices.
In this build, recent and pinned files displayed in Home are now searchable using the search box in File Explorer, even if they are not local files, so you can find Office files recently shared with you.
There are also a wide variety of bug fixes, including for a bug in which app icons were unexpectedly animating in from the upper left of the taskbar when launching a new app, another that caused Windows Spotlight to unexpectedly stop updating for a prolonged period of time, and another that caused Narrator to read dialog buttons incorrectly in scan mode.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including one in which the widgets board may not open successfully when using the gesture from the side of the screen, and another in which some apps in full screen (for example, video players) prevent live captions from being visible.
This build includes several minor changes to the taskbar, including having the top border line extend across the entire taskbar regardless of device type. There are also a wide variety of bugs thar have been fixed, including one in which the Search box at the top of the Start menu would flicker, and another in which Task Manager wasn’t populating the details of the Status column in the Startup Apps page.
The build has more than a dozen known issues, including one in which when you enter search terms in File Explorer’s search box, suggested results may not show, and another in which after rearranging widgets in the widgets board, widgets in the pinned section may render incorrectly.
This build allows Windows to display up to three high priority “toast” (popup) notifications simultaneously for apps that send notifications for calls, reminders, or alarms using Windows notifications. It also fixes more than two dozen bugs, including one that crashed SystemSettings.exe, and another that affected searchindexer.exe and prevented Microsoft Outlook’s offline search from returning recent emails.
The build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one in which the Startup impact values didn’t display in Task Manager, another that caused a mismatch between a Remote Desktop session’s keyboard and the Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) client when signing in, and another that that disconnected Offline Files on the network drive after you restarted Windows and signed in. This occurred if the Distributed File System (DFS) path was mapped to the network drive.
The build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one that prevented some image editing programs from rendering colors correctly on certain high dynamic range (HDR) displays, another that incorrectly showed the volume icon in the taskbar as muted, and another that prevented the touch keyboard from appearing on the lock screen when a device has a Microsoft account (MSA).
The build includes all the features and bug fixes of Windows 11 Insider Preview Build 22000.346, and also fixes a bug that prevented apps, such as Kaspersky apps, from opening after you attempt to repair or update the apps using the Microsoft Installer (MSI).
The build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including one that caused the system to stop working after you enabled Hyper-V, one that affected the System Memory Management Unit’s (SMMU) fault handling after hibernation, and another that caused some USB Print installers to report that they didn’t detect the printer after the printer was plugged in.
This build fixes a bug that prevented some users from opening or using certain built-in Windows apps or parts of some built-in apps, including the Snipping Tool, Touch Keyboard, Voice Typing, and Emoji Panel, Input Method Editor user interface (IME UI), and Getting Started and Tips.
The build fixes a wide variety of bugs, including an L3 caching issue that affected performance on devices with AMD Ryzen processors, another that caused distortion in the audio captured by voice assistants, and another in Windows Defender Exploit Protection that prevented some Microsoft Office applications from working on machines with certain processors.
Released to: Beta Channel and commercial PCs in the Release Preview Channel
This build includes updates to the Snipping Tool, Calculator, and Clock with Focus Sessions apps.
The build also fixes several small issues, including one that caused some PCs to bug check during modern standby, and another that caused PowerShell to create an infinite number of child directories.
There are more than a dozen issues in this build, including one in which you might be unable to enter text when using search from Start or the taskbar, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
Released to: Beta Channel and commercial PCs in the Release Preview Channel
This build fixes two small issues, including one in which a small set of languages were missing translations across the user interface, and another in which the “learn more info” about Windows Hello in the out-of-box experience (OOBE) wasn’t translated for non-English languages.
There are many known issues in this build, including one in which you might be unable to enter text when using search from Start or the taskbar, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
This build introduces a “Taskbar settings” page, which lets you hide and unhide icons on the taskbar. It also includes a small number of bug fixes, including one that caused some users to get an unexpected error when trying to take pictures with certain USB cameras, and another in which ratings and reviews weren’t available for some Microsoft Store apps.
There are many known issues in this build, including one in which you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the taskbar, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
This build introduces a Microsoft 365 widget that displays relevant documents, news, and meeting recordings to enterprise users. It only works if you’re signed into your Azure Active Directory (AAD) account on Windows 11. And Chat with Microsoft Teams now supports more than 50 languages.
The build also includes five bug fixes, including for a bug in which typing certain phrases into the search box in Settings sometimes crashed Settings, and another in Microsoft Teams in which videos sometimes froze or displayed a black image during video calls.
There are many known issues in this build, including one in which you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the taskbar, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
This build fixes a bug in which the taskbar sometimes showed the “location in use” icon even when it had been blocked in preferences.
For Insiders in the Dev Channel, this build also includes the revamped Windows Clock app, with a new feature called Focus Sessions that lets you do things such as set timers, automatically play music from Spotify, and work directly with Microsoft’s To Do app. Go here for details.
The build is also available as an ISO from the Windows Insider Preview Downloads page for those who want to install it from media rather than online. Using this method, users experience the full Windows 11 setup process.
There are many known issues in this build, including one in which you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the taskbar, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
With this build, Insiders in the Beta Channel now have access to Chat from Microsoft Teams. The feature, which was previously rolled out to Insiders in the Dev Channel, includes one-to-one and group audio and video calling. You can create and join meetings, toggle your microphone and camera on or off, and choose your preferred speakers, mic, and camera. You can also share your screen, see the roster of participants, admit meeting participants from the lobby, chat, and see people’s video in a gallery view. For more details, see “First Preview of Chat from Microsoft Teams begins rolling out to Windows Insiders.”
There are seven fixes in this build, including for a bug in which the taskbar repeatedly crashed inside the Windows Sandbox, and another in which the “location in use” indicator icon wasn’t showing up in the taskbar when it should have been.
There are many known issues in this build, including one in which you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the taskbar, and another in which the Search panel may not open when you click the Search icon on the taskbar.
This build introduces a new family widget for MSA accounts (a single sign-on Microsoft account). It lets people see recent activity of members of their Microsoft family group. The build also fixes several dozen bugs, including one in which File Explorer didn’t show an updated scroll bar in dark mode; another that caused search in Settings to be in a permanently broken state, saying “No result” for every search; and one in which explorer.exe crashed when the Task View button was clicked.
There are many known issues in this build, including one in which you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the taskbar, and another in which after clicking the Search icon on the taskbar, the Search panel may not open.
There are also a variety of minor new features, including making the taskbar calendar flyout fully collapse when clicking the chevron in the top corner to give more room for notifications.
Several dozen bugs have been fixed, including one in which when you right-clicked the desktop or File Explorer, the resulting context menu and submenus appeared partially off screen, and another in which sign-in wasn’t working for widgets in some scenarios due to authentication hanging.
There are many known issues in this build, including one in which you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the taskbar, and another in which the taskbar sometimes flickers when switching input methods.
This build introduces a new entertainment widget that displays new and featured movie titles in the Microsoft Store. There are also many bug fixes, including for one in which the new command bar didn’t appear when the “Open folders in a separate process” is enabled under File Explorer Options > View, and another that made Settings periodically crash when it launched.
There are many known issues in this build, including one in which you might be unable to enter text when using search from Start or the taskbar, and another in which the right-click menu and submenus from the desktop or File Explorer may appear partially off-screen.
Among other changes in this build, the Start menu now includes a search box, Power mode settings are now available on the Power & battery page in Settings, and several system alert dialog boxes, such as the alert for when your battery is running low or when you change your display settings, now adhere to the new Windows 11 visual design.
The build includes a wide variety of bug fixes, including one in which Settings could not be launched, another in which you could not pin and unpin apps from Start, another in which the command bar in File Explorer disappeared, and another in which the snap layouts did not appear until you rebooted your PC.
In addition, a remote code execution exploit in the Windows Print Spooler service, known as “PrintNightmare,” has been closed. For details, see CVE-2021-34527.
There are many known issues in this build, including one in which you might be unable to enter text when using Search from Start or the taskbar, and another in which the new command bar may not appear when “Open folders in a separate process” is enabled under File Explorer Options > View.
What IT needs to know: Because this is a security update, it should be applied relatively soon. Over the next few weeks, check for reports about problematic issues, and if all seems well, apply the update.
This first Insider Preview for Windows 11 is a big one and offers many of the new features expected to be part of the shipping version of the new operating system.
General interface changes: The Start menu is now centered, rather than pinned to the left of the screen. It includes a set of pinned apps as well as recently opened files in OneDrive on all your cloud-connected devices, including PCs and smartphones. The taskbar is centered as well and offers new animations. It includes a button on the lower-right corner for notifications and for making quick changes to your settings.
Microsoft
File Explorer has a new command bar and new overall look, including new context menus. New themes have been added to the overall interface, and Windows sounds have been redesigned.
Widgets: Windows 11 comes with a set of resizable informational widgets for things such as news, the weather, your calendar, local traffic, a to-do list, photos from OneDrive, news, sports, and more.
Multitasking: Windows 10’s “Snap” feature that gives you control over how you can arrange your open windows gets a makeover. You can choose from pre-built Snap layouts and arrange them into predesigned Snap groups. Desktops available via Task View can now be reordered and have custom backgrounds.
Touch, inking, and voice input: The touch keyboard gets 13 new themes and can be resized. There’s also a voice typing launcher, and several new touch gestures. The build lets you quickly switch between additional languages and keyboards via a switcher that appears at the lower right on the taskbar next to Quick Settings. There’s also now a menu for customizing digital pens.
Other changes include:
The Microsoft Store has been redesigned. Eventually Android mobile games and apps will be housed there, and be able to work on Windows 11.
When you undock your laptop, the windows on your external monitor will be minimized. When you re-dock your computer to your monitor, Windows puts everything back where it was before.
With Windows 11’s Dynamic Refresh Rate, your PC can automatically boost the refresh rate when you’re inking or scrolling to give you a smoother experience, and lower the refresh rate when you don’t need it to save power on your laptop.
Settings has been redesigned, including left-hand navigation that persists between pages. There are also breadcrumbs to help you know exactly where you are in Settings.
Known issues: There are more than two dozen known issues in this build across a wide variety of features, including the taskbar, Settings, Start, Search, Widgets and the Store. For example, when upgrading a device with multiple user accounts to Windows 11, Settings will fail to launch; after clicking the Search icon taskbar, the Search panel may not open; and when upgrading to Windows 11 from Windows 10 or when installing an update to Windows 11, some features may be deprecated or removed.
Salesforce has announced the acquisition of Troops.ai, a revenue and communications platform that uses Slack and Microsoft Teams bots to surface CRM data from platforms such as Salesforce.
Salesforce said in a statement that Troops and its team will become part of Slack—which it acquired in 2020—when the deal closes in 2023. The terms of the deal were not announced, but Troops.ai had raised $19.4 million to date according to Crunchbase, including investment from Slack’s own venture fund.
The purchase comes two months after Salesforce co-CEO Bret Taylor told analysts that Salesforce doesn’t have “plans for any material M&A in the near term.”
Founded in New York in 2016, Troops aims to help streamline the data management process and provide users with real-time insights surfaced from ‘systems of record’ like Salesforce, Hubspot, and Zendesk, into ‘systems of engagement’ like Slack, and Microsoft Teams using software bots.
“We’ve been a leader in the industry, working with some of the fastest-growing companies in the world, including Salesforce and Slack,” Troops’ CEO and cofounder Dan Reich wrote in a blog post. “We’ve done this by delivering real-time insights from systems of record like Salesforce to systems of engagement like Slack, bringing together information and actions that customer-facing teams need to close new deals and support existing customers.”
Since acquiring Slack, Salesforce has continued to benefit financially from the ongoing popularity of the messaging platform. In its latest financial results, Salesforce generated total revenues of $7.3 billion, an increase of 26% year-on-year and the company said it expects a contribution of $1.5 billion in sales from Slack in its 2023 fiscal year.
The numbers speak for themselves: Nine out of 10 security leaders believe their organization is falling short in addressing cyber risks, according to Foundry’s 2021 Security Priorities Study.
And while investing in hardware and software to better protect sensitive data from cyberattacks is a best practice, it is not cheap.
However, many small and midsize business (SMB) leaders mistakenly believe their organizations are not targets, and that spending more money on IT security is wasteful if they haven’t been breached, says Candid Wüest, Vice President of Cyber Protection Research at Acronis.
Yet, many organizations allocate less than 10% of their IT budget on security, according to a new report from Acronis.
But the problem is not just with security spending, Wüest adds; small budgets in general make it difficult to fulfill all business needs.
Also, he says, many SMBs use third-party security services, making “the amount of work that goes into data protection and security, as well as the benefits of doing so, harder for the CEO or president to see.”
The security risks for SMBs are rising
The truth is that cyberattacks are getting more sophisticated because attackers are now using automation and machine learning, making it more difficult to block threats with traditional security solutions.
“This is especially true as organizations embrace digital transformation and use new online services, which need to be protected,” Wüest says. “Without adapting and updating the cyber protection stack, these security gaps will grow over time, making it easier for attackers to find holes and breach them.”
Meanwhile, employees continue to pose threats. The Acronis research found that 56% of workers lost data at least once in 2021, due to accidental deletions, app/system crashes, malware attacks, a lost/stolen device, and other reasons. In addition, 26% lost data multiple times.
Cyberattacks can be devastating to businesses of any size, causing them to incur stiff financial penalties, downtime-related revenue loss, and severe reputational damage. In fact, 76% of organizations experienced downtime due to data loss in the last year — a 25% increase over the previous year, according to the Acronis report.
Cybersecurity investment tips
So, how do you convince company executives to increase your security budget?
One way to prove the need for security software is to run an attack exercise or an external penetration test to show potential gaps in your protection stack. A list of these vulnerabilities should be accompanied by a plan with how to address them, Wüest says.
For example, having metrics on the number of blocked incidents in the IT environment can help illustrate the risks. Combine that with recently publicized examples of what could happen if an organization is not prepared, as well as an explanation of how vendors or managed security services providers (MSSP) can close gaps.
Other protection measures include strong authentication, setting appropriate access and control privileges, timely patch management, and the use of segmented networks. Also, ensure you have backups and a disaster recovery plan to minimize downtime when an incident occurs.
“These steps should be followed by a good email security solution,” Wüest says. “Most attacks start with a malicious email or phishing attack. If these threats can be filtered out before they reach the user’s inbox, then the risk can be minimized.”
Because there are many moving parts that need to be analyzed, it is also important to consolidate vendors and look for automated and integrated solutions, he advises. “This can help save overall costs and free up some budget.”
From applications to infrastructure, click here to see how Acronis can help your organization fill security gaps and protect your business.
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