The Promising Future of Microsoft Office Online

When Nadella took office seven years ago, he emphasized immediately that the future was in the cloud. At the time, it was an interesting but understandable ambition. Azure was killing it, services were continuing to grow, and it was obvious that Microsoft was positioned as the dominant player in the space. Everyone took what he said a little bit differently though. We all kind of knew what he meant, but not exactly.

 

In 2021, the cloud is doing way more than it was doing when Satya stepped in. This year, Microsoft hasn’t just added powerful cloud features to its existing platforms, it has taken everything to the cloud, including Windows itself, the bread and butter of the company. Office has been in the cloud for years, but it's cleaner than ever now. Xbox has been promising cloud features since the launch of the Xbox One eight years ago, but now with Xcloud, it's finally a reality. Everything Microsoft does is in the cloud now. Everything. 

 

Its a shift we can all claim we saw coming, but to be honest, I couldn’t have imagined it happening this cleanly. During the highs and lows of the last five years, Microsoft has shown consistent, steady progress in their vision of the cloud, and barring a couple of security breaches (who doesn’t have those, these days?) they somehow haven’t really pissed off most of their customers. It’s surprising that no one has climbed on top of the hill and shouted it to the masses yet, but Microsoft has once again won in the business world, and looking ahead, they’re stronger than ever.

 

No one likes learning new systems, but the comfort and familiarity of Office in the cloud is astonishing. When I committed in 2021 to switching my file keeping over to Office online, I expected to have to fight with it more. I didn’t expect to actually prefer the UI over the one built into my desktop. The interface of Office online is exactly what it needs to be, without the extras that most people don’t use but a few people really need.

 

Put simply, Office online is cleaner than its desktop counterpart. Not just the UI, but the bloat. As much as Windows has evolved over the last few decades, the fundamentals of file organization have been the same since the 90’s. File Explorer is essential to Windows, as well as the way it operates, but its function allows it to become a cluttered mess through everyday use. Keeping a clean file system takes active, intentional work in Windows. Installing a new app, even in Windows 10, will often create a folder in my Documents folder without any input from me. Sure, I can hide it, or manually place it somewhere I would prefer, but if we are honest with ourselves a new operating system released in 2021 would be criticized for this. When a person uses any computing device, they expect the app they’re installing to do the organization for them, in a way that they like, without them having to think about it. Yes, mobile apps normalized this, and it's a good thing too, because the new way is better.

 

Microsoft putting Office and Windows in the cloud allows for cleaner file organization for normal, everyday users. If Microsoft incorporated Onedrive subtly enough, I doubt most normal people would have any use for File Explorer. Onedrive does everything most working professionals would want from their computer. The organization isn’t the only aspect that is beneficial here though.

I only use about a dozen of the apps built into Windows, and I would call myself a power user as well as a Microsoft fan. So if I as a fan am only using a fraction of the stuff that is built into Windows, why can’t these stock apps be deleted? I won’t belabor the point, plenty of people have been writing about this for years. I bring it up because Office online doesn’t have Paint. The fresh start that Onedrive and the rest of the suite has afforded Microsoft is a breath of fresh air for their user base. Today, the web browser is the default, necessary app on the computer, so much so that it can get away with being the only app open, and a professional can still get all of their work done. Many of the highest quality applications that professionals use are cloud based. Google understood this very clearly, and they used that idea to justify ChromeOS. It was a genius, forward thinking move. We were all moving in that direction anyways, and it provided incentive for the industry to double down and keep moving in that direction. Now, Microsoft users are benefitting from it. As Edge has adopted Chromium, Microsoft has now levelled the playing field for their users, making cloud computing a much easier default. Since cloud apps have become the default, Office Online doesn’t need to have thirty apps that most people don’t use. If a user wants a particular tool that isn’t included as part of the “Office” package, they can just open a new tab. They have access to the tool they want without the baggage of installation packages and UI clutter.

There is still plenty of work to be done. The platform in general just isn’t as snappy as Google’s G Suite. The big apps like Word and Excel are missing plenty of tools, and of course the offline counterparts of the apps just feel better. It's a curious thing that Microsoft isn’t adding these tools in at a faster pace. It could be because the users they care about are running Windows anyways, and these apps all run great even on budget machines. Office online, for now, only needs to be good for Chromebook users, and those users probably aren’t bothering to use Microsoft software anyways. For now, as we are still in the early days of the cloud transition, its enough that Microsoft absolutely nailed the file system in Onedrive. The file system is fundamental on any computing platform, and it shows a promising future for cloud productivity going forward.

 

The Confusing Direction of Apple Arcade

What is Apple's aim with games on Arcade? With Apple being as secretive a company as they are, bite sized info in interviews is the best we can do to find answers on what Arcade is for, how it makes money and what the incentives are.

It’s easy to determine that Apple just wants as many subscriptions as possible. Apple wants everyone on their devices, for as long as possible, because that assures them of future sales of their devices. So broadly speaking, it's an easy question to answer. More specifically though, what kinds of games is Apple trying to court? Apple wants subscribers and it wants those subscribers to be moderately engaged. So then what games are going to help drive that objective? In short, all of them. Whether it makes sense or not.

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The service started with a broad selection of genres. In the first year and a half, they even got a few games that seemed to be more at home on consoles than phones. In the last year, we have seen a deluge of classic phone games returning like Angry Birds and Cut the Rope. We’ve gotten some proper AAA treatment as well (at least, when you compare them to other mobile games), games like The Pathless and Beyond a Steel Sky are truly incredible on a mobile device, and the fact that they save data is shared across Apple devices makes them among the most convenient games in the world. It really is a selling point that I can play almost any Apple Arcade game on the phone, and then load my save file on a tv later and continue where I left off seamlessly. In some ways, its actually better than the Switch, because as portable as Nintendo’s handheld is, I can’t keep it in my back pocket like I can with my phone. I ALWAYS have my phone with me. Always. So being able to make progress on a game there, and then really enjoy the game later on the big screen is a gigantic selling point, and I can’t believe Apple hasn’t been bragging about this.

But I must admit I’m confused by some of the offerings on Arcade. Not every game needs to be a statement of Apple’s objectives. Not every game needs to be a flagship. But what is the purpose of putting another version of Crossy Road on there? Or Altos Odyssey? These are fine mobile games, but the free versions are also fine. In some cases they don’t even add anything to the game. They just move it over to Arcade, put a + on it, and take away the ability to spend money. The unlockables are still there, but they are placed behind 60 hours of grinding just like the free version. Is this a feature now? Annoying me with an incredulous grind, but taking away the temptation to spend money? That’s good design now? In the case of Simon's Cat, an Arcade exclusive, the game is fundamentally designed around microtransactions. It smells eerily like Candy Crush, and the “boosters” that you can bring into each level are as present and useful as ever, but now there is no way to buy them, and they are notoriously difficult to obtain through grinding. It’s almost like the game was finished, and then a month before release Apple comes in, offers them a check, and they decide to just release the game as-is. “Oh yeah, don’t forget to remove the microtransactions, boys. Isn’t this great? It’s a fun mobile game with no microtransactions or ads! What value!” 

That's cute, except that since the game was designed around milking money out of people, the fun that you had to pay for before, now isn’t even readily available in the game. So guess what? The game isn’t fun now. This serves a fantastic point, that many of the most popular games on mobile aren’t just badly designed because of the gameplay systems designed to rake money out of people, they’re badly designed even if you take money out of the equation. It’s fine for this to happen on a few releases. Again, not every game needs to be a masterpiece, but Apple can’t keep buying free-to-play games and putting a sticker on them to satisfy their audience long term. Not only is it bad business for keeping players engaged, it also just looks tacky.

I’m not necessarily mad that this is happening, mostly I’m just confused. Apple doesn’t talk about Arcade at all. Their press conferences barely mention any of their services besides Apple TV+, and even that gets little more than a paragraph. If their PR is anything to go on, it seems like Arcade is just an expense that they can write off during tax season, and another means of keeping their customers glued to their Apple devices. Maybe that’s the point. What’s humiliating is that if that’s true, the entire gaming industry still needs to look at Arcade as a threat. if Apple wanted to, they could easily fund 4-5 AAA experiences from major 3rd party studios and it would barely show up on their quarterly report. If these casual, cheap handout gaming experiences aren’t doing it for Apple’s Arcade customers, that might be what we see next.

Apple has already won the hardware business. In most major first world countries, they make up half of the phone market. In tablets, they are utterly dominating. In wearables, they have almost no serious competition at all. They already lock their customers in through iMessage, Facetime and other exclusive apps (personally, I am obsessed with their Notes and Reminders) and Arcade is the next significant means of doing that. Apple is well aware of the loyalty that comes from major exclusive releases in the gaming space. Mario, Zelda, Halo, and Gran Turismo are all major franchises in gaming that fans buy consoles for exclusively. Apple doesn’t have a big, hype-inducing, fanbase on an Arcade franchise yet. That doesn’t mean it isn’t coming. Since every game released on Arcade is exclusive, whenever they find that big hit, whether intentionally or accidentally, the paperwork already allows them to control what platform it winds up on. Arcade being a smash success isn’t a question of if, but when.

Remakes

 I don’t need to tell you how many remakes have been coming out over the last few years. You already know. You won’t typically see them crack the top ten list, but if the games weren’t selling well, you wouldn’t be seeing them remade like they are. A recent one I noticed is Ty the Tasmanian tiger. That game didn’t sell well when it initially launched back in(2003?) Although I suppose it sold well enough to earn a single sequel, the game never found a legacy beyond that. It was a respectable, decent platformer at launch, but even back then it wasn’t considered groundbreaking, and certainly didn’t seem to have much of a fanbase. A few months after the game launched, I never heard about it again…

Yet here we are 20 years later and Ty makes a triumphant return. This article isn’t about him or his game. He’s just an example. What I find interesting is that although Microsoft and Nintendo seem keen to lean into it, Sony pumped the breaks on bringing their old titles forward into the new age. In 2015 they began releasing a steady stream of PS2 classics, upscaled to 1080p for the PS4. But after about a little over 50 titles across a couple of years, the stream dried up, and we are left with a long wish list of PS2 exclusive games that remain on that old system. Even some of the all time greats, like Metal Gear Solid 2, or Spider Man 2. Not only the greats, but many of the B games from that era were good enough to warrant a modern play through, like Maximo or Way of the Samurai. 

Even playing these games in an illegal way is difficult. PS2 era emulation is imperfect, and lets be honest, as easy as emulation is, it would be much more satisfying to play it on a a legitimate platform and spend real money on it. Some of my favorite games of all time are stuck on the PS2, and even though the companies that made them are still around, the effort to preserve them isn’t.

Its strange how this lack of preservation compares across hardware platforms. Sony seems to care very little (unless the game is going to get completely remade), Nintendo has a long history or SORT OF preserving their games, and Microsoft, strangely enough, seems more driven to keep these games alive. Although they announced in 2019 that they were done adding title to the library of backwards compatible games, they showed a strong effort compared to their competitors. All told, Microsoft brought forward 42 original Xbox games to work across all of their modern console platforms. 42 is a paltry number compared to the 996 titles released in total for the system, but it is still far more than Sony or Nintendo have brought forward from that generation. I have trouble holding Microsoft to the fire on this one, to be honest. There were very few excellent Xbox exclusives in that generation.

They performed far better with their Xbox 360 library. They brought forward a total of 577 games from that system to their modern platforms. Xbox 360 had over 2000 games total, but we as gamers can be honest, no console has more than 500 truly good games. What Microsoft did was select the top 25% of the titles from that generation and bring them forward. I think that’s a hugely respectable effort. As a casual student of history, I understand that most of what we do as people doesn’t get passed down through the ages. As cruel as it sounds, not every poem deserves to be preserved. Not every book, not every movie, not every play. People and time both passively work together to weed out the not-so-great works that we as a society make. The greatest works among us are preserved. Thats ok. Some video game historians believe everything should be preserved. I understand the thoughts and intentions behind that, but it goes against human nature. If we are honest with ourselves, we don’t want EVERYTHING preserved, we just want the things we love.

A lot of people like to vent their frustrations with Nintendo about preservation, but they are actually doing the same thing with their libraries. The truly good games from the NES era are playable. There might be a total of 25 games from that entire era that actually hold up and are fun today. Even among that list, which should include The Legend of Zelda and the first Mario Bros, those games barely hold up today. Don’t get me wrong, they’re still fun, but they hardly compare to any respectable modern indie effort. The Super Nintendo library is the same. There were a lot of games that came out for that system, and many of them are being lost time. But the truly great among them, Nintendo has very lovingly preserved. A part of me balks at Nintendo hiding these behind their online subscription service, but I think that's actually the best path forward for something like this. Even as a huge Super Mario World fan, I don’t know how motivated I would be to actually pony up $5 to own that game on my Switch. I much prefer to subscribe to their service and get Super Mario World and the rest of that respectable Super Nintendo library available to me as an added bonus. It makes those games wonderful little experiences to play on the side, to revisit and appreciate, rather than invest actual money and sink in gobs of precious time.

I can’t end this article without mentioning the PC. Obviously, the best efforts are being done there. I can’t be bothered to list the number of emulators and classic stores that offer many of the games from every possible gaming era. It’s an embarrassment of riches if you know where to look. That presents its own problems, of course. Its like venturing into deep space. Windows is a wild west or compatibility, drivers, and ecosystems and perhaps always will be, but in an era where everything is becoming a closed garden, having a wild jungle nearby feels refreshing. 

The PS2 is one of my all-time favorite systems, and home to some of the best games I will ever play. Some of those games are being lost to time. But maybe thats just part of this whole process. Maybe some of this isn’t supposed to last forever. Maybe some it will get passed on to my kids through a simple story and description from my own mouth over a nostalgic dinner conversation, and then maybe they won’t remember cause my kids couldn’t care less about the games I used to love. But if I look at the big picture, thats what time is doing to all of us. Our own bodies and everything we make, only the truly great things remain. 

Thoughts on Matthew 6:21

 Matthew 6:21-“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also,”
What we spend money on tells us what we value. We spend money on our hobbies. the things that decorate our home, on enjoyable weekends, on the bills we need to continue to live comfortable lives. 
Money is the oil that keeps life moving. It unlocks fun and opportunity, its the universal trading mechanism. Money is important. And money is something you will never have enough of. 

Whether you have an hourly or salary wage, the time you spend on work still matters. You have a finite number of hours that you can work in a day, and you trade that free time for money. Money that you spend to continue to live, and maybe to have a little fun while you're living.

In short, money is needed to live. A LOT of money is needed to live. Around 80% of household income is spent on bills and living expenses. Most Americans work 40 hour weeks. Which means if you are like most people on the planet, you're working 32 hours a week to pay your bills. The last 8 hours that you work is for you to spend money on you. Its for your hobbies, your downtime. Your interests. You. It can be spent on anything you want. And this might sound harsh, but you're going to spend it on the things that are most important to you.

When you spend money on something, not only are you assigning extrinsic value to it (what its worth, in dollars) you're creating intrinsic value as well. The item becomes the product of the hard labor you put in to afford that item. It becomes a product of your sweat, of your time, of your being. You create an emotional attachment for it. You become a fan of it.

Tribes that align themselves with particular products or brands exist everywhere. There is PlayStation vs. Xbox, Apple vs. Android, Ford vs Chevy, Coke vs. Pepsi, and so on. When you spend money on something, you create internal values for it. You create a love for it.

 
When you love something, you think about it. It consumes your thoughts. It drives you, compels you. 

Where your treasure is, that's where your heart is.

When you spend money on someone you love, you strengthen YOUR love for them. You reaffirm your commitment to them, you lift them above your hobbies, interests and your own personal desires. You elevate them even above yourself, because the money that you would have spent on yourself is now being spent on something entirely outside of yourself.  

When you spend money on someone you love, you take the love that you had for them and elevate its importance. It creates in you a desire for them.

Spending money on your spouse is important. Not just in the sense that it makes them feel special. Because if often can, but because it makes them special to you. When two people spend money on each other, they're investing in each other's lives. That makes meaningful gift giving really important.
Its important for both partners to spend money on each other. I think its often assumed that the breadwinner in the relationship is the only one that is expected to spend money on dates and gifts. But if both partners make regular significant investment in one another, they help their chances of a longer and brighter future.

Word Laces Review

 When Apple Arcade originally launched in September 2019, it had 71 games to download and play. When you open the app store today you can pull up the full list of games in their original release order. If you scroll to the VERY bottom of the list, you'll find Word Laces, which in my estimation makes this the first game released for the service.

It seems somewhat symbolic actually, that a casual, innocent, lighthearted little word game would be the first that Apple put on the list. It seems like it almost communicated the intent of the service itself. 
Apple launched their Arcade service at a time when mobile gaming had long since become a cesspool of micro-transactions and ads. If you look carefully, it almost seems like Word Laces was sort of designed to exist in that kind of world. The game as it exists now is beautiful, simplistic and minimalist...and it actually feels kind of weird. There are only two game modes here, one of them offers 1 puzzle per day in the form of a daily challenge, and the other is just the normal mode you'll play, going level by level, solving the word puzzles. No fluff. Once you complete a puzzle, there's no ads or stupid fake money to spend. You just go to the next puzzle.

To look at the gameplay, Word Laces sums itself up exactly. You combine words using shoe laces. You'll see a variety of letters on the screen and sometimes combinations of letters, and you tie them together, in a string, to produce a word that represents or describes the picture you see on the screen. Within five seconds you'll know EXACTLY how to play this game. 

The puzzles are short and sweet, normally lasting about a minute or two. and once you finish you'll earn stars based on how many hints you used, not necessarily how efficient you were. I really liked that the game didn't pressure or rush me. After completing a puzzle you can always go back and do it again, should you so desire, and to compliment the main 1200 puzzle campaign mode, there is a daily puzzle as well, which I found to be much trickier than any of the 50 puzzles I've completed in the main mode.
For being such a simple game, I have to admire its breadth. 1200 is a LOT of puzzles. I've been playing this game with some intensity for over a week. I feel like I've been mainlining it in my spare moments. Having completed 50 of the 1200 puzzles, I feel like I've done a lot, though in the grand design of the game I haven't even hit 10% That might seem like a low number to justify a review...but honestly, I feel like I've seen enough of this game to know what it is. That doesn't make it bad. But it does make it kind of basic. 

I don't want to sound harsh. This is a pleasant little puzzler. I'm legitimately going to keep this on my phone. It's one of the best games I've seen on Apple Arcade that will start up in ten seconds, and lets me complete a puzzle in a minute or two. Play sessions in Word Laces can be REALLY short if you want them to be. On a computer or a game console that might not seem attractive, but on a phone, its awesome. This is a GREAT toilet game.

The stars you earn can be used to earn shoe boxes. When you finally earn a shoe box, you'll be rewarded with a random shoe, which has a corresponding lace for you to wrap your words with, and it also slightly changes the color of the background to add some variety. Its essentially a little bonus to change the color scheme and style of the game board while you play. Its a cute addition, as it always feels good to be earning something, but it really doesn't amount to much, and it certainly won't be the primary motivator to your continued play experience. The reason you will start this game up is the pleasure you get out of the puzzles, and that alone. 

Its worth saying before we end this conversation that I started playing this game on my iPhone. The next day I downloaded it on my Mac to see if it played any differently. I expected to start over, but actually my save file was perfectly synced with my phone, without me doing anything, or really even knowing that it was happening. Heck, I didn’t even know that was a feature. But as soon as I started the game on my Mac, the game started on the exact same puzzle I had been working on on my iPhone. I’m not sure how many Apple Arcade games do this, but if this is a feature that is common, its a really fantastic quality of life feature. But I digress, lets get back to the review.

Word laces is a little treat, neatly wrapped and thoughtfully presented. It's not the greatest word game ever made, but it doesn't have to be. Its a bite-sized shoebox of clever fun, and if you're even a casual fan of puzzle games, this one is worth a download.