WatchOS 8 public beta: First impressions - CNET

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Google sunsets the APK format for new Android apps - Android Authority

Andy Walker / Android Authority

TL;DR

• Starting in August 2021, Google will require all new Android APKs to land on the Play Store as App Bundles instead.
• This will invariably result in smaller file sizes and other boons for the end-user.
• However, it will also require app developers to push out APK versions of their apps to other non-Play Store channels, as they won’t support App Bundles.

For as long as Android has been around, Android apps have been launched in the APK format (which stands for Android Package). However, in 2018, Google introduced a new format called Android App Bundles, or AAB (with the filename *.aab). Google touted that this new format would result in smaller app file sizes and easier ways to control various aspects of apps. Of the millions of apps on the Google Play Store, thousands of them already use the AAB system.

Today, Google announced that the AAB format will now officially replace Android APKs. This means that starting in August of this year, all new apps submitted to the Google Play Store must come in the AAB format. Apps that are currently APKs can stay that way — at least for now.

No more Android APKs: Good news or bad news?

In the end, this is good news for the average consumer. Android App Bundles can be up to 15% smaller than Android APKs, for example. Developers will also have more control over how they distribute updates to apps, which will likely result in faster and more efficient app updates.

However, there are two significant issues with AABs. The first is that developers who want their apps to appear in other distribution channels — such as the Amazon App Store or Huawei’s App Gallery — will need to manually export APK versions of their apps. This won’t require much effort on the dev’s part, but it would mean that any developer who wanted their app to only appear on the Play Store would have that power. In those cases, end users would need to export AABs as Android APKs on their own, as *.aab files would not work on alternative stores.

Related: An introduction to the Google Play Console for Android Developers

The other issue is that developers will need to give Google their app signing key to export an AAB app as an APK. This gives Google quite a bit of power. The app signing key is basically proof that a specific developer created a specific app. While it’s unlikely Google would ever do so, it is possible that it could sign apps on behalf of a developer. It’s also possible that someone could gain access to this key and then sign apps for themselves. As such, some developers aren’t too keen on the App Bundle format.

The bottom line, though, is that all new Android apps on the Google Play Store will need to be AABs. There’s no way around it. This is a bold new direction away from Android APKs, but we’ll need to wait for the dust to settle before we draw any conclusions.

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iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 preview - The Verge

iOS 15 and iPad 15 are kicking off their public betas today, and after a few weeks with the developer betas of the new software, Apple’s OS updates feel like more of a grab bag of new features than ever before.

A major rethinking of either platform, this year’s updates are not. The two updates were clearly born in 2020’s norm-shattering pandemic. The feature list at WWDC and on Apple’s website wears last year’s remote-first influences firmly, from the heavy emphasis on FaceTime features to a better system for corralling notifications into “work” and “personal” buckets.

Of course, Apple’s release cadence and insistence on major updates coming just once a year means that some of these features are arriving in what will — hopefully — be a post-pandemic return to life this fall. So it’ll be interesting to see how things like SharePlay, one of the update’s marquee features, actually shake out once people have the option to watch movies and listen to music together in person again.

Other parts of iOS and iPadOS 15, like the overhauled Safari app or the new Maps app, feel like the kinds of more noticeable changes generally associated with Apple’s major software updates, but they’re sporadic.

The result is a software update that feels a lot quieter than Apple’s usual releases, one that — at least for now — looks to improve smaller things behind the scenes than rebuild things from the ground up.

FaceTime and SharePlay

The flashiest feature coming to the fall updates is SharePlay, a new Apple-wide system built on top of FaceTime for sharing TV shows, movies, music, and podcasts with friends and family even when you’re not in the same room. It’s also the most pandemic-inspired feature, an Apple product-based spin on the countless watch party apps and services that sprung up to replace movie nights over the past year.

SharePlay shows off how well Apple’s hardware and software services all work together: watching a TV show or listening to an album over FaceTime is seamless. But it also highlights the height of Apple’s walled garden: developers have to choose to use SharePlay — which is missing big names like Netflix and YouTube right now — and it only works on Apple hardware, despite the expansion of FaceTime and the Apple TV app to other platforms.

And since content is streamed locally, everyone watching or listening has to have access to it, meaning that you can’t share an episode of Ted Lasso with a friend who’s not a TV Plus subscriber, nor can you both watch the same movie if only one of you has purchased it from iTunes.

FaceTime is also getting a wide variety of long-overdue updates that help cement it as a more viable video chatting application: a sorely needed grid view, screen sharing, a portrait mode to blur your messy background, and the ability to FaceTime with Windows and Android users (in web browsers) thanks to sharable links.

These are all badly needed features for FaceTime, but they’re also the sort of thing that remains bewildering to have had to wait until September 2021 for, especially given the reliance on video calling over the past year and a half.

Unlike SharePlay, though, the FaceTime improvements feel like the kind of thing that will remain front and center even as things start to go back to normal, although the Apple product focus and more limited feature set when compared to professional solutions like Zoom or Microsoft Teams mean that FaceTime won’t be making a play for business meetings any time soon.

Focus up

As is traditional for an iOS update, Apple has done some tinkering with notifications on iOS 15. Some of the smaller notifications are bigger now, and feature contact images — which might be the push to get people to actually add photos to their contacts, something that doesn’t generally exist in the real world outside of an Apple presentation in my experience. And apps that you care less about can be filtered to a new summary mode that’s delivered several times a day, instead of pinging you for each notification right away.

But the bigger addition is the new Focus feature, and after only a few weeks of using it, it’s already one of my favorite features on iOS in years. On the surface, Focus is an expansion of Apple’s existing Do Not Disturb feature, but instead of a blanket mute, Focus allows you to select specific apps and contacts to share notifications at specific times or specific triggers.

A “work” Focus, for example, can be set to activate when you’re on the clock and mute all notifications except from your email, Slack, and calendar apps, then automatically switch off when you’re off work. Focus modes can be triggered by specific times, locations (like when you get to your office or home from work) or when opening a specific app.

So far, I’ve mostly just been using a “personal” focus for weekends and evenings to automatically mute any work Slacks and emails until the morning, which has been absolutely delightful. Apple’s machine learning also tries to learn from how you use your phone — for example, it suggested that I add a sports app I use a lot during “personal” time to the whitelist.

And while Focus can be used in conjunction with Apple’s Screen Time feature, it’s not a totally cohesive system: for example, there’s no way to automatically disable work apps like Slack when in a “personal” Focus mode. It just shuts off notifications.

Focus also lets you assign specific homescreen pages to each Focus mode — including widgets — for even more customized experiences. It’s not a perfect system, since iOS won’t let you have duplicate icons for apps (so you can’t have Apple Music visible on both a “personal” and a “work” homescreen, for example). But I’m a big fan of the feature, since it gives me a good reason to actually set up homescreens with widgets, and helps curb the instinct to tap the Slack icon when I’m supposed to be offline.

There’s also a new kind of notification to go with Focus and the morning summary feature, called “Time Sensitive Notifications,” which can override specific notification filtering features, so you don’t miss urgent alerts from your bank, for instance. Apple has specific rules for when developers can use these, but we’ll have to wait to see how they’re actually implemented when apps get updated this fall.

Safari explores a new look

Safari has been entirely redesigned in iOS 15. In terms of material changes to iOS, this is the biggest, and it’s coming to what might be the most essential application on the platform.

For the iPhone in particular, that means an emphasis on a one-handed design that moves the URL bar to the bottom of the screen, adds a swiping gesture interface, and a tab grouping feature (which is also coming to iPadOS and macOS Monterey).

I’m still getting used to it, even with a few days of use under my belt, and of all the additions in the latest software update, I suspect it’ll be the most polarizing. Over a decade of muscle memory has trained my brain to reach up for the menu bar on smartphones. I get Apple’s motivation in moving it to the bottom, making it easier to reach on the increasingly large phones it makes and putting the actual content of devices front and center at the top of the screen, it’s still a change that’ll require an adjustment period.

iPad multitasking: what’s a computer?

Overall, iPadOS 15 gets a lot of the same improvements as the iPhone update. There’s a few iPad-specific features, though, starting with two major features from iOS 14 that were oddly missing last year: widgets on the homescreen and the App Library (which comes with a spiffy animation when you open it). I still can’t explain why Apple didn’t add those features last year, but they’re extremely welcome now.

Widgets, as expected, work even better on the iPad than they do on the iPhone, given the bigger homescreen. It’s not as big of a sacrifice to give up a quarter of your homescreen for widgets when there’s still so much extra space on the screen. Apple has also added even bigger widget sizes, the biggest size of which is roughly the same area as an entire iPhone 12 display when viewed on a 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Despite the massive size, Widgets still have the same functionality as they do on the iPhone, meaning that they’re focused on glanceable information rather than more interactive mini applications.

Apple is also continuing to refine multitasking on the iPad with two new additions: a multitasking icon (three dots at the top of the display) that makes it easier to use the different split-view and slide-over modes it introduced in 2019, and a “shelf” that shows all the open windows for a particular app when you open it or tap the multitasking icon.

The new multitasking setup is better, albeit still slightly confusing. Putting a single app into split view using the new menu punts you back to the homescreen to select a second app (or the same app again) to view in split-screen mode. Apps can be dragged and dropped when you’re in the app switching window to create new split-screen or full-screen combinations. The multitasking dots light up to show which app in split-screen is in focus, which is incrementally better than the bar from before. And swiping down on the multitasking dots is now an almost home-button-like experience, closing that app and letting you select a new one.

There are still a lot of ways to move things around and arrange things and keyboard shortcuts available — so much so that Apple has a new menu when you hold the globe key to view system and multitasking shortcuts.

But there’s still plenty of friction here. iPadOS remains unpredictable: I’m never 100 percent sure what version of an open app or app windows will open when I tap in on my homescreen. Just opening a new window is still an opaque process that involves dragging and dropping things around in split view. Slide-over panels still live in their own, separate confusing world. Split view is still frustratingly rigid, letting you have exactly two apps open with a third visible as a slide-over panel, instead of any other configuration (like one large app on the left and two smaller ones on the right).

Ultimately, the new multitasking and split-screen views are a refinement of the older system, rather than some grand new paradigm for how to use an iPad. Those who like the iPad’s software abilities will likely find the new additions and enhancements to those modes nice. But those who were hoping that iPadOS 15 would offer a wildly overhauled windowing system — especially in the wake of Apple’s M1 upgrade in the latest iPad Pro — are going to be disappointed. Apple may do some additional tweaks or changes before iPadOS 15 launches this fall, but it’s unlikely to do any sweeping design changes for this update. iPadOS is still firmly an iPad operating system with iPad apps, and that seems to be how Apple likes things.

Also new is a Samsung-like “Quick Notes” feature that lets users swipe up from the bottom corner of the display or hit a keyboard shortcut and scribble down a thought, highlight text on a website, or add a link for context. Quick Notes get saved to their own category on the Notes app, and can be accessed from other Apple devices, too. They’re useful, although like many iPadOS 15 features, it’s not something you’d likely figure out how to use without outside prompting.

The best of the rest

As is always the case, there are dozens of bigger and smaller features coming in iOS and iPadOS, too. Here are some of the more notable ones to check out on the public beta:

Live Text might be the most technically impressive part of the updates, letting you point your camera at any handwritten or typed text to grab a phone number or email address, translate it, or pull it directly into a text field. Apple has quietly made this a system-level feature — meaning that it’s available whenever you’re viewing an image, be it in the live camera feed, an image on the web, or directly from the keyboard.

An interesting new addition on both operating systems is a new “Shared with You” feature, which shows photos, Apple Music songs, links, Apple TV Plus content, and podcasts that were shared over iMessage in dedicated rows within those apps. The theory is that if someone texts you a nice photo or their favorite playlist, you’ll be able to see it (and respond to it) in the Photos or Music apps. The feature is unsurprisingly entirely limited to Apple services for now, so sending a Spotify song to someone won’t appear in Spotify. It also might be overestimating how often users send links to TV Plus shows to each other, but showing shared links and photos are admittedly useful (at least, when the feature works properly).

The Weather app has an overhauled design that adds a vertical, Dark Sky-style 10-day forecast and Dark Sky-style maps for temperature and precipitation. It looks nice. Notes and Reminders are both getting hashtags for categorizing and organizing, and the Memories feature in Photos is getting completely overhauled.

Lastly, you can now put your Memoji avatars in outfits. I have no opinion on this.

A lot of the other flashy new features are things we can’t test yet. Apple’s beta is only rolling out new maps to the San Francisco Bay Area to start (although it’ll be in far more locations when the final software is out this fall). IDs and keys in Wallet will also have to wait for broader support from state governments, hotels, and workplaces before we can see how those work.

There are also a lot of features that will have to wait for third-party developers, like Focus statuses or SharePlay in third-party apps, which also have to wait for app updates.

---

The most notable thing from my time with the betas, though, is how easy it is to miss the newer features. Outside of the most in-your-face updates like the larger notifications or the new Safari design, most of the updates here are quieter, behind-the-scenes features.

They’re things that give you more options and ways to use your devices, but they’re just that — options. Focus modes are great for those who want to use them and integrate them into their workflow, but iOS doesn’t go out of its way to advertise them or push you to use them. It’s a mature way of looking at software, and one that’s nice to see, even if it means that iOS 15 and iPadOS 15 aren’t the most exciting updates ever.

Photography by Chaim Gartenberg / The Verge

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Apple's always sold itself as the anti-Microsoft. Now Windows 11 is the anti-Apple - CNET

Pop quiz: What makes a Microsoft Surface different from Apple's MacBook Air?

Sarah Tew/CNET

At first blush, Microsoft's Windows 11 looks to be a compelling update to the operating system software that powers most of the world's PCs. The software has a new streamlined look, reminiscent of smartphones and tablets. Microsoft also added capabilities to help people navigate the pandemic-redefined world, like built-in video chat software, new ways to organize apps and documents on the screen, and technology to make video games look better.

But its most important feature is what it doesn't do. After unveiling Windows 11 last week, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said his company's technology is being built to work with as many products as possible, including software for competing Google Android smartphones.

"Today, the world needs a more open platform -- one that allows apps to become platforms in their own right," he said. "Windows is a platform where things that are bigger than Windows can be born."

He pushed this point by inviting Google to bring its app store onto Windows. He also told developers they're now allowed to sell programs on the Microsoft Store for little to no commission, a stark shift from Apple's and Google's 15% minimum take that's led to lawsuits and antitrust probes around the world. And he said he'd welcome Apple's FaceTime and other technologies on Windows 11 and in the Microsoft Store.

"We want to remove the barriers that too often exist today and provide real choice and connection," he said. "Operating systems and devices should mold to our needs, not the other way around."

Microsoft is building its Teams video chat into Windows 11.

Microsoft

Microsoft's move with Windows 11 marks the latest in a sea change for the world's most highly valued software company. Two decades ago, Microsoft's attempts to crush competitors through its Windows software led a federal judge to declare it a monopoly. Microsoft's sharp-elbowed tactics and problem-prone software made it so reviled that people across the tech landscape shorthanded the company as M$ in chatrooms for putting profit before the needs of people using its products.

Competitors joined in too. In the early 2000s, Google marketed its nascent search engine with the corporate ethos "Don't be Evil." And when Apple began formulating its "Get a Mac" campaign to help market its computers in 2005, it cast the Microsoft-powered PC as a bumbling and arrogant fool.

"The fact is you're selling like hotcakes now, and I've got to get my message out, so I'm doing a little buzz marketing for good old PC, the only computer you'll ever need," said the character PC, played by comedian John Hodgman, who then holds up signs saying "Amazing!" and "Totally cool!"

But things have changed since then. Google dropped its famous "Don't be evil" corporate mantra in 2015, opting instead for "Do the right thing." (Perhaps not coincidentally, the search giant's now facing antitrust scrutiny itself.) And Apple's controlling approach to the iPhone and its App Store have fueled lawsuits and government investigations in Europe and the US, fueled by complaints from major partners such as Tinder dating app maker IAC, music service Spotify and Fortnite developer Epic Games.

Read more: Windows 11: These are the best new features, and how to use them

Meanwhile, Nadella's been instituting changes at Microsoft since he was named CEO in 2014. He's pushed Microsoft to soften its approach with partners, competitors and even within its own divisions. It's about "the renaissance as much as about just sort of fixing something that's broken," Nadella told CNET in 2018.

Now, with Windows 11, Microsoft sees an opportunity to stand out from the crowd, rather than merely compete.

"This is the first version of a new era of Windows."

Satya Nadella, Micsoft's CEO

"Now is the time," said Maribel Lopez, an analyst at Lopez Research. For a long time, Nadella has told developers that Microsoft's more open, easier to develop on and, with hundreds of millions of PCs sold every year, still a platform with opportunity. Even Microsoft's biggest hurdle -- the lack of a smartphone operating system -- is fading as mobile chips begin to power more PCs and the lines blur further.

That's not to say there's an easy road ahead for Microsoft. While the company is making its single operating system more accessible to developers, Apple boasts two popular platforms in iOS and MacOS.

"You can't take Apple lightly," she said, noting that there's a "war" going on for the future of tech. 

The next Windows

Windows 11 has a lot of smartphone- and tablet-inspired features.

Microsoft

In the 1990s, when people were buying their first desktops and logging onto the internet for the first time, Microsoft's stated corporate mission was to put "a computer on every desk and in every home." By 2015, it had largely succeeded -- and that groundwork even helped put a computer in everyone's pockets as well. (Despite Microsoft's best efforts, though, the devices didn't have a Windows logo on them).

So what do you do next? Nadella decided he wanted Microsoft to "empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more." That thinking ended Microsoft's obsession with Windows, solidifying it more as a company whose products help other company's products run.

But the Microsoft of old didn't entirely go away. Analysts believe Nadella's broadsides against Apple during his Windows 11 launch speech weren't just about knocking Microsoft's biggest frenemy. His tone wasn't jovial, nor was he dismissive like former CEO Steve Ballmer when Apple co-founder Steve Jobs first showed off the iPhone in 2007. Nadella was serious.

"You can't take Apple lightly."

Maribel Lopez, Lopez Research

"He's attempting to pierce the veil," said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights & Strategy, referring to Apple's position as the innovative cool kid in the tech industry. "How many opportunities do you have to pierce the veil?"

Moorhead noted that Microsoft's put a lot of effort into making sure its Office productivity apps, Teams chat software and other programs run well on iPhones, iPads and Macs. But Apple's barely updated iTunes on Windows over the years, and it hasn't even made apps like FaceTime available to download.

Microsoft declined to make Nadella available for an interview to discuss the motivations behind his speech. Whatever his reasons, Nadella's move showed that beneath Microsoft's cool-by-being-uncool veneer, it still has that monopoly-making cutthroat business sense.

"I can see why they envy Apple -- everyone bows down to that company like it's a religious talisman," said Endpoint Technologies Associates analyst Roger Kay.

Read more: Windows 11: All the big differences from Windows 10

But attacking Apple may not be enough to change people's perceptions. In 2001, more than nine out of every 10 computers on the planet was powered by Windows. Today, it's closer to seven out of 10, according to StatCounter. 

The iPhone makes Apple a hard nut to crack.

Sarah Tew/CNET

So Nadella may want to position Windows 11 as the anti-Apple, but Microsoft's influence these days largely extends to the people who already have Windows. And those people will either download the free Windows 11 update when it's released this fall or wait until the IT team at their company lets them.

"Microsoft's only competing against themselves," Kay said. "No one else cares."

And if that isn't enough, Microsoft's building its Teams software into Windows in a way similar to how Apple's used FaceTime with its devices. But it's clear Microsoft wants to carve out its own identity with the way it's opening up Windows.

"We're building for the next decade and beyond," Nadella said in that Windows 11 speech. "This is the first version of a new era of Windows."

And maybe most important to him, it won't be Apple.

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Apple Still Planning Return to In-Person Work in September, Despite Employee Complaints - MacRumors

Apple is not backing down on its plan to return to three days of in-person work a week starting in September, despite employees complaining about the new change.

Earlier this month, Apple CEO Tim Cook penned an internal letter to employees outlining the company's plan to return to in-person work three days a week in September. Apple, due to the global health crisis, has largely been working remotely over the past year, but companies are now starting to return to in-person work.

Following Cook's letter to staff, a group of Apple employees responded to the CEO with a letter of their own, complaining about the change. In their letter, employees said that without the flexibility of choosing between remote and in-person work, they feel they have to choose between "either a combination of our families, our well-being, and being empowered to do our best work, or being a part of Apple."

Apple has now responded to the complaints. In a video sent to staff, seen by The Verge, Apple's senior vice president of retail and people, Deirdre O'Brien, said that in-person work is "essential" to Apple products and company culture, and that it is key for product launches and development.

“We believe that in-person collaboration is essential to our culture and our future,” said Deirdre O'Brien, senior vice president of retail and people, in a video recording viewed by The Verge. “If we take a moment to reflect on our unbelievable product launches this past year, the products and the launch execution were built upon the base of years of work that we did when we were all together in-person.”

Apple is, however, going to offer some employees the flexibility of remote work. According to The Verge, employees will be allowed to work remotely, but that approval is "on a case-by-case basis with any new remote positions requiring executive approval."

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Windows 11 beta deep dive: new design, dark mode, and Start menu - The Verge

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Slack launches Huddles, Discord-like audio calls you can hop in and out of - The Verge

Slack is launching its new Huddles feature today, lightweight audio calls that you and your colleagues can jump in and out of while working. Born out of the pandemic, Slack Huddles are designed to replace those informal conversations you used to have with colleagues across desks. If you’ve ever used Discord, Slack Huddles is very similar, offering the ability to join or leave a persistent call freely at all hours.

Slack is focusing on audio with Huddles rather than video, but there will be a screen-sharing feature to make it easy for teams of people to hold spontaneous meetings that may have happened huddled around a monitor in the pre-pandemic days.

“It allows for two- or three-minute conversations,” explains Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield in an interview with The Verge. “If you have to schedule a call… you talk for the full 30 minutes instead of the two or three minutes you needed right in that moment.”

That time-saving and spontaneity is a key part of Slack Huddles. These audio calls can be created in any channel or DM, including shared communications across companies. The audio experience is designed to mimic people walking by your desk, so there’s no need to send people invites, links, or dial-in numbers — anyone in a channel or a DM group can join freely. Powered by Slack’s partnership with Amazon, Huddles also includes impressively fast and accurate live captioning through AWS — something I was able to test during my conversation with Butterfield.

Slack Huddles is clearly a response to the growing number of video calls that workers are participating in. While Butterfield concedes “we probably will allow video sharing at some point,” the focus of Huddles is to allow people to not have to worry about how they look on a video call, where they’re located, or even what they’re doing during a call. “On an audio call, you can be doing many other things and maintain the illusion that your counterpart is paying complete attention to everything you’re saying,” says Butterfield.

Huddles is also part of a broader effort at Slack to address some of the pain points of collaboration just as people start to filter back to offices, while others continue working from home or some other remote location. The hybrid workplace, as many are calling it.

“We’ve been living in a world where if all you have is a hammer, everything appears as a nail,” says Butterfield. “It doesn’t mean the classic meetings go away, but I think we’ll stop using that hammer on a bunch of things that aren’t really nails.”

Slack is also introducing voice, video, and screen recordings in the coming months. Instead of a morning standup, the idea is that people could record their ideas on their own time and send them in a channel. That could be ideal for large teams that work across multiple time zones or just where a daily meeting really isn’t necessary. These recordings that people share will also include a transcript that is searchable in Slack and tools to speed up or slow down playback.

Alongside an influx of video calls during the pandemic, it’s also been easy to get overwhelmed by the number of notifications and messages you have to respond to. “We need to do a better job at teaching people how to use Slack effectively,” admits Butterfield. “Billions of people know what it’s like to tag people on Facebook… mentioning someone in Slack works in the same way, but it has a much greater importance.”

Butterfield sees Huddles and these new video and screen recordings as alternate modes of communication that could help reduce the anxiety of feeling like you have to instantly respond to a Slack message. It’s not an easy challenge to solve, though, as bringing in new features can also create a whole new set of challenges for attention.

These new features in Slack do hint at where digital tools are heading and a bigger effort to re-create the workplace in an era where many will be working remotely. “What people need in a digital-first world, is something that acts as a virtual HQ and plays the same role for how productivity and collaboration happen just like the building did,” explains Butterfield. “People don’t design their virtual HQ in the same way they do their physical buildings.”

Butterfield thinks that might be about to change, as businesses spend more time prioritizing digital tools as effort spent finding the perfect office location, interior design, and favorable lease terms. “Nobody would choose having an office location over having software today,” claims Butterfield. “If you had to choose one or the other, 100 percent of people would choose software.”

And he’s probably right. We’ve certainly long crossed the line where in-person communication is now a supplement to the digital ways we connect every day. Slack’s idea of a virtual HQ sounds a lot like Microsoft’s approach to the future of work.

Microsoft has been trying to build a digital hub where work takes place in its own Slack competitor, Microsoft Teams. Shortly after the pandemic began last year, Slack filed a competition complaint with the EU, arguing that Microsoft is “abusing its market dominance” and has “illegally tied” its Microsoft Teams product to Office and is “force installing it for millions, blocking its removal, and hiding the true cost to enterprise customers.”

Microsoft just announced that Teams will now be bundled into Windows 11, with some tight integration for consumers. Butterfield had only just seen the announcement, so he didn’t have an immediate response. But the company’s communications chief, Jonathan Prince, sent us this statement:

Microsoft announced that it is going to bundle Teams with Windows as well as Office. Our reaction is simple: choice is better than lock-in, open is better than closed, and fair competition is best of all. Unfortunately, Microsoft has never seen it that way.

It’s clear that Slack isn’t impressed. But at the same time, Butterfield doesn’t seem to think Teams bundling on Windows will affect Slack too much. I pushed Butterfield on Microsoft chairman and CEO Satya Nadella’s comments that Slack can be first-class on Windows. “Unlike how IE is preinstalled and you have to go download Netscape, using a communications platform is not something each individual user makes a decision about unilaterally,” says Butterfield.

“There’s no one that would switch off Slack to Teams just because laptops have it preinstalled, or if we went to Dell and said, ‘Hey, we’ll pay you a bunch of money if you put Slack on it and take Teams out.’”

Outside of just Microsoft bundling Teams into Windows, Slack also faces competition from Google integrating Chat, Rooms, and Meet into Gmail in an effort to take on Microsoft and Slack. Salesforce announced its acquisition of Slack more than six months ago, but the deal hasn’t closed yet so we don’t know exactly how a combination of Salesforce and Slack will compete against Microsoft, Google, and others.

“I think Salesforce obviously has an enormous number of salespeople, and that will be helpful for the business,” admits Butterfield. “I think the thing that will be more helpful is the depth of integration with Salesforce’s existing suite of products, and the impact that has on mutual customers.”

Slack’s focus has always been about making its product loved by the millions who rely on it daily, rather than Microsoft and Google’s approach to bundling services together. Huddles is a great example of Slack’s approach, but the company will need many more Huddle-like features and some deep integration with Salesforce to fend off Microsoft and Google’s attempts to win the digital workplace.

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