Reading Between The Lines

Microsoft’s Joe Belfiore has published a blog post today that has caused a slight disturbance amongst the company’s fans: Your Windows 10 PC will love all the devices you own.

The reason for their discomfiture is that Microsoft is intent on bringing features, which hitherto have been unique to Windows, to rival smartphone operating systems. Personally, I think it’s an understandable strategy, and one that Microsoft has already shown that it wants to pursue.

However, the post also caused me some discomfort, but not for the above reasons. My hackles went up with Belfiore’s opening sentence:

Whether it’s a 3-year-old printer or projecting to your brand new TV with Miracast, we’re building Windows 10 to be terrific at connecting all your devices.

Mr. Belfiore seems to be implying that a 3-year-old device is pretty well obsolete, and at the limits of supportability. I have an HP Laserjet 5MP printer that is still going strong, 20 years after I bought it. It almost sounds as though it will be more by luck than judgement that such devices will continue to work in Microsoft’s brave new world of Windows 10.

The other part of the post that caused a slight intake of breath was where he wrote:

Join the Windows Insider Program to try out the Phone Companion app on a new Windows 10 Insider Preview build we’ll flight out in a few weeks.

“…flight out”? That’s a new verb to me, and a particularly ugly one to boot. What’s wrong with simply saying “we’ll release in a few weeks”? I realise that language constantly evolves, but does it have to do so in such awkward ways? However, I’m probably fighting a lost cause for British English here. I remember, with a shudder, the first time I heard an American airline stewardess announce on arrival in America that we should deplane. That was years ago, and I still haven’t got used to it.