Windows is gaining useful CLI tools while Apple messed up with the batteries in their iPhones.

Windows CLI tools

One of the biggest issues with Windows ¹ is that it doesn’t have many of the tools you’d take for granted in a *nix environment. There was never an easy way to ssh into a server or do some other tasks that are simple on different platforms. Or rather, it was possible to drop those things but you had to use a graphical tool for it. Which in turn makes it harder (or impossible) to script.

It seems that this is finally getting fixed. While the Windows Subsystem for Linux already made it possible to run things like this from inside a terminal, some more functionality is now being moved into the regular Windows CLI.

Possibly the most useful of these is OpenSSH. I’ve recently had to deal with PuTTY again, and while it does its job of actually allowing you to SSH into a machine it’s a terrible experience compared to using SSH. However, even better here is that it’s not just a pretty of the client but also the server. This could potentially mean that there’s a chance to SSH into a Windows machines.

OpenSSH is not the only tool though as similar ports of tar and curl are in the works as well as support for UNIX sockets. While all of this isn’t going to move up Windows in my personal ranking of operating systems, I’m still happy to see improvements being made in this regard.

Apple’s battery issue

It’s come to light that Apple has messed up quite badly. Mostly by being silent and making choices for their users. To recap, the issue is that Apple throttles batteries in iPhones² once they reach a certain age. Apparently all they do is “smooth out the peaks”, which would explain why it impacts benchmarks more, and the reason for this is to prevent the battery from causing crashes.

A couple things here, I’ve had batteries replaced in my iPhones twice because they were shutting down my phone³ so I know firsthand that issues exist. In addition I can understand that Apple wants to fix this in a way that lets people use their phones for a full day, regardless of the state of the battery.

However, this is where their usual attempts at secrecy bite them. Doing this in secret will in many people’s minds validate the idea that they purposely slow down phones to sell more of them⁴. While I hope it’s clear I disagree with the idea that is the reason, they really should make it clear to the owner of the phone this is because of a battery issue. If the phone is still under warranty that should then lead to a preferably free replacement⁵, but at the very least it should be clear to the owner they can fix it with a relatively cheap fix instead of buying a new phone.