MobileViews 582: Farewell Windows 10 and iOS Mini-Rants. Guest panelist Don Sorcinelli

This week, Jon Westfall and I are joined by our good friend, Don Sorcinelli, for MobileViews 582, where we had a lot to cover, particularly about saying farewell to things. This includes the impending sunset of Windows 10, which I’m sad to see go, especially after I already decided to wipe one of my last Windows 10 devices and install Ubuntu Linux on it. As usual, I had a few “mini-rants,” chief among them being the stability issues I'm experiencing after the latest iOS and watchOS updates. I'm seeing really bad battery life on my phone and, worse, my AirPods Pro 3 and Powerbeats Pro 2 have become unstable, giving me static or losing audio entirely. I also finally figured out why my Raspberry Pis won’t power up with my nice Gan chargers—they only deliver 3 amps, but the Pi requires 5 amps, a specification I am disappointed I did not check years ago.

We wrapped up with our ongoing segment on favorite and least-favorite Windows CE and Windows Mobile devices. While Jon and I have our preferences, Don surprised us by naming the non-touch Windows Mobile smartphone, the HTC Excalibur (T-Mobile Dash), as his favorite, largely due to its pocketability and durability. I had to point out that the Dash was one of the few phones that fit perfectly in the notoriously tiny chest pockets of my aloha shirts back in the day. His least favorite was the Palm Treo, which he found heavy and clunky. The conversation naturally led us to Windows Phone, and I reiterated my belief that it ultimately failed because the essential daily tools didn't migrate from Windows Mobile 6 to Windows Phone 7, which was a "humongous problem" for developers and users alike.