Linked List: March 19, 2012

Monday, 19 March 2012

‘Being Right’ Point Awarded to Brian Ford ★

Brian Ford called Mike Daisey out as a fabulist over a month ago.

In-App Ads Consume Mucho Battery Life ★

Jacob Aron, NewScientist:

Up to 75 per cent of the energy used by free versions of Android apps is spent serving up ads or tracking and uploading user data: running just one app could drain your battery in around 90 minutes.

Abhinav Pathak, a computer scientist at Purdue University, Indiana, and colleagues made the discovery after developing software to analyse apps’ energy usage. When they looked at popular apps such as Angry Birds, Free Chess and NYTimes they found that only 10 to 30 per cent of the energy was spent powering the app’s core function.

For example, in Angry Birds only 20 per cent is used to display and run the game, while 45 per cent is spent finding and uploading the user’s location with GPS then downloading location-appropriate ads over a 3G connection.

I’ll bet it’s true for ad-based iOS apps too. Another reason to pay for apps rather than settle for free ones.

Apple Sold Over Three Million New iPads in First Weekend ★

How many other companies have even sold three million tablets, total?

From the DF Archive: Rhymes With Ditty ★

Just as “coveted” a brand now as they were in 2005.

‘With “Coveted Brand”, Dell Will Breach Tablet Market’ ★

There’s an awful lot wrong with this eight-word headline.

iPad Sales ★

AT&T press release:

On Friday, March 16, AT&T set a new single-day record for its iPad sales and activations, demonstrating robust demand for the new iPad on the nation’s largest 4G network, covering nearly 250 million people.

That’s just AT&T — and Verizon has the bigger LTE network. Tim Cook, during this morning’s analyst conference call, said Apple itself had “a record weekend”.

Putting the I in Story ★

Matthew Baldwin, who worked with Mike Daisey at Amazon in the late ’90s, quoting from Daisey’s appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher:

Daisey: People work on that line tirelessly, hour after hour until they drop. I met people who were —

Maher: Until they drop?

Daisey: They drop. A worker at Foxconn died after working a 34 hour shift…

And here there’s the slightest of pauses, as if Daisey has reached the end of the statement. But then he adds, almost mechanically:

Daisey: … while I was in China.

A worker did indeed die after a 34 hour shift. But the truth of this fact isn’t enough for Daisey; he has to then attach to it some connection, however tenuous, to himself. A Chinese man didn’t just die; he died while Daisey was in China.

The Media and Mike Daisey ★

Arik Hesseldahl:

At this point, it’s hard to determine what’s more outrageous, Daisey’s lies to Ira Glass and his team, or the national media’s willingness to give Daisey a platform to repeat the same lies and fabrications without making the slightest effort to vet them.

Apple Announces Plans to Initiate Dividend and Share Repurchase Program ★

Apple:

Subject to declaration by the Board of Directors, the Company plans to initiate a quarterly dividend of $2.65 per share sometime in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2012, which begins on July 1, 2012.

Additionally, the Company’s Board of Directors has authorized a $10 billion share repurchase program commencing in the Company’s fiscal 2013, which begins on September 30, 2012. The repurchase program is expected to be executed over three years, with the primary objective of neutralizing the impact of dilution from future employee equity grants and employee stock purchase programs.

They expect to spend about $45 billion over the next three years on these programs. At their current rate of generating earnings, even with these initiatives their cash war chest should grow.