Linked List: August 27, 2015

Thursday, 27 August 2015

Apple Sends Invitations for Wednesday, 9 September Special Event ★

Jim Dalrymple:

Apple on Thursday sent out invitations for a special event to be held on September 9, 2015. The event will be held at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco at 10:00 am.

That’s a big venue. Kudos to Andrew Dudley at Hoodline for deducing the venue earlier this week.

Swift as a First Language ★

Aaron Block wants to (eventually — perhaps soon) use Swift to teach introductory computer science:

For those who haven’t used Java or Python before, those two languages are at one end of the “memory management continuum.” In these languages, you never explicitly delete a memory reference. Java and Python run “garbage collection” routines that remove memory when they are no longer necessary. On the other end, C and C++ require developers to explicitly destroy memory allocations. Swift uses a technique called Automatic Reference Counting (ARC) that lives in the middle. Under ARC, developers do not explicitly destroy objects but instead must correctly organize their memory references and classify them as “strong”, “weak”, or “unowned” so that they can be automatically destroyed without needing to run an additional memory management process. While ARC doesn’t require developers to directly manage memory, it helps students learn how to organize memory and think about how objects are stored in memory without harassing them about the details. (Students should still learn explicit memory management, just not in their first year.)

My beef with Java as a learning language is that it’s so verbose and ungainly. Python is a much better choice. Why not use a language that can be fun and elegant?

(I’m glad I went through college before Java became entrenched as a teaching language. Drexel’s introductory computer science courses in the early ’90s taught Pascal — a language that, now that it’s fallen out of favor, no longer gets the credit it deserves.)

Harvard Business Review vs. Charmin ★

The headline of this Harvard Business Review article sure caught my eye: “How Samsung Became a Design Powerhouse”. You can save a lot of time and angst by just scrolling to the bottom and reading the bios of the piece’s authors:

Youngjin Yoo is the Harry A. Cochran Professor in Management Information Systems and the founding director of the Center for Design+Innovation at Temple University. He is also an overseas advisory fellow of the Samsung Economic Research Institute and consults for Samsung Electronics.

Kyungmook Kim is a principal designer at Samsung Electronics’ Corporate Design Center.

In next month’s issue: “How Comcast Became a Paragon of Friendly, Responsive Customer Service and Fair Competitive Practices”, by Comcast chief lobbyist David Cohen.

Prepaying for Gogo In-Flight Wi-Fi ★

Brian X. Chen has a piece on Gogo, too:

Another way to get a cheaper rate for Gogo is ordering the service before boarding the plane. People can buy an all-day pass to use Wi-Fi on any Gogo-equipped flight for $16, while frequent travelers can purchase a monthly subscription for $50.

These solutions are small comfort to Ms. Lu. “How am I going to remember for a 6 a.m. flight, of all the things I have to do, to log on at 4 a.m. and prepay for my Wi-Fi?” she said. “Are you kidding me?”

That makes for a compelling conclusion to his column, but it’s terrible advice and a gross disservice to his readers. I have a lot of problems with Gogo’s pricing and service quality, but this isn’t one. You don’t have to prepay for a $16 day pass on the same day as your flight. You can do it today, and redeem it a month from now. It’s like a voucher in your Gogo account.

IDC Estimates Apple Shipped 3.6 Million Watches Last Quarter ★

James Vincent, writing for The Verge (my apologies to those of you on mobile devices):

With only a single product to its name, Apple has already taken the number two spot in the global wearables market, according to market analysts IDC. The agency’s quarterly wearable report claims that Apple shipped a total of 3.6 million units in the second quarter of 2015, putting it just behind market leader Fitbit, shipping 4.4 million devices. These figures are only estimates of course, but if they’re close to the truth then it’s a sizable achievement for Apple. Not only is the Apple Watch the company’s debut product in the market, but it’s also so much more expensive than the competition.

Imagine how much better Apple Watch would be doing if it weren’t flopping.

Alongside Apple and Fitbit, the other big players in the market are Xiaomi (which launched its aggressively priced $13 fitness tracker last July), Garmin (which has focused on sophisticated fitness-trackers), and Samsung (which is set to unveil its redesigned Gear S2 soon). IDC’s analysts, though, say that the industry’s focus is mainly on Apple to see where the company will go next.

According to IDC, Samsung’s unit sale numbers dropped from the same quarter in 2014, from 800,000 to 600,000.

Businessweek: ‘Why Gogo’s Infuriatingly Expensive, Slow Internet Still Owns the Skies’ ★

Sam Grobart, writing for Businessweek:

Gogo differs from Uber in another way. While the taxi app’s surge prices tamp down demand, thus preventing the service from becoming overloaded, they also encourage idle drivers to hit the streets and increase capacity. When Gogo charges more, capacity doesn’t improve. “They’re participating in something we like to call ‘incremental value capture’ without also offering a better service,” says Frances Frei, a professor at Harvard Business School. “If I’m going to raise your rates, I also have to give you a better value proposition.”

I was on an American flight recently (SFO-PHL, flying home from WWDC) where the only Gogo option for a flight pass was to sign up for a $50 monthly subscription. The only other option was an exorbitant hourly rate. The solution, I learned, is to purchase a day pass from Gogo before you’re on the plane.

Swatch CEO: ‘Apple Watch Is an Interesting Toy’ ★

Samuel Gibbs, reporting for The Guardian:

Nick Hayek Jr. said that later this year Swatch will sell smartwatches that last nine months per battery. The company launched its first smartwatch in 2003 in partnership with Microsoft, and have sold connected watches since 1996.

In an interview with Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger, Hayek Jr. said: “The Apple watch is an interesting toy, but not a revolution.”

Sounds familiar.