Linked List: December 31, 2015

Thursday, 31 December 2015

Original Apple Watch = Original iPhone ★

Interesting eight-months-in review of Apple Watch by Michael Shear:

There was never any doubt that I would buy an Apple Watch on the day it was released. I’m a White House correspondent for The New York Times, but I’m also that early-adopter guy.

Buying the watch has led to the inevitable questions from friends and family: “What do you think? Should I get one of those?”

My search for an answer reminds me of a similar period nearly a decade ago, in the months after I stood in line for several hours at an Apple Store in Arlington, Va., to be among the first to spend $599 on the original iPhone. The Apple employees cheered as I emerged with the phone.

The next day, I was on a Southwest flight to New Hampshire to cover Fred Thompson, the late actor and senator, who was then running for president. As I sat in my aisle seat, playing with the phone, a crowd formed. First the flight attendants. Then passengers. They all wanted to see the crazy new device in action.

But back then, it was hard to recommend to my fellow reporters on the campaign trail that they ditch their BlackBerrys. The iPhone’s on-screen keyboard made typing a clunky business. The phone couldn’t connect with most workplace email systems. Cell service (limited to AT&T) was slow and flaky at best. Battery life was short. There was no App Store. The iPhone didn’t even have a “cut and paste” feature.

I remember the original iPhone differently — I loved it immediately and found it life-changing. AT&T’s EDGE network was indeed dreadfully slow, but it was still better than no internet-in-my-pocket-at-all, which is where I was coming from as a dumb-phone user. But I can totally see how, from a BlackBerry user’s perspective, the original iPhone was hard to recommend.

‘Two Kinds of Silence’ ★

Moisés Chiullan put together a special episode of his Electric Shadow podcast:

20 guests are asked to pick just one thing in (or about) Star Wars: The Force Awakens to talk about for two minutes or less. This episode includes a spoiler warning.

Up first is yours truly. I had a little trouble with the two-minute rule.