Linked List: January 14, 2016

Thursday, 14 January 2016

High School Policy on ‘Air Ball’ Chants Draws Sharp Responses 

Mike McPhate, reporting for the NYT:

For fans at a basketball game, there are few sights as satisfying as a rival player’s shot sailing cleanly beyond the rim and backboard.

The crowd might erupt into an almost giddy chant: “Air ball!”

But not at high school games in Wisconsin, if athletic officials have their way.

Citing a rise in taunting by students, the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association sent an email to school leaders across the state in December that said in part, “Student groups, school administrators and event managers should take immediate steps to correct this unsporting behavior.”

It listed examples of “air ball,” “scoreboard,” “fundamentals,” “season’s over” and “there’s a net there,” among other chants that the association frowned upon.

Absolutely absurd.

Apple vs. AAPL 

Neil Cybart, “The Two Apples”:

Just as Wall Street is nervous about AAPL’s changing revenue sources, Apple’s ultimate success is built on that very ideal. Even though Apple was the “iPod company” yesterday and the “iPhone company” today, management’s goal is to make sure that Apple will one day be known as something else, such as the “car company” or the “personal transport company.” This isn’t to suggest that Apple will change its culture and mission statement depending on where growth can be found. Instead, management looks to enter product categories that make it possible to advance Apple’s goal of making technology more personal. In the beginning, such a goal was achieved with the Mac but soon included the iPod, then iPhone and iPad, and now Apple Watch. […]

While AAPL investors look at changing revenue sources and Apple entering new industries as risk factors, for Apple such characteristics are normal business and according to plan. It is this divide that will likely continue indefinitely, suggesting it is unwise to expect AAPL to one day begin to follow Apple. Just as a declining AAPL stock price is no indication of a struggling Apple, there will likely come a time when AAPL outperforms peers even though Apple, the company, may be struggling.

Part of what makes Apple so interesting to write about is that the company is so widely misunderstood.

Alan Rickman Dies at 69 

David Ng, reporting for the LA Times:

Alan Rickman, the mellifluously baritoned British actor who played haughty villains in “Die Hard” and the “Harry Potter” movies and whose stage career brought him acclaim in London and New York, died on Thursday. He was 69.

Hans Gruber, R.I.P.

Apple to Disband iAd Sales Team 

John Paczkowski, reporting for BuzzFeed:

Now, six years after launching iAd, Apple is stepping back from it. Multiple sources familiar with the company’s plans tell BuzzFeed News that Apple is getting out of the advertising-sales business and shifting to a more automated platform.

While iAd itself isn’t going anywhere, Apple’s direct involvement in the selling and creation of iAd units is ending. “It’s just not something we’re good at,” one source told BuzzFeed News. And so Apple is leaving the creation, selling, and management of iAds to the folks who do it best: the publishers.

Apple still had an iAd sales team?

Joanna Stern Explains Snapchat Using Snapchat 

This is the first explanation of Snapchat I’ve ever understood.