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The Sales-System Edition Saturday, March 26, 2016

iPad Finds Niche In Restaurants And Stores, by Troy Wolverton, San Jose Mercury News

Startup companies have been designing applications that allow the iPad to be used as a sales system since soon after the first one hit store shelves in 2010. But the use of the device in restaurants and retailers has been gaining increasing momentum.

Actual numbers in use are hard to come by, but it's becoming more and more common to see them being used in both small and large stores. The Waffle House restaurant chain, for example, has rolled out an iPad-based cash register system at hundreds of its locations around the country.

San Francisco Tech Company Revel Systems To Open Dallas Office, Hire 40 People, by Melissa Repko, Dallas Morning News

Updating The Updates

Apple Addresses GSM iPad 2 Activation Bug With Revised iOS 9.3, But Broader Issue Remains Unfixed, by Juli Clover, MacRumors

The second activation bug, which spurred Apple to stop signing iOS 9.3 for multiple products yesterday, prevents older device owners from activating their iPhones and iPads if they can't remember the Apple ID and password originally used to set up the device.

While the iPad 2 iOS 9.3 update fixes the first activation issue, it does not address the second activation bug that affects many more devices. Apple has not resumed signing iOS 9.3 for older devices, so many customers who have an iPad Air or earlier, iPad mini 2 or earlier, or iPhone 5s or earlier are not able to download and install iOS 9.3 if they have not done so already.

Special Edition

This Is What Using The New Small iPhone Is Actually Like, by Nicole Bguyen, BuzzFeed

I pulled out the SE and started swiping through Snapchat filters like a boss. My thumb could actually reach the top and bottom of the screen, without affecting the grip on my phone.

Review: iPhone SE Puts The Same Engine In A Smaller Exterior, by David Pogue, Yahoo!

The $400 for this Smartphone Extraordinaire is a Smart Expenditure. On one hand, it still has the Sharp Edges of the iPhone 5s, and its addition to the lineup will remind critics of Samsung’s Excess. On the other hand, its 1.5-day battery life means that it only Sips Energy. This is a piece of very Solid Equipment, even if it is a Special Edition for people with Small Extremities.

Stuff

Understanding The Junk Mail Indicators, by Jerry King, Naples Daily News

The application is using an adaptive form of artificial intelligence that can be "trained" to best match what you believe is "junk".

Develop

To Optional Or Not To Optional: IBOutlet, by Curtis Herbert

UIKit was written during the era of nil messaging, and I've come to realize it isn't safe to 100% assume IBOutlets can't be nil. Going forward I'll be using optionals for my IBOutlets. I have a task in my bug tracker to scrub all my IBOutlets to covert them from implicitly unwrapped to standard optionals. A few extra question marks never hurt anyone; I'd rather my app not crash.

Notes

Apple Seeks Delay In NYC iPhone Case Until FBI Tests New Unlocking Method, by Dawn Chmielewski, Re/code

Apple says the government’s new approach for unlocking the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino attackers may eliminate the need for the company’s help in a similar case in New York.

The company on Thursday asked a federal judge in Brooklyn for a pause in the case to determine whether this technique, proposed by an unidentified third party, might also give law enforcement access to the iPhone used in a New York drug trafficking case.

Smartwatches And The Three-second Rule, by Dieter Bohn, The Verge

I don’t want more features in my smartwatch, I want fewer of them. I want focus. The things that people actually like about their smartwatches are precisely the things that work instantly, without waiting for a spinning wheel.

Bottom of the Page

I do wonder how difficult or easy it is to run a bookshop online if profitability is not really a priority.

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On a related note, I notice nothing much seems to be happening to Apple's iBook store.

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Thanks for reading.