I'm at least convinced that unless we make phones and iPads into good programming machines, the next generation of programmers will suffer. I know in my own extended family, children are no longer given access to full computers and qwerty keyboards. Their parents will install all sorts of apps on their devices for children, from games to flashcards to entertainment, but it never occurs to them to install something related to programming. If this app can solve that it's a win. But really something like the app JavaScript Anywhere is good enough, except that the iPad onscreen keyboard is particularly unfriendly for programmers (curly braces take 3 clicks to type).
I have been thinking about a new input paradigm, where people can use only their thumb to program. Hold the screen with thumb, a wheel comes up with a circle of options, guessed based on (Markov chain?) a list of symbols most likely to be entered next. The language needs to work with that paradigm well and also it appears tricky to implement so I'm far from working on it...
I welcome anything that encourages computer science skills in children but this is stretching it just a bit. You'd probably learn more about cause-and-effect by playing a game of SimCity.
Kids aren't obsessed with "their phones." They're obsessed with the stuff their phones let them do.
Things like socialising, a completely novel invention of the 21st century.
I would disagree, I work with kids aged 8-14, and a new shiny phone is an object of fascination and status. They're enamored with the object itself and the interaction therewith. Of course at some point (like all new shiny) it become more about what you do with the phone, but initially that is a secondary attribute.
I learned to code largely because of my interest in Linux and Emacs. Connecting to a sense of pleasure, fun, and interest is critical to successful learning in any domain- I've found this to be true in exercise and meditation, too :)
When these kids want to do something more than what the app allows, they'll find out just how locked-down smartphones are as a platform. They could be content with staying inside the walled garden, but maybe they'll want to get out and do more - perhaps even advocate for more open systems in the future when they grow up. I very much hope it is the latter, although it is hard to see beyond the platform if that's the only form of computing they've been exposed to.