512 Pixels

Apple’s newest iPhone ad shows parents using the device to help teach and care for their families in a variety of ways.

My wife and I don’t let our kids (ages 3 and 5) use their shared iPad mini unsupervised. They don’t have access to the Apple TV. We don’t hand them our iPhones in crowded restaurants to keep them quiet.

We do, however, use technology to teach them letters and colors. Their iPad mini is full of interactive books, and our Netflix account is overrun with educational programs.

There’s a place for technology in good parenting, and Apple’s newest ad drives that home. If the right balance is struck, things like the iPhone and iPad can become extremely useful tools for parents.

Melinda Gates, to Stanford’s 2014 graduates:

Optimism for me isn’t a passive expectation that things will get better; it’s a conviction that we can make things better – that whatever suffering we see, no matter how bad it is, we can help people if we don’t lose hope and we don’t look away.

Read the whole thing, then save it to read it again later. The world is a better place for having Bill and Melinda Gates in it.

Dieter Bohn:

“It is a sufficiently advanced form of paper as to be indistinguishable from magic.”

Matias Duarte, vice president of design at Google, is telling me about the central principle of Material Design. It’s the unifying metaphor behind Google’s new design direction, providing a unified set of physics and rules for how software should look and act. It’s also a little weird.

As interesting as this interview is, I find the whole “we have this amazing philosophy driving our entire design language” thing that software companies are doing more than a little tiring at this point.

Peter Cohen:

Apple’s shown over and over again that it’s willing to cause some short-term discomfort to users of existing products for long-term benefit. iMovie, Final Cut Pro, Pages, Keynote and Numbers — there are lots of examples where Apple has essentially scrapped the product and started over because a different path was chosen. And they’re doing it again with Aperture and iPhoto.

The difference this time, as Peter points out, is that Apple isn’t replacing its pro offering. My guess is that a lot of Mac-using professionals are going to be migrating to Lightroom.

Jim Dalrymple:

Apple introduced a new Photos app during its Worldwide Developers Conference that will become the new platform for the company. As part of the transition, Apple told me today that they will no longer be developing its professional photography application, Aperture.

Aperture’s death has been rumored for years, but I’m a little surprised Apple’s new Photos.app is holding the smoking gun. I had assumed iPhoto would have been replaced, with Aperture remaining for pro users.

On the other hand, Aperture has never gotten the attention it needed from Apple, and it’s never gained traction against Adobe’s Lightroom. The company may just be putting the application out of its misery.

Mr. Kansas City, on Google:

Obviously, now that they’re my ISP, they will be able to garner more information about my house. Basically they now have visibility into anything we do online that’s not an encrypted transaction, such as the movies we stream from Netflix, the products we browse on Amazon, what songs we stream over Rdio, every website we visit, and who knows what else. It sounds creepy when you put it like that, but it’s also no different than any other ISP relationship I’ve had (AOL, Time Warner, Verizon, AT&T). It’s just that none of the others were in to Big Data as much as Google is.

And it’s not dangerous. All our most sensitive information is still safe because it’s transferred over encrypted connections (emails, passwords, iMessages, SSL encrypted sites like my bank, et al.).

All that to say, I am comfortable with Google as my ISP. Because in exchange, I now have internet speeds that are 20 times faster than the fastest I could pay TWC to provide. And it’s for the same price of $70/month.

If Google Fiber were an option in Memphis, I’d jump on it.

xScope is a great Mac app that makes it easy to measure on-screen dimensions with a wide range of tools. I use it frequently during the work day dealing with websites under development. Version 4 brings a ton of new features that I can’t wait to play with.

xScope 4 can be bought directly from Iconfactory or via the Mac App Store. The regular price will be $49.99, but is currently on sale for $24.99.

My friend Brad Dowdy has a new business making (by hand!) high-end pen and stationery products. All of these products look simply amazing, and it’s always exciting to see someone launch something new. Be sure to check it out.

Apple:

Apple® today announced its 16GB iPod touch® is now available in vibrant colors and equipped with a 5 megapixel iSight® camera for just $199. The entire iPod touch lineup features the 5 megapixel iSight camera with 1080p HD video recording, brilliant 4-inch Retina® display, Apple’s A5 chip and FaceTime® camera. iPod touch features an ultra-thin and light anodized aluminum design and is available in pink, yellow, blue, silver, space gray and (PRODUCT) RED. iPod touch comes in a 16GB model for $199, 32GB for $249, and 64GB for $299.

Until today, the low-end model just shipped in silver, without a camera. While that has changed, the iPod touch still ships with a dual-core A5 chipset. Clearly the older hardware is allowing Apple to hit a lower price point than ever before, but I would like to see the A5 fade away — as would a lot of developers.

This week on The Prompt:

Federico, Myke and Stephen (Yo!) learn about unlocking British (Yo!) iPhones, visit LinkedIn, try to (Yo!) understand Slingshot and walk through (Yo!) Google I/O.

Like Gruber, this design language reminds me a lot of webOS. The animations are playful, and the colors are relaxing. Matías Duarte is working to make Google more approachable and friendly. It’s a lot less Tron and a lot more Monument Valley. Where Apple’s using transparency to show depth, Google is using motion and subtle shadows. In many ways, this feels closer to OS X Yosemite than iOS 8 does. While I haven’t played with it yet, from what I’ve seen, I’m a fan.

Eric DeFriez:

Designed to let you easily deliver Gmail-enabled features, this new API is a standard Google API, which gives RESTful access to a user’s mailbox under OAuth 2.0 authorization. It supports CRUD operations on true Gmail datatypes such as messages, threads, labels and drafts.

As a standard Google API, you make simple HTTPS calls and get your responses in JSON, XML or Google Protobuf formats. You can also make these calls from standard web languages like Java and Python without using a TCP socket, which means the API is accessible from many cloud environments that couldn’t support IMAP.

I wonder what this means for Apple’s Mail applications.

While I think open standards like IMAP should be used when at all possible, Google has a history of home-built APIs over open standards when it gives them more control and allows developers to build more powerful applications. Just ask CalDAV or XMPP.