512 Pixels

This is clearly a joke, but HOLY COW.

The update brings both Feedbin and Feed Wrangler support, landing this application on my Dock for the first time.

66 percent of people who responded to Polar’s poll do, actually.

This week, I join the 5by5 delegates to the UN from England and Italy to discuss some follow up, Windows and the Apple cult.

The update includes a revamped Start screen, deeper Bing integration and the return of the Start button.

Bradley Chambers looks at the changes coming to iCloud and iTunes U with iOS 7.

Earlier today, John Gruber tweeted:

Ive and his team completely remake Mac OS X next year, right?

When I saw that scroll by in Tweetbot, I realized something. Look at these two pieces of art, both from Apple’s website:

Before the WWDC keynote, based solely on this art — which was hanging as banners in Moscone’s lobby — it wouldn’t have been crazy to think that OS X was getting a new coat of paint, just like its mobile brother was rumored to receive.

iOS 7 is defined by thin text and lots of white space, and the OS X Mavericks artwork closely matches that aesthetic.

However, Mavericks doesn’t bring a sweeping UI overhaul to OS X. While iBooks, Maps and a handful of other new features are being added with this release, the big changes coming to OS X this fall are under the hood.

While OS X’s interface has changed drastically over the years, it’s slowed since 10.5 stripped the brushed metal away. However, I don’t believe it’s as stagnant as iOS had become. Yes, OS X Mavericks removes leather and some of the other silly things brought over from iOS, but the core look is still modern and clean, and more importantly, works really well with a mouse or trackpad. While Apple might “completely remake” OS X in the future, I don’t really see the need at this point.

iFixit’s Kyle Wiens breaks down what Macs are easy to work on, and which ones are terrible to take apart.

Peter Cohen, writing about leaving his podcast, Angry Mac Bastards:

But a while ago I realized something: AMB had stopped being fun for me to do. It had begun to feel like work. Like drudgery. I’d just lost my energy doing the show, and I was tired of hearing myself yell. I figured if I was tired of hearing myself yell, others probably were too. And that seemed like as good a reason as any to step away from the mic.

I’m saddened by this news, but props to Peter for doing the hard thing — knowing when it’s time to walk away from a project.

Tokens is a Mac app for managing App Store promo codes

Tokens gets promo codes from iTunes Connect, creates shareable URLs for each code and notifies you once they’re redeemed.

The first step to getting your app noticed is inviting bloggers to try it. Promo codes let you give away free copies of your app, but unfortunately they’re laborious to create, awkward to redeem and impossible to track.

With Tokens you create a code with one click and bloggers can redeem it just as easily. By naming the token you can tell who has tried your app and follow up with them. You can also reuse any unredeemed codes before they expire.

Tokens is available now at usetokens.com/syndicate. 512 readers get a special 20% discount until July using this link.

Sponsorship by The Syndicate.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, to CNN:

Edward Snowden is one of us. Bradley Manning is one of us. They are young, technically minded people from the generation that Barack Obama betrayed. They are the generation that grew up on the Internet, and were shaped by it.

Assange has put in to words something I’ve been mulling over since news broke that Snowden was being charged by the US government for theft, conversion of government property and espionage.

(For the record, while I understand why the government feels like it has to charge Snowden, it makes me sick to my stomach. This country was started by guys with balls like Snowden’s, and now many are calling for his punishment or even death.)

I voted for Obama in 2012. I would have in 2008, but I waited until Election Day and then my son was being born. While I didn’t go crazy with the “Hope” message, I believed Obama could — and would — usher in changes that would undo some of the craziness put in place by George W. Bush.

However, Obama has also continued — and in the case of PRISM, helped strengthen — the policies and programs put in place by his predecessor. Afghanistan is still a mess. We still don’t give everyone the right to share insurance based on who they married. Immigration reform is still a joke in many ways.

Overall, I still give Obama a thumbs-up, but the last several weeks have really drilled in to me that he’s not all that different. He’s just a man. He’s just a man who plays the game; he just plays it better than most. The reality is that our two-party system doesn’t allow big, drastic changes all that often. That’s a good thing, most of the time.

But it’s frustrating.

A country shouldn’t spy on its people in the name of national security. Everyone should enjoy the benefits of a legal marriage, regardless of their orientation. People should be able to come in to our country and make a future for their families.

For now, I’ll go kiss my son goodnight, knowing that the world he is growing up in isn’t all that different after five years of an Obama presidency.

But at least I know he’ll always have insurance, despite his cancer diagnosis. It really is a shame that not everyone can enjoy such benefits from Obama’s time in office.

Jim Dalrymple, linking to this piece by Austin Sweeney on Apple and the console market:

The big question for me is will it be easier for the console makers to convince the public they have an entertainment device or for Apple to convince the gamers they have a gaming device?

Crazy-ass DRM stuff aside, the vast majority of complaints surrounding the Xbox One is that Microsoft is going after the living room at the expense of the gamer experience. Now, the company is trying to reaching out to the community with changes, but it may be too little too late. Could Apple connect with the gaming community? Do they even need the hardcore guys to pull this off?