2013.06 History: Who's Yer Daddy?

On this Father's Day, we lean on our friends at Macworld to review half a dozen programs often associated with the Windows environment that were actually born on the Macintosh.

2013.06 News: Does Apple Create Crime?

The new iPhones due out this fall will include a so-called "kill switch" that will render the phone useless if stolen, according to this news story from CNN. In addition to the obvious benefit to the iPhone's owner, this will help to take a bite out of crime, as the article observed:

The overall crime rate in the city increased 3% last year -- but "if you subtracted just the increase in Apple product thefts, we would have had an overall decrease in crime in New York," Deputy Police Commissioner Paul Browne said.

If you think about it, it's kind of amazing that commercial products from a single vendor can have an effect of that magnitude on the crime rate in America's largest city.

2013.06 News: Meanwhile, Over on the Dark Side ...

The Apple developer and user communities may be abuzz about the soon-to-be latest look and feel of our favorite operating systems, OS X and iOS, but there's been a comparable shift over on the dark side, with Windows 8 featuring "tiles" as an interface paradigm. We may all agree that the Apple way is the best way, but occasionally it's good to have a reminder that it's not the only way. After all, if it weren't for points of comparison, where would we get a good laff and tender feelings of sympathy for our poor, benighted brethren in computing?

Anyway, for the genuine propellor-heads among us (or merely those who can't look away while driving past a car wreck), our siblings at the Madison PC Users Group are featuring a presentation on Windows 8 at their Wednesday-night meeting, a week earlier than ours, June 12 at 7:00 PM in the Community Room of the Village Co-Housing Community, 1104 Mound Street, and they open-heartedly proclaim "all are welcome". The housing complex is a few blocks from Meriter Hospital, and there's usually on-street parking at that hour. The community room is in the central building farthest from the street.

Those who show up will undoubtedly gain an initial exposure to the word skeuomorphism, that we'll be hearing a lot more about in the near future.

2013.06 News: The Next Operating Systems

Today Apple kicked off its Worldwide Developers Conference with a look at what's in store for the user interfaces on its computers (OS X for desktops like the iMac and laptops like the MacBook) and handheld devices (iOS for iPads, iPhones, and the iPod Touch).

The sad news is "no more kitties". They apparently ran out of cat names, so in a grammatically odd twist, they decided to go with a plural — Mavericks — the 1st in what will apparently be an endless string of California place names.

More coverage of the day's revelations is provided by the good folx at Macworld.