WWDC 2010 will be held June 7-11 this year.

The panels are almost entirely focused on the iPhone OS, but the biggest news is only iPhone or iPad applications are eligible for the Apple Design Awards.

Focusing on the iPhone OS shouldn’t a surprise this year–Apple will not be announcing 10.7, and thus has little to talk about for the Mac. They are releasing a significant iPhone OS update, so they have quite a bit to discuss.

The biggest news is not including Mac applications for Apple Design Awards. Why not just make separate awards for the iPhone and Mac, so each can get the focus they deserve? It may signify Apple is planning on breaking WWDC into two events, one for iPhone OS and one for Mac OS.

These changes shouldn’t be totally surprising. The iPhone, in just three years’ time, is now 40 percent of Apple’s business. That’s incredible. Apple is becoming a mobile-first company, and now WWDC is reflecting that.

Apple has very little choice in this. Mobile devices is the future of the company, and Apple is currently in a battle of the utmost importance with Google in the mobile market. They are trying to define the market for the next decade. If they don’t win this, Apple’s future is in question.

Aaron Mahnke:

The thing about Steve Jobs that continues to amaze me is his timing. He releases devices into the world at just the right time. Like a surfer catching the wave at that perfect moment in order to get the best ride possible. Jobs introduces revolutionary new products when the world is on the cusp of admitting that they have a need. Instantly, he fills that perceived hole in our soul.

It’s because Apple rarely creates a new product type altogether. Instead, they pay really close attention to new technologies and new kinds of products, and when they notice something, they think really hard about what purpose it could serve. It’s always about the purpose of the product, rather than just the details. The iPod allowed you to listen to your entire library anywhere, and enjoy it–the hard drive size, how it interfaced with the computer, the screen type– all that stuff was secondary to its purpose.

Once they find something new that could genuinely provide a great benefit to people (and fits Apple’s competencies), then they launch into it with complete devotion. They figure out exactly the way it should be, then figure out how to do that technically. And along the way, if they find out they were wrong about how it should be, they start over again. And again. They only release really convincing products.

Those are Jobs’s biggest assets: his ability to see the important products and what purpose they serve, and to relentlessly develop a product until it is absolutely perfect. Then, not long after, start over and replace it.

Matt Legend Gemmell:

In this profession, it’s critical to have a break-out area where you can think without the computer looking over your shoulder; where you can do your most valuable work without the siren song of an IDE. For the same reason that getting up and even walking to the bathroom can provide new perspective on a heretofore intractable problem, it’s in your own best professional interests to do as much of your work as possible before you handcuff yourself to your desk each day.

iPad understands this. The very form-factor of the device subtly discourages you from using it extensively at your desk; it’s more comfortable on the couch or in the armchair. It wants you to be somewhere that your mind is clear.

The EFF’s Jennifer Ganick on Jason Chen:

“You have a reporter who is disseminating newsworthy information to the public that are supposed to be protected from search and seizures. These protections apply to people who collect information in order to report it to the public regardless of what name you slap on them; blogger, journalist or whatever,” Jennifer Ganick, the EFFs civil liberties director told BBC News.

Those protections apply to journalists collecting information from sources. Gizmodo did not just receive information and photos of the new iPhone from his “source” (like Engadget did). Instead, they purchased property they knew was not their “source’s” rightful property, and appropriated it for their own economic gain.

If they merely received information and photos from the individual who stole the phone, they would not be the subject of a criminal investigation. They decided to commit a crime.

People defending Jason Chen and Gizmodo on the grounds they are journalists and, by law and justice, should not be subject to searches by police are either batshit-insane or intentionally ignoring a crime so as to (1) criticize the police and/or (2) criticize Apple.

The police may not search his property to try to find his source, but if they believe he potentially committed a crime, then they certainly can. And they should. Apple doesn’t deserve its property stolen any more than individuals do. Their size and success doesn’t make it any less immoral to steal from them.

People’s willingness to absolve Chen and Gizmodo, and even laud them, for involving themselves in the stealing of property is quite worrying. These people are willing to accept crimes as long as they are committed against people or groups they personally dislike.

What they did was wrong. If the DA decides to bring charges against him or Gizmodo, there will be absolutely nothing wrong with that. I won’t have an ounce of sympathy for them, because they knew what they were doing. They knew it was an actual prototype iPhone, or else they wouldn’t have paid $5,000 for it. You don’t pay that for Chinese knockoffs.

Phillip Swagel:

Imagine if the Troubled Asset Relief Program was to end up with a profit—not just recouping the money put into firms over the past two years but actually making a return for taxpayers. No one would suggest that the TARP is then somehow not a bailout. Recouping funds after the fact might be a good way to protect taxpayers, but it is preposterous to claim that this makes the Dodd bill anything other than a bailout. The ability of the government to put money into a failing firm and make payments to counterparties at its discretion is what makes the Dodd proposal a permanent bailout authority, not the issue of who pays after the fact.

Ross Douthat on Comedy Central’s censorship of South Park:

But there’s still a sense in which the “South Park” case is particularly illuminating. Not because it tells us anything new about the lines that writers and entertainers suddenly aren’t allowed to cross. But because it’s a reminder that Islam is just about the only place where we draw any lines at all.

Trey Parker, Matt Stone and Jon Stewart are the only people on television that say something worth listening to and with any courage. It’s unfortunate the network that employs them is too afraid of threats from murderous idiots to let them say it.

Jeffrey Miron provides explains why he believes rights are important:

Indeed, what libertarians really mean when they say thinks [sic] like “individual have invioble [sic] rights” is that if a society respects particular individual rights (such as ownership of one’s property and person), then other good things happen. Powell’s point 1 is just a short-hand for this claim.

But if the argument for libertarian policies is that some “rights” have better consequences than others, why not eliminate the middle man and just discuss consequences directly?

That’s absolutely false. Protecting natural rights, e.g. the right to life, liberty and property, certainly does create other benefits, but natural rights are not justified because of the benefits they create, but because they are ends unto themselves.

Miron confuses negative rights with positive rights, and this is instructive of why he thinks rights are only justified by the benefits they create. A negative right is one where I am guaranteed that something will not be done to me, while a positive right is one where I am guaranteed something will be done for me.

The right to life, liberty and property are negative rights. My right to life does not mean you, or society, must insure I am alive, but rather that you will not threaten my life. It merely demands others refrain from doing something that will physically harm me. It constrains your actions, to use Robert Nozick’s term, rather than forces you to do something.

Positive rights work just the opposite; rather than guaranteeing something will not be done to me, positive rights guarantee I will receive something. The right to an education or health care are all examples of this: something is provided to me.

It is important to understand the difference between these two kinds of rights because only negative rights are moral. Enforcing negative rights violates no one’s rights. Positive rights, however, intrinsically violate someone else’s negative right to life, liberty or property.

If I have an absolute right to health care, then someone must provide that service for me. Some doctor must work on me. But since my right to their service is absolute, they have no choice in the matter. If they do not want to provide me their service, then the government will force them to. This violates their right to liberty, and amounts to slavery: they have no choice but to work for me.

All positive rights, if taken seriously, are a violation of negative rights. And now we can see Miron’s error: natural rights need no justification, because they result from the nature of humanity. We are each individuals, distinct, inviolable, and an end unto ourselves. The right to life, liberty and property protect this. They protect us from being treated as tools for someone else’s benefits. They insure that we are treated as human beings.

Positive rights, however, do not. They do treat individuals as tools. Miron does not understand the difference.

Jonathan Ive speaks about their design process:

A lot of what we seem to be doing is getting design out of the way. And I think when forms develop with that sort of reason, and they’re not just arbitrary shapes, it feels almost inevitable. It feels almost undesigned. It feels almost like, ‘well, of course it’s that way. Why would it be any other way?’

After watching that segment, how could you not feel inspired to create something absolutely incredible?

The Pixar Blog has two great photo series on Pixar.

The first is inside the studio, and the second is a look at the studio grounds.

I don’t think Trey Parker and Matt Stone could make their point any better:

Reaching by phone early Tuesday, Abu Talhah al Amrikee, the author of the post, said he wrote the entry to “raise awareness.” He said the grisly photograph of van Gogh was meant to “explain the severity” of what Parker and Stone did by mocking Muhammad.

“It’s not a threat, but it really is a likely outcome,” al Amrikee said, referring to the possibility that Parker and Stone could be murdered for mocking Muhammad. “They’re going to be basically on a list in the back of the minds of a large number of Muslims. It’s just the reality.”

Sounds like a threat to me. For context, they portrayed Muhammad in a bear costume, to make exactly this point.

Senator Harkin said he will move on legislation to control insurance rate premiums:

Fearing that health insurance premiums may shoot up in the next few years, Senate Democrats laid a foundation on Tuesday for federal regulation of rates, four weeks after President Obama signed a law intended to rein in soaring health costs.

The proposal he likes is for the Health and Human Services secretary to block any rate increases she finds “unreasonable.”

Why do they need to approve rate increases if their health care reform will reduce costs, as they said it would?

Why aren’t they trying to address the actual reasons for insurance rate increases, which are increases in health care costs?

Well, Feinstein answers that for us.

Mrs. Feinstein said her bill would close what she described as “an enormous loophole” in the new law. And she said health insurance should be regulated like a public utility.

“Water and power are essential for life,” Mrs. Feinstein said. “So they are heavily regulated, and rate increases must be approved. Health insurance is also vital for life. It too should be strictly regulated so that people can afford this basic need.”

It’s about control. Period. Nothing more, nothing less.

Scott Berkun has a video of Ed Catmull’s talk at the Economist event last month.

(Via Jason Kottke.)

Sorted is a new list/tasks application for the iPad. If your tasks needs aren’t complex, it’s certainly worth considering.

Jason Snell has a great look at Apple’s incredible quarterly report.

Apple sold more iPhones this quarter than last quarter–and the last quarter includes holiday sales.

Henge Docks is a new MacBook Pro dock, and it looks like the best one available. It stands your MacBook up vertically and takes advantage of all of its ports.

It’s quite reasonably priced, too–the 13″ MacBook Pro dock is only $64.95.