And speaking of television’s trying times, Dan Frommer reads between the lines in some of Tim Cook’s answers last night regarding Apple TV:

[T]he way Cook was acting – his allusions, his commentary about the TV business, and some nervous chair-twisting – suggested that he was hiding something. (Cook even defended iTunes’ video content library!)

(You can watch this specific segment here.)

I agree with Frommer, Cook’s answers are dodgy and seem uncomfortable.

If Apple TV truly is no more than a hobby then why feel the need to defend it? As it stands today, the Apple TV is a perfectly legitimate device with a great reason for existing: it’s an inexpensive, central hub for two major forms of media we all have our computers stuffed to the brim with: video and music.

But Cook never seemed to settled into a confidence about the device as it is. He kept saying, “We’re gonna keep pulling the string and see where it takes us.”

(Via Marco.)

While driving around town doing errands over the weekend the latest episode of On The Media was airing on NPR and I really enjoyed the topics they covered. From this week’s show description:

On the Media explores the world of television, including how the industry is coping with changing consumer habits, the future of the communal viewing experience, and television on the web.

Assuming the folks who read shawnblanc.net are interested in topics like getting access to digital content, internet television, usage-based cable bills, and the like, I think you’d also find this episode interesting and enjoyable.

If you are going to have Twitter and Facebook buttons on your site, at least have the decency to use something that is minimalistic and non-obtrusive like these custom designs by Christoph Ono. (Via Adam King.)

Dr. Drang on accelerometers.

And for more, check out this interview with the guys who designed the Wii Motion Plus controller.

Another good article from Oliver Reichenstein, this one recommending we ditch the “Tweet This” / “Like This” / “+1 This” buttons that adorn our websites like punch the monkey ads:

What does it mean that every Mashable article has thousands of retweets and likes? It’s not like the number of tweets shows how interesting an article is. It more likely shows the strength of their social media profile.

How much of web design is done because that person did it over there? We see how big sites like Mashable have hundreds or thousands of retweets and so we think that we will get that sort of traffic as well if only we had a Tweet This button of our own.

In my previous site design I had a “Share this on Twitter” link at the bottom of every article. But as I watched and measured the use of that button I found that people were organically sharing my articles on Twitter at a ratio of 5-to-1 those who were clicking the “Tweet this” link.

If you provide excellent content, social media users will take the time to read and talk about it in their networks. That’s what you really want. You don’t want a cheap thumbs up, you want your readers to talk about your content with their own voice.

When I redesigned this site I considered every element and asked myself why it was there and what purpose it served. Based on my own web browsing habits and how I use other people’s sites, I tried to incorporate only what I thought would the most helpful elements to the most amount of readers.

All Things D has posted the video clips from last night’s interview session with Tim Cook.

Macworld has transcribed its highlights of what Tim said about various topics such as working at Apple, secrecy, the iPad, and more. Also Dave Caolo pulled some good quotes, and the MacStories team has a Storify recap with tweets of images, quotes, and the like.

Jim Dalrymple:

Apple today invited media to a keynote kicking off its annual Worldwide Developers Conference. The keynote will be held at 10:00 am on Monday June 11 at Moscone West.

And if you’ve seen or heard about the rest of the WWDC schedule, as Kevin Hoctor says:

I judge how juicy the WWDC keynote will be based on the count of “Session to be announced” slots on the schedule. Lots of juice this year.

Thomas Brand:

Path Finder feels at home on my Macintosh desktop just like as any application developed by Apple. The only difference is Path Finder was designed with Power Users in mind.

The latest update to Path Finder is remarkable. But there was one thing that I couldn’t get over, and it’s the fact that Path Finder is a separate app.

The most troubling part of adopting Path Finder as your daily file management application is that it can’t replace the Finder for everything. Clicking on the Trash Can in the Dock, or performing a Spotlight search for a file will relaunch the Finder even if it is not running. The task of juggling two file managers breaks some of the enchantment Path Finder brings to file management, but CocoaTech have provides some powerful preferences to keep the Finder out of your way as much as possible.

Another app is TotalFinder. TotalFinder is actually a plugin that brings certain power user features right to the native Finder, which means you don’t have to deal with two Finders. However, TotalFinder doesn’t have as many features as Path Finder does.

Joe Schmitt, the Lead Mobile Engineer at Vimeo, looks at what’s good and what’s missing from Panic’s Diet Coda. (Via MacStories.)

Sudoku Touch is the world’s simplest Sudoku, incorporating an innovative and clean interface, 5 levels of difficulty and gorgeous retina graphics. Powered by advanced handwriting recognition, Sudoku Touch is a joy to use. It is available today at a special price of 99c from the App Store. It works on the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch.