The keynote from this year’s WWDC has just wrapped, and Viticci is right when he says this isn’t just Apple skating to where the puck is, this is Apple creating an entirely new ball game. Apple kicked things off by saying it was an even with three main focuses — OS X, iOS, and developers — and then they went on to deliver one of the biggest Apple events in recent history. Let’s dance.

OS X Yosemite

Apple’s first cab off the rank was OS X, and just like the rumours predicted, the new OS X has a fresh coat of paint, along with improvements to apps across the board. After a few quick quips about the name, OS X Yosemite was announced with a brand new look, one that brings the translucency of iOS and brings it to the desktop. The entire OS now looks fresher, typography has been tightened up, and yes, the icons are now flat (check out that new Finder icon!). But it’s still, more or less, the OS X you know and love — oh, except for that dark mode.

Let’s face it: there’s so much stuff on the web that you’ll never be able to read it all. So, every month we’ll be bringing you no more than a handful of slightly longer — but always worthy of your time and attention — reads about the wonderful world of Apple. Instapaper account not included, Kindle sold separately.

• May was the month Apple VP Corporate Communications Katie Cotton announced she was leaving Apple, and anyone who works in PR could stand to learn a few things.

Cotton was VP of worldwide corporate communications at Apple, and while PR people aren’t always seen as super important, Katie Cotton was. She controlled how Apple dealt with the outside world, and she shaped how the company was viewed by the media and the general public.

A review from the perspective of a long-time Skitch user

A few weeks back I found myself looking for the ideal app for sharing screenshots, both on the web and elsewhere. I’ve been an Old SkitchTM holdout ever since they went and Evernote-d up the newer versions, and while I hear the new Skitch now has feature parity with the older versions, you’re still forced to share screenshots via Evernote’s own service, and not your own. That makes sense as Evernote now owns Skitch, but a small incompatibility with Retina displays meant it was time to go looking elsewhere.

I know what you’re thinking. There’s a certain sense of vanity or narcissism that comes with the territory of using an app to track Twitter statistics, and while Birdbrain can be used for those purposes, I use it mostly out of curiosity rather than anything else. At its core, Birdbrain is an app for tracking Twitter statistics. It’s been around for a while now, and while it hasn’t always been the fastest app to get updates, the recent update redesigned for iOS 7 is worth looking at.

Wherever you look these days, there’s an app or game trying to nickel and dime you for every penny you have. They do this by offering up a smorgasbord of in-app purchases, which do everything from letting you skip levels, unlock additional content, or even allowing you play the game, in some extreme cases. For all the moaning and groaning every time a new title is launched with in-app purchases, you would think that in-app purchases are the worst thing ever to happen to apps and games.

But here’s the thing: not all in-app purchases are bad, and most of the time, I’m actually OK with them.

In-app purchases can be grouped into roughly two main kinds. The most popular seem to be the ones that unlock content (additional levels, chapters), or there are others that have a direct effect on gameplay (upgrades, hints, bonuses). Some apps also offer purely cosmetic enhancements, such as additional colour packs or sound effects. The official Pokédex app for iPhone pictured above lets you unlock Pokédex data for the various regions, and puzzle games with a built-in hint mechanic usually let you purchase an unlimited amount of hints for a once-off fee. I wouldn’t hesitate to buy every episode of The Walking Dead or every game in the Ace Attorney HD Trilogy, mostly because I know the games and have played them before, but those who are a little more cautious with their iTunes credit get the chance to try out the game before they take the plunge. If they like what they see, a once-off in-app purchase is right there.