Dear Friends,

It is so green here in the Green Mountains with every shade of the emerald color visible as I look out the window here at the office. The Apple tree that we planted when we first moved into this facility about 12 years ago has really gotten big. I’ll have to get Artie with his chainsaw and snippers to prune it back a bit in the fall when it is dormant. Right now, however; it is covered with little green apples and with all of the rain we have been getting those apples are swelling as I watch.

Apple’s big Worldwide Developers Conference is wrapping up this week. I went home for lunch on Monday so I could watch the keynote on my AppleTV. As usual WWDC concentrates upon software so those looking for dramatic new hardware offerings were disappointed but the attendees are software developers and Apple had some great news and announcements for them. Two of these announcements may not get the headlines but they are pretty dramatic. One, Apple announced that it is releasing the toolkit for developers to create native apps for the Apple Watch. Currently, apps for the watch are really modified iPhone apps. With this new toolkit and the release of Watch OS 2, developers can now create watch-specific and standalone apps.

The other announcement is that Apple has made its innovative programming language, Swift, open source. Swift has been adopted quickly by the development community and Apple’s move to make it available as open source means that developers have access to the source code and collaborative development to make improvements to the language.

There were a bunch of other announcements at WWDC and I’ll do a little recap below. I am playing with the new beta versions of iPhone iOS 9 and El Capitan, or OS X 10.11 and just learning some of the new features and working around the inevitable bugs in beta software. There will be a public beta of each of these coming in July. At this point, I would say that El Capitan is much further on the development path than iOS 9 but they will catch up soon.

Apple did mention HomeKit, their home automation app, during the keynote but since there was not much news about AppleTV which is widely expected to serve as the home automation hub, we can probably look forward to another Apple event when they are ready to say something about AppleTV. But, why wait?

This week’s Kibbles & Bytes Exclusive is a home automation special bundle. The bundle consists of a Nest Learning Thermostat and a Kevo lock. I use both of these items in my home and find them to be extremely easy to install and use. Like much technology that I adopt, I now cannot really imagine how I lived without them. Not only do they automate two vital functions of your home, your heating and cooling and your lock but they are also integrated. These days when I open my lock at my home, I get a notification on my iPhone and my Apple Watch that asks if I want to set my Nest thermostat to “Home” and vice-versa, when I leave and lock the door I get a notification that asks if I want to set my Nest to “Away”.

Both these devices are pretty easy to install and come with good instructions. The Nest even comes with a little tool to make attaching the thermostat wires easier. Now you can send a key to your house via email to houseguests, workers, etc. You can revoke these keys at any time. Opening the door couldn’t be easier with your iPhone in your pocket you simply touch the lock and it opens. The Nest learning thermostat learns your heating and cooling habits and adjusts temperatures accordingly. You can manage your thermostat remotely, too, with the Nest App for the iPhone.

For this week’s K&B exclusive choose any Kevo lock in Satin Nickel, Polished Brass or Venetian Bronze and add a Nest Thermostat. This bundle is normally $469.98 but if you buy the bundle this week you can save $50 at only $419.98. Click Here to claim your bundle today.