Apple rejects kid-friendly programming app


About 40 years ago, tech legend Alan Kay invented the idea of a lightweight tablet computer that children could use to learn programming. Apple’s iPad delivers on the tablet part of that vision–but the company has blocked a kid-friendly programming language based on Kay’s work from getting onto the iPad, Wired reports. Apple removed an app called Scratch from its iPhone and iPad App Store last week. The Scratch app displayed stories, games, and animations made by children using MIT’s Scratch platform, which was built on top of Kay’s programming language Squeak, according to MIT. John McIntosh, a software developer unaffiliated with MIT, made the Scratch app for the iPhone on his own and announced its removal in a blog post last week. Though Kay didn’t write the Scratch app, he wasn’t pleased about the news when contacted by Wired. “Both children and the internet are bigger than Apple, and things that are good for children of the world need to be able to run everywhere,” Kay told the publication…

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