By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

Let us also look at some other known knowns (borrowing from Donald Rumsfeld) in that each time an iPhone has been released, it is better than the one before: features, processor, camera, construction. After all, it would be a bit stupid if Apple were to come out with a badge-engineered iPhone that had no improvements and only a different case or something like that. It may happen, but Apple could never get away with that. However, that is exactly what some analysts are claiming is "the answer" in a cheapo iPhone that will appeal to the masses. There was another this week, Lance Whitney reports.

Now, as to what the improvements may be, or the timing of the announcement: well, these things take us into unknown unknowns (Rumsfeld again) and that is the area of the rumour specialists. And I do not buy into that cheapo iPhone rumour that Wall Street analysts - who have proved over the last few months that they have almost no real knowledge about Apple - have been pushing as the device that will save Apple. The patient is in robust health.

Let us start with possibility of a new processor. Thus far, the A-series have been numbered upwards, with a few X versions on the way, so presumably an A7 will be on its way one day. AppleInsider quoting reports from out of Taiawn suggest that TSMC have started the "tape out" process (the photomasking process that is one of the final steps in circuit design - AppleInsider) which suggests things are beginning to heat up. April announcement, anyone?

Also commenting on this, in identical fashion was Brooke Crothers although he also mentions speculation about Intel involvement down the road which some have already dismissed.

There were rumours late Thursday evening on Twitter that there are to be previews of OS X 10.9 being made available to some bloggers in the United States. We may know more about this later.

In another innovation that has just been patented, Apple has designed a Smart Cover with inductive charging: the body portion includes an inductive power transmitter arranged to wirelessly pass power to a corresponding inductive power receiver unit disposed within the iPad. [A collegaue uses this to charge the plastic pacemaker units he has developed. Thus far they have been tested in dogs but it is still a long way until human trials.] Details about the patent for the inductive cover for the iPad are in an item on Patently Apple where there are also a number of useful diagrams.

In Mac news this week, Apple have relased a version of the iMac with a VESA mount adapter for an extra $40, AppleInsider reports. VESA is the Video Electronics Standards Association and this fixture allows the iMac to be wall-mounted securely. This is also available for those who use the Thai online store, with a special link on the iMac pages. As far as I can work out, this adds 1,300 baht to the price. Note: the stand itself is sold separately.

It is unusual for excutives at Apple to say much, but there were several reports this week on Phil Schiller following in Tim Cook's footsteps with interviews. A number of publications carried some of the more interesting comments, such as a report on Electronista concerning Schiller's words on users switching from Android to the iPhone: four times the rate that they go the other way (iPhone to Android), which itself admits that there is movement from iOS. However, he also suggested that a lot of Android installations are outdated and cannot update without buying a new device: something that does not happen with iOS devices.

The interview was on Wall Street Journal who have not been all that pro-Apple of late and the headlines with the interview (by Ian Sherr and Jessica E. Lesson) are not eactly positive: Apple, on Defense, Slams Samsung. In the interview Schiller praised the iPhone 5 screen, but declined to make any comment on future Apple products.

Another comment on the interview came from Josh Lowensohn who suggested that this spin from Schiller is to pre-deflate any positives from a Samsung smartphone luanch this week. The article also reminds readers of Phil's acid comment on Twitter last week concerning a security report about the amount of malware on Android. Lowensohn also points out that this interview came just after a shakeup at Google moving out Andy Rubin (see below), although with the timing I would not read too much into this in terms of a connection.

There was an odd report on Thursday evening from Patently Apple. I read the RSS feed which is as follows:

On March 14, 2013, the US Patent & Trademark Office published a rather ho-hum patent application from Apple about providing the iPad with better aligned components relating to the display and cover glass. Yet within this patent filing Apple's engineers inadvertently presented a different iPad embodiment that is slightly boxier in design so as to better accommodate a new speaker configuration. The design also revealed other possible features.

But when I clicked on the link the page was blank. I tried the Patently Apple main page and that had no reference to the story at all. Was that cease & desist?

Perhaps aptly, I first heard the news that Steve Jobs had died, on my iPhone, and looking through articles on Thursday morning, I saw one on MacDaily News on iPad use in Rome that was my first indication that there was a new Pope: Francis. The item linked to an AP article on the election, but made much of a Fox News screenshot that had thousands in St Peter's Square with smartphones and iPads in much evidence.

With Apple the only defendant left in the DoJ case on ebooks that some think was sponsored by Amazon (as an aside, why won't Eric Holder follow the DoJ rulebook? - Mark Gongloff - but do a Google search using those keywords) the judge in the case has ruled that Tim Cook must appear and testify with the Justice Department for 4 hours, Katie Marsal writes on AppleInsider. 11 other Apple executives have been deposed (evidence is written down by lawyers), but they still want Cook as he had the ear of Steve Jobs and they can no longer call him of course.

Apple has been criticised for its slow start in India, although it is an unusual market with a number of odd restrictions and a population with wide economic differences (rich and lots of poor). However, there has now been some success in the sub-continent in an odd way. Sumnima Udas reports for CNN that, instead of its usual plush shops and high profile approach, the success has been through what are being called Mom and Pop shops making it the second largest smartphone seller (after Samsung) [My link for this was from MacDaily News.]

Also reporting on this was Kevin Bostic for AppleInsider, who also cites the CNN story, but adding a little more information from IDC research and including the point that "Apple has begun offering installment-based payments for Indian customers" making the device more affordable.

I have mentioned the updates to the Map app a couple of times this week, and after the udates that were reported for Japanese users, there were found to be a lot more for other countries as well, fixing some of what was considered broken. MacNN reports that not only were maps updated but there was an update to the Apple Store app. Note, this is not available here; but then nor apparently were maps updates: I can see a BTS station from my window which Apple and Google insist is a concrete slab.

Actually, this gets better as on the Google Map roads version, the last station is Wongwian Yai - wrong - while the satellite version still shows the concrete slab that has no rails. Let us be scrupulously fair here, the Apple Maps app also shows the concrete slab, but does not indicate the track to Wongwianyai. That station is shown, but only if you can read Thai. And if you have been following Cassandra, we are safe in the continued knowledge that the Bangkok Bank, Bukkhalo branch is still in the middle of the river.

The data that has been updated is available in an item from Jim Dalrymple on The Loop and this shows changes for almost 20 US locations as well as several in other countries. There is also a special mention of China where the Maps app has a new coloring scheme, as well as unspecified changes elsewhere. But not Thailand [as far as I can see].

While I was at home on Thursday morning, one of my students contacted me through Facebook messaging and asked me about ghost images that a friend was experiencing on his new MacBook Pro with Retina display. I remembered that I had seen something on this last month, so used Spotlight to try and find the source. One of the files listed brought up the article I had read then by Steven Sande on TUAW, so I sent the link to a rather happy student who sent me several messages expressing gratitude.

A week or so ago there were reports of a child in the UK whose father gave him the keys to the kingdom by way of the iTunes App store password and the kid used it. The parents ended up with a bill of £1,700 and they were lucky that Apple let them off. But heavens: there is another one. Again in the UK although this time for slightly less (£980), but once more they have been lucky and Apple let them off, the Belfast Telegraph reports. Kids don't understand. If the doors are open, they will go through [my link for this was MacDaily News].

It doesn't matter where we are, each iPhone will have a number of specific files from a carrier installed on the device. As well as such files being installed by carriers there may also be those from enterprise device management solutions: making sure all phones used in an organisation are set up the same. According to an Israeli security firm, MacNN reports, users could be tricked into installing malware if they thought there were an update to these files ready for download. While most of these carrier files only come through official (Apple) channels, there may be ways for the device management files to carry malicious data.

Last April I reviewed a book I downloaded from Amazon, called The iPad for Photographers: Master the Newest Tool in Your Camera Bag, by Jeff Carlson. I found this a rather useful work (especially as I can carry it on the iPad with no excess weight) and there were several ideas that I took up from suggestions in its pages as well as a couple of apps I bought as a result. Now Matt Tinsley on TUAW outlines another source that iPad users may want to look at if they want to consider the iPad as a part of post-production while away from home. He writes that Ben Long has a detailed article on this and, like Jeff Carlson's book, there are some interesting suggestions. Note this is an article (or articles) and not a book.

Like a lot of users, I have several ways to boot upa Mac in case things go wrong. As luck would hve it, I do not often use these backup methods, although sometimes I am asked to help other users who have Mac problems, and they are useful then. In a new series on TidBits, Joe Kissell writes about one of these solutions, in "Booting Your Mac from a Duplicate" although he suggests Carbom Copy Cloner or SuperDuper which I do not use. Having created such a disk he explains how valuable it can be in analysis and rescue situations.

On Friday morning AppleInsider reports that an update to firmware for the 15" MacBook Pro has been released. It deals with bugs that cause "slow framerates when playing graphics-intensive games on the 15-inch system. It also fixes bugs related to Power Nap and wake from sleep functions."

And when checking Software Update, I see that the long-awaited update to OS X 10.83 has been released. I have written about this separately.

Other Matters

"Wheels on a boat", writes John Sculley on the Microsoft Surface in an article critical of what Microsoft has become. While Redmond, he says, has been a superb fast-follower, it is not an innovator, despite the excellent staff it hires [can we exclude the CEO?]. While Google and Samsung are the "successful fast-followers in mobile", the lag and conflict (internal and external we guess: protecting Windows and Office) brought forth the Surface, about 18 months too late and pitched at a non-existent market. Would you recommend a Surface to a friend? No, and no one has recommended one to Sculley.

Another article - by Evan Niu on The Motley Fool - mentions the poor track record Microsoft has with consumer hardware (excluding the XBox I presume?) and while the Surface is a big deal, at least one analyst (and lots and lots of bloggers and non-partisan tech writers) suggests that the fate of the Surface might be the same as for the Zune or the Kin. Note that the Zune was 5 years after the iPod, and the Surface was a couple of years after the iPad. Behemoth needs time to lurch into action. And by the time things have begun to move up at Redmond not only can the puck no longer be seen, but the fans have left the rink [My link for this was from MacDaily News.]

First they came for Scott Forestall, then Steve Sinovsky was dumped. Now it appears that Andy Rubin, the so-called architect of Android, has been reasssigned within Google, Jordan Kahn reports on 9to5 Mac. Needless to say, there were lots of articles on this within the next few hours. A follow up by Jordan Kahn told us that Sundar Pichai will now lead the Android effort with still no comment from Google on what this apparent star player will now be doing, other than an inactive role like Scott Forestall.

There have been several problems for users of phones on the coast of Britain, particularly those who live in the areas which are closest to France. Now as La Manche is apparently 29 Kms wide at its narrowest point, one would think that this would be a big enough gap to keep the two apart, but not as far as carriers are concerned and Paul Bentley in The Daily Mail reports on how English users are being charged by French carriers. In one case this caused some marital strife (not to say economical problems) as a wife was convinced her husband had a French girlfriend.

Apparently, the cliffs there - greatly symbolic for many Brits, especially those who remember Vera Lynn - block out the signals from England, so the phones seek out the closest wireless waves: French ones; so the only ones happy are the tourist who can make cheap calls home. There is no apparent solution and users are being advised to turn off roaming.

There have been a couple of interesting comments from TechDirt this week concerning digital rights and censorship. I have been following the progress (if that is the right word) of the release of SimCity and under current conditions would certainly not buy this because of the way this once great standalone game needs an internet connection to confirm that the user has bought a licence.

Actually, that is not entirely true as Tim Cushing writes that according to some information from one upset worker at Maxis, EA are lying. It is a standalone game, but the DRM included means it is not. Tim Cushing does not have just one source for this but there are other independent researchers that suggest that - from their findings - it will actually run without the internet and, indeed, EA may well be telling porkies.

There are also a couple of stories about the way people who should know better are changing the ground rules, starting with Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the guy who came up with HTML so that people could share. To the surprise (and apparent annoyance) for Mike Masnick, Berners-Lee is defending the idea of building DRM into HTML 5. The article incudes part of a rebuttal by Cory Doctorow who makes the point that the World Wide Web Consortium is about keeping things open, and that big players do not need DRM, despite what is claimed, and that the threatened alternative of Flash is not really a threat at all.

Also surprised by his reaction - to The Walking Dead - is Stephen J. Moss, who publishes The Potrero View: a community newspaper. I must admit, sometimes the excess of killing those who are already dead, with accompanying slurpy sounds and suitable excess of blood splatter, does make me wince. But I do have an off button, although the tale of the desperate survivors is too good to miss. Not so Moss, whom Tim Cushing tells us, is so put out by the graphic nature of what is shown that he thinks it should be censored.

Needless to say Cushing is highly critical of this view: "Free speech doesn't stop when you, as an individual . . . feel your morality or sensibilities are being trampled on" and includes a quote from Neil Gaiman:

Because if you don't stand up for the stuff you don't like, when they come for the stuff you do like, you've already lost.

Local Items

The main area of heat appears to be round the home button, which is beside the Lightning port. The bottom of the lithium-ion battery is just above this, as can be seen from teardown images on iFixit. The report does not tell us if the phone was being charged at the time or if there were any other circumstances. Spontaneous combustion happens in rare circumstances (haystacks in rural England, for example) so the idea of instant heat being generated in 30 seconds, that leads to combustion, suggests to me that there may be something else involved.

The MCOT clip embedded has some more visible information. The iPhone appears to have a screen protector and there have been problems with some of the cheaper ones. There is also a similar plastic screen on the back of the phone. However, the glass has been pushed away from the body of the iPhone which can happen when a battery expands (usually over some time), although the main area of expansion is at the bottom where the battery does not extend. There are no obvious heat marks round the Lightning port.

One other thing we do not know is what version of iOS was being used or what apps were installed. I would like clarification concerning this, especially as many Thai users jailbreak their phones as a matter of course and then install apps that have not been checked by Apple.

Whatever the answers, it is important that Apple examine the phone. If there is a battery problem (or any other problem for that matter) with the phone, they need to have it fixed and any changes to customer installations made as soon as possible. If there are other causes, such as that unauthorised repair that an Australian have made to his iPhone that caused it to catch fire, then that too we need to know. As it is, a suggestion hangs in the air that the phone is not safe: that needs confirming one way or another.

Late News

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.