By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Local Items

The appeal was quite successful but still falls a little short of what the orchestra needs, so Somtow (who has his own iPhone app) is making another appeal as, despite some encouragement, there is still a way to go. As well as putting something online to increase the circulation of his ideas the first time, I made a small donation myself using PayPal. I am happy to put some more information online with the links, and encourage you to support this venture. The links to PayPal are at the side of the Somtow page (my own are at the side of this page too).

Apple Stuff

Siri is a distinctly US-accented voice input, which may be why I have the occasional mis-dial (she insists on "call") and why the Scots accent is also causing problems. I have heard nothing about Newcastle, but rich Geordie has me beat. I tried to phone a Yorkshire friend who was living in Tyneside and got his flat-mate. I had to phone back later: couldn't understand a word. Siri may be looking at new horizons with a report by Joe Aimonetti that Japanese, Russian and Mandarin are to be coming soon, perhaps by next month, which may be the time when an update to iOS arrives, just in time for the next iPad.

Several sites, including iPodNN had the news that buried deep in the iOS 5.1 beta that is in the hands of developers right now, was a reference to "09Mar2012-Update" which would work very nicely with a product update too.

A number of sites were carrying information and images of what is purported to be the case of the iPad 3 and the most interesting piece of news Neil Hughes reports is that the back panel shape suggests a larger battery size as well as hints that the display will be mounted differently. We also hear from Daniel Eran Dilger on AppleInsider (as well as others carrying the same information) that an unnamed Apple employee has said it has a "truly amazing display." There is also unsurprisingly a faster processor.

With the new products coming fairly often from Apple, some of the old stuff has to go. Although it has not been seen in the shops for a while, the old white MacBook has still been available in the education market. But not any more Chris Rawson reports on TUAW.

We sometimes discuss the retail outlets as in Thailand the arrangement is pretty unique and there are no Apple stores at all: only the online presence which is not the cheapest in the world, but does have the same prices as the iStudio outlets. In some countries there are both independent retailers and Apple's own stores. Steve Sande on TUAW reports on the unhappy resellers in France who claim that Apple has them at a disadvantage. Despite carrying the flag for years when Apple had no presence at all, they now feel they are being dumped. Stores in Sweden and Germany are also feeling the same effects particularly -- this rung a bell here -- there are delays with product availability for these resellers. As I have found, ordering via the online store can have items in my hand before they are on the shelves here; although on one or two occasions they were deliberately held back.

On a couple of occasions in the past few weeks, there have been attempts to push Tim Cook's credibility and prove that he is no Steve Jobs. Apart from the obviousness here, the suggestion that he has risen to the top of one of the world's most profitable companies without a spine is a little short on sense. But that is what you get when someone tries to push a button: everyone wants in. The excellent profits were not enough, the new approach to Textbooks online was not enough, and nor was the approach that Apple has been taking to suppliers for a number of years now. Analysts would do well to be careful what they wish for. A more sensible approach is taken by the wealthy Saudi Prince Alwaleed who does have a fair amount of money invested in Apple. Like Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway, the Prince takes a long-term view of investment and is reported on Bloomberg as suggesting "the time to judge Apple Inc. management will be in two years because the next five to six quarters will be mainly the influence of founder Steve Jobs."

Less willing to wait, or wanting to push some changes on Apple earlier (and perhaps make their influence felt within the company) are CALPERS, the California Pension Fund that does have a lot of sway in some areas. Dan McCrum reporting on the Financial Times tells us that the Fund wants board members of Apple to be elected in the future by direct voting. They do have a point as the current system seems to be a little odd, but the system has worked rather well for investors (including CALPERS) thus far.

In an article on eCommerce Times, Chris Maxcer writes that he "found CNN's recent report on Foxconn's poor working conditions at a manufacturing plant . . . in China to be astoundingly irritating." And this was not just because they focused on Apple and the iPad, like the NYTimes and others had done before them, but (and this is far more damning) they "totally missed obvious points in order to try to paint Foxconn working conditions as terrible". In other words, they cherry-picked, which was one of the criticisms I had about the NYTimes article. Maxcer looks more at the wider picture than many have done in the last couple of weeks and re-aims the blame. Apple can still apply pressure (of that we are in no doubt) but there are others who also need to act.

A user was investigating how an app was working last week and discovered that the entire contents of his address book were being uploaded to the developer's site. When Arun Thampi (who helped build Denso he writes on his site) commented on this to Path, Dave Morin the CEO was apologetic, admitted the facts and promised to act. Once the word got out, Path were sort of besieged and contrite. An outline is available in an item by Josh Ong on AppleInsider. The way they had initially dealt with the data was thought to be the best solution in all innocence and they had no idea the way users would be concerned. By the middle of the week, we are told by Electronista and others, a new version of the app was out and they repeated their apologies, explaining the intent.

As a related question, AppleBitch had a useful article entitled, "Where Does The Buck Stop With App Ethics; Apple Or Developers?" This uses the Path problem as a basis and suggests that some apps may slip through: what to do? A more rigorous approach by Apple is suggested.

On ethics, we note that Lance Whitney reports that a group of hackers, called Swagg Security, have attacked Foxconn servers.

And we also read that Steve Jobs had an FBI file according to John Cook on Gawker.

Apple has got tough on some developers recently with a no-duplicates stance, then a look at how some developers may be generating false numbers to push them higher up the ratings (itself then generating more visibility); and now there is a push by Apple to improve the screenshots used for apps, which are already quite good in many cases, by an insistence that high-resolution screen shots are to be used in future. Josh Lowensohn reports the details here, with an opening comment that "The screen resolution shared by the first three iPhones and iPod Touches is expected to be phased out eventually. . ."

Not long ago we looked at the way iPads were heading to commercial aircraft, in the US at least, but now we are told by David Needle on TabTimes (link from MacDaily News) that the USAF is ready to purchase up to 18,000 iPads for the same purpose: to replace the paper charts and technical manuals the crew now has to carry. We also mentioned this week that QANTAS is deploying iPads to all seats on one of its aircraft as an in-flight entertainment experiment. However, over at Virgin, Mel Martin on TUAW reports that an Australian pilot is suing the airline because he does not have an iPad. Stamp your feet and scream stuff one might think, until you see the figure he is putting on his anguish -- almost $1 million -- due to the lack of a reasonable system that replaces the heavy charts and books and injured his back. As an end note which suggests this is heading nowhere we read that "his accident happened in December of 2009. The iPad did not go on sale in Australia until May of 2010." And deployment of iPads as replacement for those flight bags was not allowed by the FAA until last year

We are also told by Jim Dalrymple on The Loop that the US government is looking to replace BlackBerry phones with iPhones and that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is to get iPads.

Apple shares hit $493. . . . making it worth 56 RIMs (Jim Dalrymple): more than Microsoft and Google combined; or Google, Goldman Sachs, General Motors, Ford, Starbucks and Boeing combined; or almost twice as much as Microsoft; or more than twice as much as General Electric (about $202 billion), I.B.M. (about $224 billion) or Wal-Mart ($212 billion). (David Leonhardt)

Half and Half

It was interesting therefore to be reminded by Steve Wildstrom on Tech Pinions that one of the motivations behind the iPhone was the poor opinion that Steve Jobs had of the way the carriers operated (although Apple needed the carriers to make the iPhone work). Wildstrom tells us that the carriers are selling loads of phones but not making the profits: Apple is doing very nicely, thank you. The reason is that third part of the equation -- a breakthrough internet device -- that got so little applause in 2007 when the iPhone was announced. Wifi is the core of the iPhone and how it works, while the calls (the carrier part of the equation) make little money. And now with the Apple TV, the sights may be aimed at the cable guys.

Patents and Apple in Europe got a little complex this week with the discovery, Foss Patents reports, of a letter from Apple that was written a few months ago as a way to suggest solutions to FRAND abuse (read Motorola). About the same time, we were told (Foss Patents) that the intent of Motorola was to use these as a way to kill, while CISCO supports Apple's stance on the need to contain FRAND abuse. Electronista also reports that Google (who are now owners of Motorola) could cause a change in attitude. Do not hold your breath. Florian Mueller of Foss Patents has done an exceptional job of keeping track of the various players and their maneuverings in the last few days. I would urge anyone with an interest in the way this is all playing out -- especially with the way that Apple is not such as bad boy as some have suggested, especially with the way Motorola has been acting and Google is expected to follow with its 2.25% FRAND levy on each iPhone -- to visit Mueller's site and work through the articles: he has a nice way of distilling the essentials.

Other Matters

More to the point, lots of folks in Europe are being "reassigned": in other words their jobs are gone. The comprehensive support program probably means a 90-day compensation payment and 5 minutes with an overworked job counsellor, while the company high-ups still draw comfortable salaries and are driven about in chauffeured limos, and the shareholders will still be happy.

Not long ago, we reported on the theft of source code from Symantec. It appears that this was part of an extortion attempt, so Bryan Bishop tells us on The Verge, with some extended negotiations having taken place, much to the embarrassment of the former security company. However, the intent by the hacker (s) was always to humiliate and despite having given the appearance of negotiating (and I would suggest that this -- false or not -- would be a federal offense in the US: the UK would probably get round it with a charge of Conspiracy) it is claimed that the intention was always to release the code into the wild.

Despite all the problems with spying by its journalists in the UK (there are still ongoing investigations bringing in other newspapers), the lower sales of paper copy that are being reported worldwide, and grumbles over the internet with paywalls and firewalls and stonewalls, the Bangkok Post was carrying a news item this week that reports the quarterly profits of News Corp rose some 65%.

Quietly getting on with things in Japan is Hitachi who this week report that they have shipped the industry's first 25 nanometer SLC NAND flash, enterprise-class SSDs. They tell us that "the new Ultrastar SSD400S.B family is available in 100GB, 200GB and 400GB capacities, and features 2.5-inch 6Gb/s Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) interface. This provides unique value to customers who are increasingly looking to tiered storage as a method of managing today's datacenters." More information on this is available via the Hitachi press release.

Kodak are also quietly chipping away at things despite their financial woes and they are currently preparing for drupa 2012 which is held in Dusseldorf (3-16 May 2012). Kodak will be releasing several new products there related to publishing, packaging and commercial print and spotlighting "customers who have grown their businesses and their bottom lines by offering new capabilities and services, producing unique applications, and improving operational efficiencies" working with the company. More information is available at the Kodak site.

However they did report this week the end of their relationship with digital cameras.

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.