By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

It also strikes me that this is an excellent basis for touch technology and we know what Apple thinks of that.

A later report from Matt Brian on TNW had the idea that the deal may either not be real or (more likely) in negotiation, with the company denying it and an influential website saying it is getting close.

So it was a bit of a surprise to have seen a couple of days earlier a report from Don Reisinger picking up information from China Daily that the head of Foxconn is on record saying they were full steam ahead ready to build the Apple TV. But then if you join those two apparently different news items up, there are some distinct other possibilities.

I managed to update OS X to 10.7.4 finally on Sunday. While I had no apparent problems with the update (apart from its slowness), a coincidental cable problem gave me a few moments worry about an external hard disk. The only thing I am noticing so far is a certain dragginess to Safari, but as that could be down to the local ISP as much as anything else, and there were a couple of unrelated pauses with the network (Mail, iTunes, MSN) I will reserve judgement.

In that item, I linked to a couple of reports from Topher Kessler who discussed some problems that had been found (I was not affected). He also looks at a rumour that suggests the replacement for OS X 10.7, Lion, the 10.8 version called Mountain Lion, may be with us sooner than expected, so includes some advice on preparation.

There has been a lot of criticism about Apple's use of the term, 4G, when describing the new iPad in certain markets and the authorities in Australia and UK especially have investigated. Apple changed the small print as a precaution, but now they are changing the large print and, we are told by Rene Ritchie on iMore (as well as many others) that in certain markets the device is now being called "iPad Wi-fi + Cellular". As close to a mea culpa as we may get from Cupertino on this. I checked on Sunday afternoon and the online Thai Apple Store still shows "Wi-Fi + 4G".

We know there should be an update to the iPhone this year -- there is every year, right? -- but what form will it take. This is the stuff of speculators, of rumours, of Apple secrets. But Chris Matyszczyk suggests that nothing has been decided yet, except the October date, and that is not even certain. So all that stuff about screen size, materials and features may be vapour. Isn't it time for the "Apple is dying chorus to come in?" (See below of course).

A few sites had information about what is purported to be a new part for the next iPhone. Allyson Kazmucha on iMore writes about this and has a number of useful images which suggest a new layout and design.

We recently had the update to iOS 5 bringing it now to version 5.1.1 and some thoughts (particularly at Cupertino we should imagine) are on iOS 6 which MG Siegler reports on TechCrunch is to be called Sundance (he has an appropriate picture of Robert Redford as the Sundance Kid heading the article). Apart from discussing the new iOS version (and a new iTunes), he also looks at the use of maps and 3D views, which are already available in the Russian maps app, Maps (in English) -- Rambler Maps in Russian. What Siegler also looks at is the move away from Google Maps which is likely to be significant for the future: for Apple, for developers and of course for Google. Some have switched already he tell us because of the charges Google is levying.

A quick look that some had at an iCloud beta site last week suggests that there may be some additions, like Notes and Reminders AppleInsider reports.

One of the things I have been excited about is the way Apple has developed its own processors for the iPhone and iPad. Apart from economics, there is s the secrecy aspect and the point that no one else could have any new features included until a device tear-down. It also appeals to me because I would like to see these concepts applied to Macs as well as iOS devices. Intel may have this in mind when, Electronista reports that the CEO has announced he is determined Intel is going to make mobile chips that Apple cannot ignore (I thought they already were). Paul Otellini ought to be worried about Microsoft too as they are sniffing round ARM chips.

Over the last few weeks and months I have commented on the number of articles that seems to try and portray Apple, its CEO and the management team in place as somehow lost, wallowing, or dragging the company down. Both before and after the last quarterly financial report -- record figures -- the pundits were spreading alarm and panic around forcing the share prices down. It is my opinion that this is done to create a false level and thus profit when the price inevitably rises, as is suggested by some analysts, who have predicted figures of $1,000 or more per share. If they are $600 and we can force them down to $500, that would make an extra $100, never mind about the way this might affect pension funds or other investors.

This week there have been more scare articles along the above lines. Let me start with the financial report. If the last set of figures was a record, then there is only one way to go: down, right? That seems to be the argument that Jay Yarrow of Business Insider puts forward, citing the warning words of Katy Huberty at Morgan Stanley. MacDaily News has a link to this item and some strident comments all its own too.

A couple of notes here: Business Insider has been one of those voices with warnings about Apple of late (do a search for "Apple" on that BI page); and Morgan Stanley has been making some history lately with its own losses that can be easily tracked on Google.

With all those criticisms of Tim Cook which we had opined were just flat wrong, we also mentioned The MacObserver analysis of how right Cook is with how he is working at Apple. The problem for many of these other critics is that many have not been following Apple long-time and they cannot forgive Tim for not being Steve Jobs. Jason Schwarz on Seeking Alpha sure can and he looks at the recent criticisms and explains why the critics have been wrong, although I do not think Cook will be going as far as an iCar; but he is dead right when he writes, "it's time to stop hating on Tim Cook and start viewing him for what he is. CEO Cook is an operational wizard who is the master of the modern day supply chain."

I like to play "spot the Mac" when watching TV or a movie. As well as the Thai soaps where the main hi-so characters have the latest products, we saw the current Prime Minister in one of her first debates with a MacBook Pro on the desk beside her. Then there are the advertisements. Some try to conceal the Apple logo, but you can still see that it is a Mac -- too many clues. The odd thing is that, even when a company advertises its products -- say an IT product -- when you try and buy the product (or service) the salesperson will sometimes be quite adamant that it does not work on a Mac. This is sometimes out of ignorance (I was told this about an ADSL modem/router I tried to buy once) but may actually be true: the advertising agency that put the ad together may have used a Mac and thus gave a false impression. It was interesting to see a Bloomberg article by Peter Burrows and Andy Fixmer on product placement in Hollywood which seems to love Apple products as much as Thai producers, directors and actors do.

A few people have been playing spot the movie Steve Jobs after Ashton Kutcher was spotted in jeans and polo-neck shirt on the lot (Laura June). It appears that some are not happy with this as, well Ashton Kutcher looks like Ashton Kutcher and not Steve Jobs. I put my memory to a short test and came up with Antony Hopkins as Nixon and as Picasso, Leonardo di Caprio as J. Edgar Hoover and as Howard Hughes and if I could be bothered (it was Sunday after all) there were probably a few more I could remember. None of those stars looked remotely like the person they were portraying but their performances (especially Di Caprio as Hughes appearing before a Congressional hearing) convinced me that this was the essence of the man. That last sentence also reminded me of Ed Flanders who played Welch in the movie Citizen Cohn about the McCarthy hearings: he it was who said to McCarthy, "Have you no shame? . . ." which may have been the beginning of the end there. But Steve Jobs, Ashton Kutcher: the proof will be in the performance not the appearance.

As a note, I originally put the name as "Ashton Kushner". As I was not sure, I checked before uploading and the responses I had from a Google search left me none the wiser, so I left it. I was later corrected by a reader and am happy to put the correct name -- Ashton Kutcher -- in the text. Mea culpa.

I was chatting over the weekend with someone in Narathiwat (in the south of Thailand) who is interested in the iPad 2 I have for sale. His father would have to bankroll this so wants some information as he would also like to use it. One of the uses is for stock transactions: many Thais like to trade online. The broker site he uses is Flash-heavy and I had to point out that the iPad has never used this. A look at the site on the Mac showed me that there was an iPad app, but it only linked to an information page -- how hard is it to provide a link to the iTunes store for Heaven's sake?

I did that and downloaded Settrade Streaming for iPad. I was not able to use this myself as users need to log in to a broker, once the name has been selected using a scroll wheel. The screen shots in the iTunes app store show that this True app allows trading as well as tracking stocks in real-time: essential for this type of app. The Apple widget for the Mac and the Stock app that follows the NYSE have delays of 15 minutes. Fortunes can be won and lost in that time.

I have never liked Flash on the Mac and always said Jobs was right on this: it clogs the system, makes the computer run hot, has the gall to ask me for storage on my computer (a sure sign that this can never work properly) and -- according to an item on RixStep has an "ability to store and pass on special user-specific information" which, they add, "gave rise to an entire industry devoted to defeating it". The article has lots more on the direness of Flash and the recent move by Apple with the OS X update (10.7.4) to isolate earlier versions of the media player.

I have been using Click to Flash for a couple of years and only when I do want to use Flash, I can quickly click on the panel and the video loads, avoiding all those ads and popups that make the strain -- I counted a dozen on one website -- each of which has to download data and fire up Flash. Thai web pages are particularly prone to this because the lazy content providers find it all so easy. I wonder how many customers they lost because of annoyed computer users: another example of silicon snake oil that is so prevalent here.

Also at the weekend another chat with someone in Lopburi pointed me in the direction of Line, an app that allows text chat and phone conversation over the internet. After I had set it up, I woke Sunday morning to find a message from a former student, wishing me well. My name had popped up on his list I guess.

Half and Half

It sounded to me similar to a number of horror tales I have heard about parts of Thailand, like Phuket where the cables stopped 500 metres from one man's street and the CAT were just not going to go the extra distance at any cost (or donation). We had also heard about this lack of infrastructure affecting some when Lion arrived as some people were unable to download it and Apple made arrangements there (not here -- links in the shops are too slow) for customers to take their Macs into the shops and update there.

With this gap in mind it was sad to hear of a couple in the US who put their car in a ditch not far from home and died after making several calls all of which dropped the signal (Chris Matyszczyk)

Other Matters

There was a bit of anger over the weekend when it was revealed that a security patch was not available for Adobe CS5 and the only way to benefit from the enhanced security was to make the $199 jump to CS6. I saw this first on TidBits from Adam C. Engst (who has since updated the article): "be careful of TIFFs from unknown sources".

There were a lot of angry and disgusted comments on this Adobe policy move especially as Microsoft and Apple both release such security patches for free. I stay neutral: I have nothing from Adobe for the desktop, apart from Flash and I manacle that with Click to Flash. By the next morning, Adobe had relented and Jackie Dove reported on MacWorld that the patches were to be available for free. There was no comment on any loss of face.

Security is a concern to many in companies and government organisations: not just outgoing but incoming too. Nate Ralph on The Verge reports on a new wallpaper developed in France that is designed to block wifi but does not interfere with radio or cellphone signals. It is expected to be cheaper than an earlier British invention and being French has a certain style to it.

There used to be a British scientist at Reading University who put chips under his skin and this would allow him to open doors and set off devices as he walked down the corridor. While the Register always dismissed him as eccentric and a publicity seeker, there may have been some value to the idea of such human machine remote interaction. However, I have my doubts about a report from Andrew Hoyle concerning a tattoo artist (I always have my doubts about this reckless art form) who put magnets under his skin to hold his iPod nano.

A press release over the weekend from IBM outlines some of the way they are using technology in Nairobi to try and get to grips with traffic jams there. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but like teaching, all the planning and technology in the world never gets past the guys on the ground. There is such a system in Bangkok, although you would never know it. Almost as soon as it was introduced the local police turned it off, one intersection at a time as they could not bear to look at traffic that was not under their control. The short bursts that the planners had intended confused the poor police so much that they went back to their 2 or 3 minute "open the gates" techniques (which just pushes the lump of cars on to the next intersection) and the expensive experiment failed.

There was a bit of eyebrow raising when it was announced that the Brazilian-born co-founder of Facebook had denounced US citizenship. He was the one who was almost leveraged out when his 34% share dropped to almost nothing with some maneuvering within the company. He sued and got 5% which may be worth a lot with the expected IPO. He has been in Singapore for a while now (a party-animal we are told) and so it made sense to him to take up residence there, Quentin Hardy writes on NYTimes.

A snotty article by Farhad Manjoo on Pando Daily thinks Eduardo Saverin is utterly wrong about this as he owes America everything, we read, having been brought to Miami by his parents when 13. Manjoo picks a very tenuous argument (relative safety in Miami?) to prove that as he had benefited from the US system, for example the "elite, government-sponsored American . . . Harvard", the US-created Internet; and he is utterly wrong at the implication that CERN where Tim Berners-Lee created HTML was founded by US money. It was money from governments, but it was not US-funded. That needed clarification as well as suggesting that the US legal system was the only reason he got to keep his money: if it had been fair, he would have got all 34%.

And in any case, whose business is it -- certainly not an immigrant, trying to prove he is every bit the good American -- if he does leave the US? Individuals are free to make their own decision about residence and citizenship and there is no compulsion. There are probably as many negatives for someone not US-born as positives. And as one of the founders of Facebook, he certainly gave much to the US and the world as a whole, so isn't he really a citizen of the world?

As an opinion piece that lacked some really basic fact-checking.

And as a side-note, if Facebook goes public, as is probable, Chris Matyszczyk poses a question concerning charges that the company may levy on users. They charge for ads now, of course, but is there more to come?

Local Items

The Thai government tablet project has had a lot of coverage since the idea first appeared on election campaign posters. I did not think it would ever get off the ground (I still don't really) but there were orders placed last week for 400,000 devices from China. Jon Russell has a fairly extensive overview of the progress and includes some other successful rollouts in other places.

This is going to fail because those in the front line have neither the experience nor the will.

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.