By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

This was followed on Saturday by some more with the denial of a dozen of the Samsung claims against Apple. This is bad for Google too as this has almost been a proxy battle. To finish the job, Apple may have to withdraw some claims, but overall the comment by the Judge in her ruling --

Although Samsung has a right to compete, it does not have a right to compete unfairly, by flooding the market with infringing products

-- does seem to suggest the way the wind is blowing.

Not unsurprisingly, Samsung has filed an appeal about the ban, Florian Mueller reports on Foss Patents, and has moved to stay the injunction.

Almost as a sidenote -- significant as it is -- we read on Foss Patents this Sunday that so far Android devices have been found to infringe 9 Apple patents, adding "the time has passed for any reasonable, unbiased person to deny that Android has a serious patent infringement problem that continues to exacerbate". Florian Mueller then lists 11 patents (2 are Microsoft's) but adds that there are some more minor ones that he has not mentioned. He concludes that the tide is not going Google's way.

There is sure to be criticism in some quarters (cue NYTimes) but the Governor of California, Jerry Brown has decided to fast-track Apple's "Mother Ship" HQ building: a sort of round Pentagon with gardens. Patrick May on the Silicon Valley site, writes that " the project has been approved for a streamlined treatment as it moves through the environmental review process." My original link for this was MacDaily News.

On Friday I wrote that Bob Mansfield was leaving Apple and added to that in the eXtensions podcast with a comment by Iain Thomson on the Register notes that he is walking away from millions in share options: some would have been his had he stayed until 2013 with more in 2016. He did sell a lot off earlier in the year, but this is still a cool $40 million he is leaving. I guess some things are more important than money.

Jeff Gamet on the MacObserver reports that Betsy Rafael, Apple vice president and Corporate Controller, will be retiring from the company on October 19, 2012. She joined Apple at the beginning of 2008 and has been responsible for managing the company's finances.

A former Apple exec, Betrand Serlet who was also with Steve Jobs at NeXt is one of the forces behind a startup company who are working on "core technology for a Cloud OS" Electronista reports.

One of the applications I use daily is iCal to keep track of schedules and meetings. It is not perfect but it has the major advantage for me of synchronising via iCloud with the iPad and the iPhone: changes on one, appear on the others. Apple has just updated its iCal 101 Knowledge Base information pages on this and it shows how to set up various events in iCal, subscribe to other people's calendars, and set up your iCloud account in iCal.

Although Mobile Me closed this weekend (I shifted to iCloud when Lion arrived) there may still be time to retrieve any data left on the site, Chris Oldroyd writes on iMore and explains how. This will not be there forever. 31 July is the final, final day.

I am not totally convinced about the software I am using to write the podcast feed. I used it on Saturday, loaded the files and nothing happened. I tried again but still no luck. I checked the code but could see nothing obviously wrong so downloaded some more software to try, but was not all that happy, so went back to the application I have been using for the last 3 weeks and wrote it all out again. This time it worked. I hate it when that happens. With podcasting beginning to figure more in Apple's plans, particularly if there is a chance that subscriptions -- money ones -- could be coming, it would be useful to get this right every time.

There was some speculation this week from AppleBitch about the possibility of a new service on iCloud for a web application. The article cites a job posting and suggests such a development could allow "users to access and stream their iTunes libraries through a web interface"

I have been absolutely delighted with some new app arrivals. Last week I looked at the free Photo Editor by Aviary and at the weekend put out a brief report on some of the reported features updated in the SloPro - 60fps Slow Motion Video app which now has up to 1,000 fps video. Then I started using it.

I recorded a couple of brief clips while sitting in a mall and was surprised at how effective this was. I had recorded an 11 second clip at 40% speed then changed this to 1,000 fps turning it into a video some 6 min 20 sec in length with an almost painful slowness to the movement of shoppers walking past. I also converted a 36 second shot of water drops falling into a wine glass to a 500 fps video some 2 min 27 long.

I transferred the edited video to the Mac via iTunes. It had been some 49 MB in the original export but in the super-slow 500fps form as the number of frames in the clip is increased, so the file size file was 139 MB. This will display full screen on the 15" MacBook Pro I have and looks good.

Although I written about this before, I will be putting out a full review in a few days after I have used it for a while as the new version deserves it.

Another useful hint this week, from OS X Daily, on changing the font size in the iTunes display panel -- where all the music is listed. It is a bit small, but there is an easy adjustment if you know where to look. It does make quite a difference, but the larger font means that less information can be displayed.

Half and Half

And then this weekend it was announced by Adobe that they would not be supporting Flash for the newest version of Android we read in an article by Jay Yarrow on Business Insider. The information was carried on countless sites in the last few days and Yarrow comments "Apple saw the death of Flash coming, and now its rivals look a little silly." Told you so. . . .

In a slightly related article, John Shinai on Market Watch writes about how formerly powerful competitors like RIM and Nokia are fading fast, especially RIM. He also outlines the ways in which Steve Jobs and his team at Apple made certain strategic decisions concerning the iPhone, particularly the way software was the key. He explained that carefully at the 2007 Keynote Speech.

I also remember sitting in the audience that day and marvelling at the way he brought the audience on as he introduced the "three new products." There was a big round of applause for the wide-screen iPod with touch controls, a roar when he introduced the new mobile phone, and polite applause at the "breakthrough internet communications device". I have run that video over and over again and it is clear to me that no one then could understand the implications; and yet it appears that this part of the iPhone (and the software) were the key factors in the success of the device.

There is some more Google news below, but the release of its Google Chrome iOS app generated a lot of interest with it leaping to number 1 in the Free section of the iTunes store Lance Whitney reports. Graham K. Rogers reports it is the same in the Thai app store. I have the other browsers that Lance mentions and hardly ever use them so as I am already pushed for space on the iPhone I will not be joining the Chrome Club for now.

Another version of Google Chrome is indeed crashing the new MacBook Air Topher Kessler writes, which Google does admit, "but suggests that while Chrome is causing the crashes, the problem also lies with how some of Apple's drivers are built." An update may be coming from Apple to deal with this.

Other Matters

I carried this in the weekend eXtensions podcast, but the great news about the wonderful Google Nexus jointly developed with Asus in only 4 months, fizzled a bit when it was revealed by Sean Hollister on The Verge that this $199 device was only a rebadged Asus ME370T that started life at CES 2011 priced at $499.

One reviewer who actually had one of these in his hands for a few days is Drew Olanoff on TNW and his comments are available now. This is the first independent review I have seen of this.

With the Nexus high on its agenda this week, Mountain View found time for a middle ranking executive to pass some time in an interview with Marguerite Reardon outlining the tablet device. Compare what a gung-ho Patrick Brady, director of Android partner engineering, says with what is above.

Also we read in an item by Foss Patents that there are rather a lot of patents involved that might not belong to Google, with Apple, Nokia and Microsoft all represented in the mix. That is guaranteed to cause problems.

Microsoft is trying to join the tablet club too as we saw last week, but the way the Surface was introduced has annoyed some of its OEM manufacturers, with the exception of Stan Shih at Acer who thinks it isn't going to happen. One of the largest, and one which has been seen holding hands with Microsoft at a number of events -- especially tablet-related ones -- is HP and an announcement this week suggests that the revenge was not long in gestating.

John Biggs on Tech Crunch writes that "HP and other OEMs are about to pull the plug on their own Windows on ARM RT (WART) devices thanks to Microsoft essentially beating them to market with potentially superior hardware." Of course, when it is financially agreeable at some time in the future, they will all be hugs and kisses again.

There are also comments by Alex Wilhelm on TNW who looks at what the decision by HP means. The immediate conclusion is of course that Microsoft has upset a lot of companies, but he thinks that this is also the sound of bets being hedged.

So with two fairly large companies making a play for the tablet market, what do others think of this new strategy? Andrew Orlowski on the Register thinks they are being "reckless" with this fodder for landfill sites. As he notes (and us Mac flavoured sources have been saying for a while), "the chase after Apple [is] a hugely expensive move that usually ends in tears." Except for those guys who make money out of recycling. Marty Wolf is not convinced that Redmond is being reckless (I am) and suggests that the move to producing its own-brand tablets is part of an attempt to reinvent itself and with the massive assets it still controls there is a large buffer. He also thinks that the Surface IS a clear statement to OEM manufacturers who have been a bit lax of late.

With all manner of problems at News International and News Corp, the boss board has decided to split the newspapers from the TV division Amy Chozick reports in the NYTimes. With the hacking scandal still center-stage and widening its scope -- currently in the UK, but expected to play out in the US too -- this would be a perfect opportunity for the Corp to walk away from the newspapers it has poisoned, except for the point that Rupert probably has more newsprint in his blood than money. Instead he is going to cast them off to their own devices and guarantee their financial support (for now).

Over the weekend on the extensions Podcast I reported on the first financial report for Facebook, which is due later this month Josh Constine reports on Tech Crunch. There was a great noise before the IPO and an even bigger one when the shares went on sale and the price fell.

So many investors expected that this would rise automatically and that they would be able to cash in within a week having all made themselves small fortunes. Instead they made small losses: a few dollars each share. They made it worse by trying to offload. The shares did pick up again a little after a few weeks, but have still not reached the IPO release price.

I wrote weeks ago that if we look in (say) 6 months or a year at the price, there will be a better picture. The financial report coming in a couple of weeks may help focus a little, but the long-term view should be that Facebook will be a reasonably sound investment depending on how the services are monetized. But, as Facebook has already discovered: when you make changes, sometimes they do not work. The wrong changes may alienate users, and if they walk, Facebook has nothing.

In Friday's Cassandra I wrote that I am still trying to persuade the students to take up my offer of the Raspberry Pi computer. One of the problems I had was the time it took from placing the order to arrival of the device: about 6 months, although to be fair, this was starting production from zero. Now I read on Tech Crunch (Matt Burns) that a US company, Allied Electronics is also to make the device for the same $35. There is still a wait of around 10 weeks or more, but things are improving.

There is an expression in the UK: "As queer as a clockwork orange" and it must have been this that Antony Burgess had in mind when he wrote the book that uses this in the title. The movie was withdrawn from release in the UK (not banned as some believe) by Stanley Kubrick. Anyone who is aware of the works of Burgess (who spent time in Malaysia as a teacher) knows that he was an accomplished musician. His works include, Sinfoni Melayu; and in books like The Pianoplayers his vast knowledge of music is evident. This week Ian Youngs on the BBC website reports that songs Burgess wrote for A Clockwork Orange stage play have finally been recorded and there is a link to an interview with some of the music played in the background. It is definitely stage music and not for the charts.

Local Items

If users do not have the channel preselected, it means scanning through scores to find something that might be watchable. And as for that remote control and its TV interfacing, the poor design, particularly with the preselection buttons and their associated colours, is a wonderful example of how to make something hard to use.

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.