By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

Someone I know posted this on Facebook with the comment, Now who has the last laugh? I added my own comment to that: " It has never been a question of winning (or losing) just making products the way Apple thinks they should be made."

With all the rumours floating about concerning the iPhone 5, a supposed mini iPad plus possible updates to other parts of the range, the Apple TV still bubbles below the surface, but despite firm stories only a few weeks ago, the idea now is that it could well be just a beefed up box although it may involve new services from content providers. Like me, Kate MacKenzie on PixoBebo is not totally convinced about a super-screen Apple television and is sure that a major upgrade to the box is more likely.

More logical is a 13" version of the Retina display MacBook Pro and so AppleBitch has ago at making some predictions about what we might expect when (or if) this arrives. I disagree with the 256 GB SSD prediction. Based on the MacBook Air, I would expect 128 GB to be the maximum size.

A number of sites, including Julie Kuehl on the MacObserver, carried a report that Apple released concerning the number of customers at its brick and mortar (or steel and glass) retail stores, which is claimed to have been 300 million in the last financial year. With 375 stores, that is 800,000 each or about 80,000 each store every month.

A lot of press anguish followed a report by the NYTimes not so long ago on the conditions of Foxconn employees, because they were making Apple products (and Microsoft, LG, HP, Dell, Sony and others -- but they didn't mention that). A lot of pressure was brought to bear, and Apple had to make public (and PR) efforts to ensure that some of the allegations were attended to. We are told by Mikey Campbell on AppleInsider that the Fair Labor Association has issued a report that outlines 284 infractions that have been attended to by Foxconn.

Wayne Goodrich who was executive producer of Apple's public presentations is suing the company as he was let go despite being promised by Steve Jobs that he would have a job for life, Karen Gullo reports on Bloomberg BusinessWeek.

I am a bit of a fan of the iPhone camera as a real photographic device, remembering the words of Chase Jarvis: "The Best Camera Is The One That's With You". I have seen the artwork of Hockney made on the iPhone and also a couple of useful movie shorts made with the device. Mike Schramm on TUAW reports on a Los Angeles show he went to that showed off photographic art made on the iPhone. Interesting.

I was talking to a colleague today whose students are putting together a Braille notetaker that he wants to link to the Phone. He asked me about connectivity between the devices and I told him about the 3rd party keyboard I have that links to both iPad and iPhone. I picked it up as part of an attempt to lighten my load and use the iPad rather than carrying the notebook computer every day. As a variation on this theme, Austin Yang writes about iTypewriter, which is a keyboard that looks and feels like an old fashioned pre-computer typist's tool. There is a video. Rather than link via Bluetooth this actually taps the screen in the right places. Weird.

There are lots of changes with the arrival of Mountain Lion, the latest version of OS X and a number of losses too. Michael Grothaus reports that subscription calendars that used to be a feature of iCal, seem to be missing or have gone.

We were aware last week that a beta of the next update to Mountain Lion was (as expected) doing the rounds of developers and one of the pluses of this is a marked improvement in battery life with one developer reporting up to four hours more, Katie Marsal reports on AppleInsider. It would be interesting to see how that was arrived at (I would love another 4 hours)

I also added to the System Preferences articles this week with:

• System Preferences in OS X 10.8, Mountain Lion: Mail, Contacts & Calendars
• System Preferences in OS X 10.8, Mountain Lion: Language & Text

I will be getting to Time Machine preferences in a week or so if I keep up my batting average of about 5 or 6 a week, but in the meantime Topher Kessler writes about a useful change to the way this backup system works. In the past it was limited to one disk, one machine, which meant a second disk had to use different software (like LaCie's Silverkeeper). This has changed and Topher explains how to set this up. As I keep the backup at work, I will need to to have that and the spare handy to set this up. It is almost worth buying a second spare as the current disk is full and Time Machines is now deleting some of the older files (with my permission).

I had to find out the model of the MacBook Pro I use when I linked to the Apple feedback pages at the weekend and then a day or so later I read on OS X Daily information about how to get this that other users may find useful

Another hint from OS X Daily concerns ringtones which can be uniquely assigned, so that you can ignore your ex when he or she phones for example; or separate business from private calls.

Half and Half

With a search, I found the Mercury News live blog on the trial closing arguments. "No copying" says Samsung's Charles V. I think the jury will decide on that. They will be back tomorrow morning to start deliberating. Now the nail-biting starts: will they be out for days or will this be a quick one?

First the Samsung phone was the best thing since sliced bread with sales said to be outstripping the iPhone by several factors; but now that this could affect the money Samsung has to pay Apple, the lawyers have started to reduce those numbers and suggest that it didn't really harm Apple at all they were so tiny. Dieter Bohn on The Verge looks at this new tack and the way it is being used in another Apple v Samsung trial.

Apple and Samsung did actually manage to agree about something in the trial that is ongoing in front of a jury and Judge Lucy Koh. Now the jury is to be told that both parties were guilty of destroying evidence, Jim Tanous reports on The MacObserver.

Of course the talks between Apple and Samsung CEOs got nowhere, Steven Sande reports on TUAW. They met on the phone rather than in person and nothing really came of that, so now it is up to the jury to sift through all the evidence and to try and decide.

I mentioned on Monday some vague, early information about a new lawsuit Motorola had filed against Apple. Now Frederic Lardinois has some of the details: and the details of the patents. Motorola argues that Apple infringed upon seven Motorola patents which are concerned with "wireless communication technologies to manage various messages and content".

This should normally be further down the page, but the report that an expected HP loss that may well be in the region of $9 billion is interesting as the cause is said to be the iPad according to Slash Lane on AppleInsider. Not shooting the messenger here, but might not the fault lie with the random management that operates at HP these days ever since they lost sight of what Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard created.

Other Matters

With all the focus on the Apple v Samsung case we might forget that Samsung is a major manufacturer of a number of products including screens, and chips. It not only makes the products in Korea but also has a factory in Texas where it has made some massive investments all for the iPhone and the iPad (odd isn't it?). Sam Oliver on AppleInsider reports that Samsung is to invest some $4 billion more to update its Austin plant and "the investment is intended to boost production of ARM-based chips used in smartphones and tablets".

Barnes & Noble are still in the game and although Matt Burns reports that their revenues were flat for the year at $192M versus $191M for Q1 last year, there are signs that things are running along OK, especially with digital content. They are also confident that the strategic partnership they are working on with Redmond will be operational later in the year.

With much press being used for expressions of anguish on the Facebook slump in share prices, much focussed on the jumping ship of Peter Thiel -- founder of PayPal -- who had been one of those locked in with the IPO and is now free to sell shares. And sell he did. Among others, Kelly Fiveash on The Register writes about his dumping of shares worth some $400 million. As he had already made some $640 million from earlier sales, his initial $500,00 investment made him just over $1 billion.

Local Items

There are lots of reports this week about a monk in Thailand telling of how Steve Jobs has been reincarnated and how he is living now in a parallel universe. I am going to treat this with the contempt that it deserves (both in terms of demeaning Buddhism and Steve Jobs). You want it, find it yourself.

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.