By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

More rumours and photos of the supposed iPhone 5 appeared in an item by Zach Epstein in BGR this week who also mentions that it is expected that those all-important invitations to a special event on 12 September will be going out real soon. Then we will finally know what it is and what it is to be called.

And a late rumour appearing on AppleBitch suggests that the iPhone 5 will carry the Alpha 6 processor.

There has been a fair amount of criticism of Tim Cook concerning the running of Apple, with his main problem being that he is not Steve Jobs. Having listened to him once or twice, I do not have the feeling that he is going to let the company die; and right now Apple is falling into the rut that sometimes occurs between product releases. Whatever Apple says it is going to do, if the results do not exceed what analysts think they should do, then Apple is seen as failing, when nothing could be further from the truth.

A couple of weeks ago I was disturbed to see strong criticism of Cook from of all sources, MacDaily News, although there may have been a little blood pressure there with criticism of a poor update of the iPhone 4S, when previously MDN had lavished praise on it. Underneath it all however is a feeling that John Browett is not the man for retail (I mean, does anyone know what Dixons is?) and the campaign against him is being stepped up.

In a fairly rare self-developed article MacDaily News asks an open question about what Cook has done and gives some reasonable answers, so lets Cook off the hook for most, but not all, with the hiring of Browett being seen as an unusual error. While I do not like this campaign approach against the man (hypocritically I would go for one against Ballmer) there are certain points about him (apart from his Dixons' precedents) that are not all that savoury.

On the question of Browett, which also means Apple retail, there are some questions. We wrote last month about the way staffing hours were being cut back and some staff were being let go (apparently later reversed) which caused some ripples as these stores are busy. Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Fortune examines the changes that are being wrought and the way the stores are shifting from a customer-oriented approach to profit-oriented.

Perhaps Johnson was eased out by pressure from Cook and Peter Oppenheimer (CFO) and Browett is now seen as having the total support of Cook and it is him, not Browett who is the direction-changer. With much disquiet in the Apple support camp, it would be a poor manager who did not re-examine the current approach. This is what John Gruber thinks too. Cook is not a fool.

Back to MacDaily News which reports on an article in Wired concerning the rejection of an app that tracks US drone strikes. It has been rejected three times, although there may be a clear public interest facet here. Maybe Apple is being pressured by the Department of Defense in PR terms, as the content concerning drone strikes is available elsewhere. However, MDN uses the item to continue its attacks on Tim Cook and writes (I agree) censorship is not the answer.

The online store is separate from the concrete and glass stores, and there was a bit of a makeover online this week when a new feature was added that "improved chat with the company's Specialist salespeople, screen sharing-based guided tours of product information, and online scheduling of support sessions to help customers set up new devices" Jim Tanous writes on The MacObserver.

Apple and some book publishers have an ongoing dispute with the US DoJ over pricing. The DoJ would prefer to see an Amazon monopoly which could cause many publishers to go out of business. Don Reisinger reports that three publishers have settled to the tune of $69 million, but that Apple, MacMilland and Penguin are not coming to the table.

Apple is still selling lots of iPads and the areas in which they are used broadens all the time. We read in an item on AppleInsider that Delta Airlines has bought 4,500 and has begun to use them in airport restaurants.

A nice hint this time from OS X Daily on iOS. It is apparently possible to stream an iPhone or iPad screen to a others using either a Google app or iMessage.

Earlier we mentioned a malware risk from a Java 1.7 exploit, but Michael Rose on TUAW suggests that there is not much at all for Mac users to worry about despite the slow approach of Oracle to updating the necessary modules.

However, Oracle has been stung into action and a report on The MacObserver by Bryan Chaffin tells us that a security patch has been released. This is not an Apple update, so if needed (I don't) there is a link in the article to the Oracle site.

One of the applications I have been using for several years is GIMP. This was originally created as Adobe was not interested in developing a version of Photoshop for Linux; and then it was ported to the Mac, but had to be used in the X11 Window that some installed. Now we are told by Mike Schramm on TUAW that it has been developed as a native OS X application. I downloaded it within minutes of reading that, but note that it is not one of the Apple-recognised developers, so does not open unless you click on the app with the Control key and select Open. That fixes it. I discussed this in an article this week I wrote about Security & Privacy preferences

While on Macs, Frederic Lardinois writes on Tech Crunch that the uptake of Mountain Lion is now around 10% which is quite good and there is more to come. One area might be putting Mountain Lion on the display Macs in the Apple retail outlets in Thailand where all machines are still running 10.7.4 (except one that has 10.7.3) while I now have 10.8.1 on my machines.

Last week VMWare released an update, but this weel Steve Sande reports, Parallels has a new version of its Desktop software, Desktop 8, which as the number suggests is Win 8 compatible.

Western Digital are getting back into the swing of things after last year's flooding disaster that affected them greatly. Steven Sande reports on two new external hard disks announced by the company for Mac use. The My Book VelociRaptor Duo starts at $899.99 and WD claims it is the fastest disk in this line ever. The My Passport starts at $99.99 although a check on the WD site shows this at $89.99 for the 500 GB disk with the 2TB at $209.99 - that would be useful although the price may be more here, even though they are made just up the road.

With its problems with Samsung still ongoing (see below) it is a raw question with many as to why Apple still uses the South Korean company as a major supplier. Maybe they are looking elsewhere now but not everyone is willing to fall into Apple's arms. A report on AppleInsider tells us that a Taiwanese chip maker -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co -- turned down something like $1 billion because it wants to retain the flexibility it now has and a dedicated facility is not in its current plans. I wonder who will regret that most.

Another take on the story comes from Steve Sande on TUAW.

In another move it is reported by Katie Marsal on AppleInsider that Foxconn and Sharp are investigating the idea of a $1 billion investment in a Japanese LCD plant. They need to build more displays for Apple and Samsung is not the flavour of the month just now. As Foxconn holds a good stake in Sharp and they have the expertise to build displays this looks like a sensible way to go.

Half and Half

One of my students sent me a link on Facebook to an item on TechSpy that allegedly had a delivery of $1 billion to Apple from Samsung in 30 trucks all filled with 5 cent coins. I didn't want to spoil the student's joke, but the picture is not Cupertino.

And of course, it is all a lot more serious than that. We commented on Monday about the Samsung party line about rectangles and rounded corners that some cloners of articles leaped upon as another example of Apple perfidy. Clearly those that took this line (apart from the lawyers -- they are paid to use smoke and mirrors) had not been following the case.

Fortunately some, like Florian Mueller on Foss Patents and Steve Wildstrom on Tech Pinions did. Wildstrom takes a close look at the rounded corners (and pinch to zoom) comments and did some digging around, which is something often lacking in the articles put out by a lot of so-called journalists these days: no originality and one basic source that is rehashed.

What was really in question was something -- or some things -- completely different and in some cases so obviously copied by the South Korean company that the jury of 9 good men and true (not 12 as I originally thought) had no hesitation once they had examined the evidence -- there's a novel concept for you -- in deciding for Apple.

Quite a lot of people were not happy with the Apple win over Samsung. We mentioned Andy Ihnatko on Wednesday who I think got it wrong for once, and later saw an item by Michael Wolf on the Guardian who makes a lot of sense most times he puts pen to paper. But not this time. There seems to be a lot of anecdote used to prove a general stance by Apple and much speculation. Some good points, but not an overall success.

There is however a possible problem. I looked at a video interview earlier in the week with the jury foreman and was surprised at some of his comments, especially as he would have been vetted thoroughly by both sets of lawyers before being allowed to serve on the jury. It may be that he had more knowledge that was originally thought as a report on Yahoo! News now tells us that he may be the holder of a patent for a device that can be used in smart phones and tablets. Not what was expected at all. My link for the story was from MacDaily News.

With the Samsung case grabbing headlines, it is easy to forge that Apple is in dispute with others, for example HTC. Although they seem to be a little weak in comparison, Jeff Gamet on The MacObserver reports that they are not in a mood to back down and if needs be, they will face Apple in the courts.

Other Matters

However, there is some real Samsung news this week as the company had its own party and there seems to be a bit of a switch away from Android, towards Windows. Whoever would have expected that? First up is a 4.8-inch Windows Phone 8 device Tom Warren reports on The Verge: "It will include a 1.5GHz dual-core processor, 4.8-inch HD Super AMOLED Display, an 8-megapixel rear camera, and 1.9-megapixel forward facing camera." That sounds almost like some innovation. Dieter Bohn on The Verge also had some information on this. While on another tack, Matt Burns on Tech Crunch reports of a new Galaxy Note II although Samsung sticks with Android for this. But it is back to Windows 8 for a couple of Slate computers, which David Pierce describes as part tablet, part computer. They look remarkably like the MacBook Air in the photo. Why am I not surprised? These will "cost between $799 and $849 depending on configuration."

Huawei too is looking for the limelight this week with a bunch of 4 phones, 2 tablets and more Stephen Shankland reports.

Toshiba whose PC laptops have always been so good in the past, albeit a touch unexciting, are stepping up to the plate with their own Windows 8 devices, Lauren Goode reports on All Things Digital. The products include laptops, tablets and the "Satellite U925t Ultrabook convertible, with its slide-out display that lies flat against the keyboard to transform into a tablet."

A headline that reflects recent events in a San José courtroom and proves the lie to a lot of commentators suggestion that innovation would be stifled by the jury's decision, comes in an item by Jim Tanous on The Mac Observer, who discusses the speed with which Samsung has begin to change its products to avoid any sales bans. He concludes (complementing what I wrote last week), "if Samsung and other companies can innovate around Apple's patents, the end result may be good for both consumers and the industry."

Local Items

By the time I was ready to go to work, the site was back up and I uploaded the Wednesday Cassandra column, albeit a couple of hours later than usual. But DTAC did not come back all day Wednesday and a lot of my colleageues and students were moaning. Me too. I was told there was an offer to compensate users, but we have to apply for it. That is arrogant: DTAC knows who its subscribers are so should automatically compensate them.

On Thursday morning, there was still no data service, but I restarted the iPhone and it appeared finally.

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.