By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

One report with images of young people allegedly taking a break outside a Samsung plant is in a report by Jack Purcher on Patently Apple who has one interesting headline: "Child Labor is Common Practice with Samsung Factories". Where is the banner-waving NYTimes when you need it? Silent.

So try this: in Google, use the keywords, "Samsung+factories+china+workers". For me the first one that appeared (almost inexplicably) was a story on a strike by Foxconn workers by Dan Farber who makes no mention of Samsung at all. Ah . . . the fault is Google's (sort of) as a reader comment on the lack of news concerning Samsung brought this up in my search.

Continuing the search I see sites like the Guardian, BBC and BusinessWeek but you have to get down three or four pages until an item by Charles Duhigg on NYTimes is listed (10 September) which begins with an old story about Chinese vocational students before a one-sentence paragraph that mentions the Samsung abuses in passing and seems to be used as a way to support Duhigg's continued attacks against Apple which were founded in part on the lies of Mike Daisey.

In the month that has followed there is nothing that I can find on Google that links to anything in the NYTimes about the Samsung child labour story. If Duhigg is really so concerned about labour abuses, why isn't he writing about the Samsung situation: six factories controlled by the company?

Because it is not Apple.

I continued the search adding New York Times, NYTimes and finally, "Samsung+factories+china+workers+NY Times" but each time, only the one story -- the one sentence -- appeared in that search. It was Duhigg, along with David Barboza that wrote the supposed exposé on factory conditions at Foxconn plants in China, highlighting Apple, but conveniently playing down the other manufacturers (Microsoft, HP, Lenovo, Dell, Samsung and others).

Because they were not Apple.

And to all those who have gleefully pointed out to me alleged abuses at Foxconn factories that produce Apple products (and Microsoft, HP, Lenovo, Dell, Samsung and others), in salute I raise one finger this Monday morning: that Samsung operating profit of 91%, was built on child labour.

The NYTimes -- supposedly a trustworthy organ -- is complicit in the uneven coverage. I am not alone in this view about such unevenness in the media, and Glenn Fleischmann on TidBits also takes the NYTimes to task, because of the poor balance (and lack of knowledge) concerning the difficulties with the Maps App that has been seen in many headlines of late. It was when he got to paragraph three that he began to notice problems and demonstrates how James Stewart clearly does not understand the subject he is writing about.

As if to make the point, Fleischmann continues, Stewart brings in a number of other imbalanced comments, some of which are flat wrong ending with,

This muddle of a column comes from a normally sober and sensible financial reporter whose work I admire. Conflating the Maps app and its data along with a lack of knowledge (or, say, even asking the New York Times's technology reporters) of the history of competing apps and the currently availability of the same spreads misinformation. There's plenty to critique about Apple's premature release of the Maps app. This column has nothing worthwhile to contribute.

Maybe he was muddled because the name Apple tends to blur the way people think. Also mentioning some of the problems that weren't, Kate MacKenzie on PixoBebo dismisses many of the problems and points out that the one thing Apple does do (which some of the Wall Street analysts wringing their hands at missed prediction might think about), is make money.

Part of the criticism in recent months has centred on the point (obvious really) that Tim Cook is not Steve Jobs. Jobs chose Cook for the strengths that he had, not for the ability to be a clone. It has been obvious all along that Cook was nothing like Jobs at all. Samantha Murphy on Mashable takes up the points that have been thrashed out in the last year, with some going as far as hinting at Cook's dismissal as being necessary to "save" Apple. Let's see how much saving is needed when the quarterly figures are released in a couple of weeks: there are comments on this from Ashraf Eassa and on the must-buy nature of the stock from Todd Johnson (both of Seeking Alpha).

Murphy quotes Robert X Cringely (who once worked at Apple) and Jim Dalrymple, both of whom are likely to call a spade a spade, but as for what might have been, "we'll never know."

Also writing on this theme is Matt Honan on Wired who analyses how Jobs affected us all and why so many so-called journalists "trot out his corpse" at every opportunity to prove one thing or another. My original source for this was Jim Dalrymple on The Loop.

Also making comments about the transition from Jobs to Cook is Ewan Spence on Forbes who makes a number of interesting points about how Tim Cook's presentation of the (still-rumoured) iPad mini will define Apple post-Jobs. For some of us, there already is definition. Nonetheless, there are some useful points, especially about how Cook will explain away the move to a 7" screen when Jobs turned down the idea (at least in public). My original link for this was from MacDaily News.

A couple of notes on that alleged strike at Foxconn. My first source was from Mikey Campbell on Friday who reports that workers were reportedly striking over iPhone 5 quality control rules. There was a claim that the handset design was flawed, thus making it impossible to meet the standards without proper training (my italics) and this may have been why there were early reports of iPhones with flaws on the aluminium sides. There was also a mention here of another fight, which seems to be inevitable when so many people are working together and improperly resolved disputes escalate. As has been seen with industrial disputes in other countries, it only takes a problem and a couple of agitators on both sides for things to get out of hand.

A later report from Mikey Campbell (Saturday) has damage control from Foxconn in full play. A statement says that there was "no workplace stoppage in that facility or any other" and that production was not hit. There are other reports that suggest Foxconn may not be giving us the full story.

Last weekend the Apple site was fronted by a video of several of Steve Jobs' magic moments over a series of still photographs of him. I am pleased to say I was actually there to hear him say three of them, like the Wayne Gretzky quote and "4,000 lattes to go". In the background was some cello music and there was a story to that too as Federico Viticci reports on MacStories. The cello player was Yo-Yo Ma who was a personal friend of Jobs. Along with the video (still on the Apple site on Sunday), there was a letter from Tim Cook and I have a screen shot of that here:

As a sort of honor to Jobs, Victor Agreda Jr., on TUAW links to a site called Inventika Solutions, that has a working browser version of an iPod. It sort of works, but the click wheel is not perfect: good try nonetheless.

When Apple makes a misjudgement, such as with LTE on the iPad in Australia a few months back, it will adjust the enthusiastic language on its materials, and on the website. Rene Ritchie on iMore reports that this has taken place with the description of the iOS 6 Maps app. However, do note that Google Maps is not perfect and Apple Maps will evolve. Apple never stands still.

There were a couple of useful items on OS X Daily this weekend with a tip from Paul Horowitz on how to add speech bubbles to an image using Apple's Preview. Another was posted earlier on Terminal tricks. One of the hints that Paul Horowitz posted here concerned the use of emacs -- a Unix text editor -- and the games that are installed in this. That is accessed using the F10 key which is allocated for other tasks with notebooks. In that case, press ESC and then ` (the key to the left of 1). That brings up the menu: then t, then g.

As I was in the middle of writing about use of text editors (emacs, Pico, Vi and Vim) I put a note about this hint online and also added some information to the text editor article.

Reports over the weekend, including from Mikey Campbell on AppleInsider, suggest that Apple has extended the free storage to those Mobile Me users who moved to iCloud until September 2013. As I just upgraded when I was told I was being downgraded (and paid) I wonder what happens to my account. And when.

Let's start another rumour. . . . Over the weekend a number of sites, including AppleInsider report that a new version of the A6 processor has appeared in an iPad according to a developer's logs (the iPads send data back to the developers). The iPad3,6 designation suggests a new variant and there is some speculation what this might mean, although this is probably not the iPad mini (that is iPad2,5 and iPad2,6).

Other rumours come from the direction of the Patents Office and by examining filings, we may imagine new directions or new solutions that our devices may carry. Jack Purcher of Patently Apple scours the information and often comes up with some gems, like "a new laminate notebook with a hidden display in its lid." This is interesting and has some new ideas like 3-dimensional gestures. I also have at the back of my mind the information that Apple has been hiring recently in the area of laminates and carbon fiber technology. I was right: back in April, Thomas Ricker on Engadget (among others), reported that Kevin M. Kenney had been picked up

Another note on new Apple products came from Katie Marsal on AppleInsider who reports that the new iPod touch and iPod nano may be in limited supply when they come on sale this month. Initially online, shipping was said to be 3 weeks, but that may have slipped now.

A couple of my favourite photography apps that I have installed on the iPhone were updated this weekend: 6 x 7 and 6 x 6. Both now have the feature that images taken can be saved in TIFF format. The first time I had seen that in an iOS app.

And a late note on photography on the iPhone 5. It was reported by several users on the release of the device that there was a purple haze in some light conditions. One writer proved that it was only the iPhone 5, by showing an iPhone 4S shot of the same scene with no purple haze, while others (e.g. Matthew Panzarino on TNW) reported that all lenses, especially on mobile devices were subject to this. Apple now has a KB Document according to AppleInsider and there are some interesting points in the information, although when I tried it, Apple reported maintenance so it was inaccessible. Nonetheless, there is useful information in the AppleInsider report. As a note, I see that, while I prefer a lens with a focal length of 24mm, the lens on the iPhone 4S is 4mm.

Also on photography Paul Horowitz on OS X Daily has a number of useful hints for taking macro images, only one of which involves the olloclip lens.

Half and Half

Even if proved wrong Samsung are going to be crying out for justice and democracy for years to come, even as the orders dry up and the share price sinks. I wonder if the alleged child labourers will also get some justice from Samsung.

Local Items

An independent telecom specialist will file a legal challenge in the Administrative Court on Wednesday against the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, saying its plan to auction 3G licences on Oct 16 does not benefit Thais

. . . and slowing it down again will benefit Thais?

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.