By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

There was a problem when the MacBook Pro with Retina Display was released as iFixit claimed it was the least fixable Mac ever and so EPEAT withdrew certification and Apple withdrew from EPEAT which was likely to have a knock-on effect with government purchasing. Magically, EPEAT gave the Mac gold status and iFixit objected. Both parties have expressed opinions online, and Electronista explains this.

While we are on the MacBook Pro, there have been rumours about a new MacBook Pro 13" with Retina display and its possible announcement this coming week. Electronista reports that this new configuration may start at approximately $1,699 for the basic configuration. There is also information on the possible configurations.

In another report from Electronista (it is coincidence that these all fall together), we read that the new computers (Mac mini, iMAc) to be offered in the future will have double the RAM capabilities, so making expansion easier. I must admit, the 4 GB RAM on my current MacBook Pro is beginning to creak.

I remember the amazement that was expressed when Steve Jobs and Stan Sigman of Cingular explained how the original iPhone was to be tied to AT&T. This type of arrangement, where a user has to contract to a carrier is fairly widespread these days and more than one person I know was able to have the iPhone at an affordable monthly rate: far lower than would have been possible had they paid cash, which some markets demanded. So users in France were some of the first to experience this, and users in Thailand too when the first iPhone made its belated official arrival here. Users in the US, however were stuck with AT&T although these days things are better with other carriers handling the iPhone.

But here, if you buy one, True is the official agent for Thailand, so wherever it was bought, it has to be channelled through True for repairs. Is that the same that happened in the US? I am not wholly sure, but some users are suing Apple, because consumers were locked into the AT&T Network without first obtaining the consumers' contractual consent to have their iPhones locked. I thought that was so widely known as to not need consent as everybody was aware: by buying, you imply consent. Patently Apple has details of the case which the guys suing say was a conspiracy and so (surprise) want "declaratory and injunctive relief, treble and exemplary damages" = lots of money.

We were told, and others have confirmed (such as in the comments at the end of the article), that at the end of the two year contract, the phone could be unlocked and any carrier's SIM could be used. All you have to do is ask.

I asked at the weekend if the new nano-SIM cards were here and a nice lady at DTAC showed me one and was ready to put it into my iPhone 5. Except I do not have an iPhone 5 yet (we are working on that). All ready and apparently, according to a user who got his iPhone 5 in Hong Kong, have been since day 1. This is slightly different from the last time when Apple moved to the Micro-SIM as those cards would fit into the older phones and just needed a bit of cutting when the day (and the iPhone) came. The company was keen to get them out to users early. Now there is less of that as they would not work in the current iPhone anyway; but at least they are here already.

I am becoming more and more of a fan of OS X Daily and some of the excellent hints they put out, although get frustrated when they beat me to an idea (as happened recently with some of those Unix articles for beginners I put out). Paul Horowitz points out a way to use a Services shortcut to create a new email with attachments. Services is way under-used by most people as apart from a video I saw that interviewed someone at Apple responsible for this/these there is not much information. I did write something a couple of years back -- and there are also my System Preferences files -- so maybe it is time to revise it.

Over the weekend, as well as an article on Tim Cook and Steve Jobs' legacy, I reviewed a neat little photo app for the iPhone, called Typic: we can use this to put words on top of an image. Simple, neat, fast; and it is free.

Half and Half

Does that mean they finally grasp what the idea of FRAND really means? Or is this a cynical attempt to placate the FTC who are beginning to sniff round Mountain View and want to examine the way Google conducts some of its business

Other Matters

There is an outline about the Surface by John Martellaro on The MacObserver who is critical of the pricing and the way that some versions do not have the keyboard included, which was touted as integral to the way the Surface was to work in the first announcement.

In a cruel headline, Daniel Eran Dilger announces that "Microsoft's Surface is Apple's Ping" and relates the less than wonderful service that was dropped recently (one of Steve Jobs' failures that Cook killed) with all the press saying how wonderful it is, as they did with the Kindle Fire which is just smouldering at best.

Dilger closes with a warning about the press fawning:

They seem to have forgotten how well that same strategy worked out for the Zune copying the iPod two years too late, the Zune HD copying the iPod touch two years too late, Windows Phone copying the iPhone three years too late, and now the Metro Surface copying iPad three years too late.

RIM and Nokia need to make room at the bottom of the barrel for Microsoft, because the Surface isn't going to float.

One of the reports I included on Cassandra last week was the comment by a Microsoft engineer who had claimed that the display of the Surface was better than that of the iPad with its Retina display. Mikey Campbell on AppleInsider carries a report of a display expert who said the Surface was better than the iPad 2 but not the most recent iPad. Is that another sign of how out of date Redmond truly is?

We may add to this with an AP item by Peter Svensson on Yahoo! News who tells us how Windows 8 is baffling consumers: "I am very worried that Microsoft may be about to shoot itself in the foot spectacularly" says one expert who is cited.

I must confess that any version of Windows has always baffled me and after about 5 minutes my reaction has usually been, "What is the point?" The comments here relate to look and feel which Redmond has changed so (gasp!) the users will have to learn new ways to do things. I guess they might just as well switch to OS X while they are at it, one of the many thoughts echoed by my source for the item: MacDaily News.

Also from MDN is a lead to a devastating article on "a world-record fall in market share by any market leader in any industry, ever by Tomi T Ahonen on Communities Dominate Brands which just mauls Elop and what he has done to once-famous Nokia. As a note, Ahonen was one of the analysts who seems to have recognised early the potential of the iPhone, calling its release (in a 2007 article), "a watershed moment in time", warning the handset makers then what they would have to face and react to (or not): how many companies have gone down the drain thus far?

I do suggest the MacDaily News link too as there is one of their extended commentaries and a note on the end: "Elop, with a capital F."

One company that has done better than others is SanDisk: they guys who make those little SD cards for my camera as well as other useful storage devices. Chris Mellor on The Register reports that although earlier figures had sagged somewhat, Q3 2012 was down with $1.27 billion in revenue but Q4 is predicted to be $1.45 billion - $1.55 billion according to the CEO with more income generating products coming in a year or so.

Local Items

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.