By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Matters

A good example of the real information coming to the surface, albeit belatedly, is in an article by Gary Morton on Seeking Alpha who examines the negativity that followed the last quarterly results and points out that an accounting rule made some difference to what was reported. Taking this into account, Apple was after all (as some commentators were perfectly aware) in a position of strength.

In some cases of course, it was in their interests to push those share prices down, and wait for the spring back.

The iPad mini was just such a supposed failure and there it is, flying off the shelves where it is sold, with orders yet to be filled. Jason Schwarz on Seeking Alpha looks at the device and gives us 8 reasons why the device should have failed, tongue in cheek, I guess as he is well aware it has not failed by any means. In his article he endorses Tim Cook's view: it is not Apple sales of devices that are dropping but the PCs that the iPads are replacing.

All that lack of innovation twaddle that we heard in the last couple of months -- starting in the hit-whoring press and making its way down to single-course consumers -- seems to be disappearing with more patents being granted and a couple of awards being announced too.

Along the way, we read on Electronista, Tim Cook was named the most powerful person in US wireless industry, above Google's Larry Page and the CEOs of all four major US wireless carriers. Some of the reasons are down to that boring old iPhone 5 and the hopeless tablet computers that Apple sells.

Also this week, Patently Apple reports on an ABI report that shows Apple's average score for innovation and implementation in the mobile computing market was 84.7 out of a possible 100. Lenovo was second with 77.5 and Samsung third spot with 74.4.

More on innovation came in an item from Adam Levine-Weinberg on Seeking Alpha who takes some of the commentators to task -- I would too as many only look at the surface changes and ignore what is beneath and what is behind the production. But his key sentence for me is "Apple does not need to be innovating all the time to be incredibly successful".

There is some not so good news for those looking forward to the new iMac as AppleInsider reports that these new machines are likely to be delayed until the new year and this would miss the Xmas sale period.

Logitech are a company with a long history (in IT terms) of making useful accessories. One of the first digital cameras I ever saw was a black and white device from the company and to get my hands on it I had to visit the premises of Value Systems, then in offices round Chidlom. Kelly Hodgkins of TUAW reports on a new security camera system Logitech have that has support for OS X (not always a given with such systems). Joel Mathis also reported on the Logitech system for MacWorld

In another article on TUAW, Mel Martin had a brief report on an app from the SnagFilms organisation. I downloaded this myself and tried it on the iPhone, but had a bit of disappointment. As Mel Martin pointed out, to get some of the features users have to log in via a Facebook account; but I also found that many of the videos are not available in this part of the world. I also had trouble making it display in landscape mode on a VGA monitor. My own review on this should be available later on Friday.

A useful hint on restoring data from the cloud -- actually a bit more than a hint -- comes from Joe Kissell on MacWorld who writes a wide-ranging (and longish) item on what to do in the event of a disaster and the ways in which data can be retrieved. The big problem with anything like this (and this is no criticism of Joe Kissell) is that so many users run systems as if they are unbreakable (or un-stealable) and are stupid enough not to backup data. I have lost count of the number of times I have read about this in articles in emails from local users or by word of mouth from colleagues and students.

MacWorld have been busy and on Thursday evening I found three more articles offering suggestions and hints. Christopher Breen had the first item I saw, on "Diving into Menus" (a 101 help item); he also had an item titled "How to manage passwords with Keychain Access"; and there was a third from Albert Filce on "How to make your own Fusion Drive"

Several sources, including Mike Schramm on TUAW have the news Wednesday morning that Aaron Sorkin has penned the entire movie on Steve Jobs life as three 30-minute scenes, each backstage before a product launch. I bet one of those is the iPhone. I also wonder if there will be flashbacks or if those scenes will be used as focus points on the life story. I also read (Chris Foresman, Ars Technica) that Sorkin may have the rights to the voice over ad, Think Different to be used at the end of the movie. That sounds about right.

Half and Half

Ms. Marsal is indeed right, however in reporting that there is a growing rift between the companies. That much is telegraphed in almost every communication. Neil Hughes also reporting on the (alleged) price rise has some analysis that suggests if this were true, this "would result in a hit to Apple's margins between 1 and 2 percentage points". But as we have reported before, Apple may be moving from Samsung for manufacturing purposes.

There are reports from a number of sources -- I use Jacqui Cheng on Ars Technica -- that an app version of Google Maps is nearing completion and it will be submitted to Apple in the near future. There are apparently features that the former app that used Google Maps did not have.

Of course the question has arisen of whether Apple will accept this. I am of the opinion that they will not be able to reject it (unless there is a legitimate reason such as not using a proper API) because of the negative feedback that would follow.

With a recent success in its litigation against HTC J. M. Mannes on Seeking Alpha expects that the income from the company will be up to $8 per phone for the next 10 years. He includes a quote from Florian Mueller of Foss Patents who has always suggested that Android was never free when all the patents it uses are taken into account. Microsoft patents will need to be factored in too before the real price of the free OS is known.

So if HTC uses Android and has agreed to pay, what about other Android-using handset makers? If all came clean, it could mean something like $4 billion a year. However, that does not take into account the intransigence from South Korea and Jeff Gamet reports on The MacObserver a spokesperson says that the company had no intention of settling with Apple. I think that is actually the key to everything: right or wrong, Samsung is so convinced of its own untouchability -- as indeed it appears to be within S. Korea -- that it is just going to dig its heels in come what may. That sort of intransigence usually ends up in disaster. I am shocked to find that I almost agree with Rik Myslewski on The Register on that last point.

I made a suggestion tongue in cheek last week about the new Windows 8 OS when it was reported that many users and business were not willing to upgrade to the new version as to much training was needed: why don't they switch to OS X? It would be just the same amount of training, or less and they would have finally made that leap they secretly promised themselves years back. . . . I was coser than I realised (that is Cassandra for you). A report by Byron Acohido on USA Today, repeats that point about unwillingness to switch, but "30% planned to buy an Apple iPad touch tablet, and 12%, an Apple Macintosh computer." Welcome home, guys.

Other Matters

I double-clicked on that file and was shown the font in a panel with the option to install. A small problem was reported but I carried on anyway and the font displayed fine when I wrote myself a test email. I also found this only works as an English font, so Thai characters do not display in this.

It is hardly a surprise, but Microsoft has been hit with a lawsuit over the disastrous storage available on the Surface: 16 GB takes up the OS and stuff on a 32 GB device, for example. MacDaily News reports this and has some nice comments.

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.