By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit

Apple Stuff

I thought Brian Williams was a bit bland - never pushing the envelope as he might have done - and a bit cheap. Although Cook's private life is just that, a lot of people know his preferences and I was disturbed to hear some of the vocabulary Williams used when asking him questions about being CEO of Apple - just a whiff of the other Cook who was polite but firm throughout.

One of the comments made by other sources came from Joseph Keller on iMore, who had the headline, "What Tim Cook's interviews revealed about the past, present, and future of Apple": interviews being plural as Cook had also talked to Bloomberg. He ends up explaining almost all of it, blow by blow, and I would prefer to let readers make their own decisions, but he does rightly make much of that last line,

"Our role in life is to give you something you didn't know you wanted, and then, once you get it, you can't imagine your life without it."

Looking at that $100 million investment that Cook mentioned, Mike Wehner of TUAW came up with a lot of speculation. He may be right as far as automation is concerned - highly likely as Foxconn is involved. We might as well also link to the Rock Center page as there is a comment from NBC and a link to the videos. Kate MacKenzie on PixoBebo also has input: but less on what was said and more on who said it and why. This is Tim Cook's Apple now.

While it was announced that Foxconn were to build the factory for the Mac that will be Made in the USA, where it is may be up for some speculation. Mac Daily News links to a couple of articles that favour the area round New York as there is already a considerable IT investment in parts of the region, so the factory could fit in well there. Also in the link article was mention of TMSC, the chip maker that may be taking over from Samsung and there is some question that there might also be some involvement in the same area near New York.

So this may be a good time (instead of in Half and Half) to bring in an item by Rene Ritchie on iMore who comments on the way - and many think this, myself included - Samsung built their current strength on the work that was done by Apple. Having grown from a pre-iPhone also-ran to one of the largest smartphone makers, there would seem to be some connection.

Rene suggests that this was not merely copying the designs (although many are sure that went on to a greater or lesser degree), but in the plant. The factories and equipment had to be created for the Apple production, and funds were received, but also the knowledge about what to build and how much, so that Samsung "was able to go from near zero market share in smartphones to being the largest vendor in two years a feat that Apple itself could not accomplish."

The switch from Samsung has begun and not before time, many of us think, but there will still be residue and a nasty taste for many years to come.

I read a comment (I do not have the link) concerning the small numbers at the release of the iPhone 5 in China. This sounded similar to what had been reported when the iPad mini or the iPhone was released in the USA and the pundits forgot that many customers these days order online. There had also been problems at previous launches in China, so Apple had tried to use a system that was designed to increase the fairness.

The knee-jerk comment (don't these analysts check their sources?) was soon put into context when Sam Oliver told readers about the number of scalpers that were (again) in action in China despite the process that has those selected limited to two iPad minis. They must bring photo identification. Steven Sande on TUAW had some more on this and Apple's system is apparently not working.

Another bad point is the assault on a cameraman - all very reminiscent of things that go on here. Quiet perhaps because the number of products available is relatively small and certainly limited in more ways than one.

The iMac had some good press recently, apart from the lack of serviceability, which we are going to have to get used to: want it repaired? Send it back and get a new one. However Andrew Cunningham on Ars Technica reviews the 21.5" device in a 4-page article and tries very hard to prove it is the same as before, only different. He dislikes the speakers, thinks the cheapest iMac in the line without Fusion Drive should start up faster, and thinks the iMac should not be so thin. There are some other negatives.

I scan a lot of news over the course of a day. Some I save for later after reading the headlines and maybe a couple of paragraphs while some I read immediately. One such was Jason Snell's look at the iPad and productivity on MacWorld. In the opening sentences he wrote, "On a physical keyboard, I can go as fast as 120 words per minute." One hundred and twenty. After finishing that article I went shopping but that statement of fact burned in my brain all the way through to the afternoon and I ended up buying the Apple Wireless Keyboard so that I could perhaps try again to increase my working efficiency on the iPad and decrease my reliance on the Mac. I put comments on acquiring the keyboard and some first impressions online Saturday.

Coincidentally, Federico Viticci on Mac Stories also had a look at the inbuilt (virtual) keyboard on the iPad and ways in which it might be improved.

Continuing the theme of keyboards - all very tentative I know - Paul Horowitz on OS X Daily posted 21 useful keyboard shortcuts for iTunes 11. Well they are there, but the problem with these shortcuts is that to know them, you must use them; and use them in such a way as they become second nature (like Command + S for save). Read the list, try them out, and use.

Also on iTunes (smooth segues this time, eh?) is an item by Erica Sadun on iTunes for old fogeys, which I will read carefully. She outlines a number of the changes and explains where to find those things we thought were lost.

Not all security cameras work well with Macs so Logitech is smart to produce a camera system that can be used with OS X. Steven Sande reports on the Logitech Alert security camera and is really positive about what he reviews.

While Apple uses Western Digital hard disks in its Macs, the company was not always known for being Apple friendly: indeed at one time not so long ago, the only software available to test WD disks was PC-only. The company has changed considerably and a range of hard disks aimed at Mac users is now available here" the My Book Studio.

I was thinking of one of these disks as the current 500 MB disk I use for Time Machine is full, so I had a look, but could only find 2 TB and more. On Sunday, I did track down a 1 TB disk but when it came time to pay, the price was 4390 baht, while the 2 TB one was priced at 5500. I grabbed that off the shelf and was pleased to find the charge, with VAT was 5190. I will set that up on Monday.

This weekend I also found that Roller Coaster Tycoon has just been released by Aspyr. I had a look at the release briefly and traced some of the history, finding out that there is an Open Source version of Transport Tycoon that now runs in a browser. Well, some browsers.

If you can't beat them, join them; or in Apple's case, ask them to join you. Electronista reports that Apple has recruited famous white-hat hacker from the UK I believe, named Kristin Paget. She will apparently, "assist with efforts to secure the UNIX core technologies that OS X and the iOS were built on."

How to win friends and influence people? The best story with this sort of theme this week comes from Chris Matyszczyk who writes about a mistake Best Buy made. They sent 5 iPads to a customer who ordered 1. Instead of asking the customer to send them back (or arranging for the four to be picked up), they told the customer, "in the spirit of the holidays, we encourage you to keep the additional iPads and give them to people in need". Best indeed.

Half and Half

While we are on patents, the patent office in America has just invalidated Apple's multitouch patent, Rene Ritchie reports on iMore. It may be re-granted if Apple applies again. The article includes some comments from Florian Mueller.

The battles between Apple and Samsung keep going but this week a rematch took place in California with Judge Lucy Koh having to decide on a number of questions but during proceedings, Kelly Hodgkins writes, she "encouraged the two sides to settle their differences, saying it would be good for consumers and for the industry." Some hopes, methinks.

Other Matters

Local Items

Everything had to go on the back burner on Sunday evening with final episode of the current series of The Walking Dead. It won't be long before Homeland wraps up too (3 weeks), although that is on 23 December, so if that Mayan prophecy is true, we may never know. What happened at the end of The Walking Dead however was a classic cliffhanger and we have to wait months to find out what happens next.

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.