By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

Also on MacDaily News is a link to a BusinessInsider item that suggests that kids want iPads, not toys for Xmas. A number of toy makers are reported to be worried by this trend. If it is the iPad that kids want, the makers of Android devices should also be worried. If they are not already.

It may actually get worse as Patently Apple report on news from China. It seems that Pegatron, one of Apple's main suppliers there is gearing up to produce more iPhone and iPad mini devices next year in what is expected to be a 40% expansion. As part of that expansion, Patently Apple reports that Apple has partnered with a new supplier of metal injection mouldings for the iPad and iPad mini. Chenming Mold Industry is named as a second supplier of metal injection moldings by the Taiwan United Daily News.

According to Kate MacKenzie on PixoBebo everyone in tech thinks that Apple needs a cheaper iPhone. Not everyone. Not me. I think it would be a mistake to follow the advice of the tech pundits. Mike Elgan also, she reports, thinks this is the wrong way to go, although his solution is equally as bad for her, and for me. His views are the stuff that dreams and dead companies are made of.

Apple of course is clearly not dead and Patently Apple reports on a number of patents Cupertino has just been granted:

1. A patent that relates to multi-touch sensor panels;
2. A patent for glass alignment for high temperature processes;
3. Several patents regarding, a super-thin USB connector, the iMac housing, and several other patents including 2 for LTE technology, downloading applications, plus a list of 25 others; and
4. A patent regarding the Micro SIM card (Nokia reportedly threatened to withdraw 50 patents if this was granted).

A note at the bottom of item number 3 (the multiple patents) tells us that this is not a sudden granting of lots of new patents and that this is part of the way the patent office works.

There is some more on the way people are discovering how to use new features in the latest version of iTunes. One of the changes was to the mini-player. Not something I use, but I know a lot of people do. Kirk McElhearn on MacWorld has a comprehensive look at what has been changed and how to use it.

I saw a note on Facebook on Monday reporting that "185 people have the iSomtow app on their iPhone or android - it's free, so why not get it now?" S.P. Somtow is a Thai polymath with a good record on writing science fiction and other forms, but his return to Thailand has seen a musical expansion, with him writing musicals, operas and other music as well as conducting an orchestra. This app, which I looked at in January this year (I thought it was much more recent) is one of the many ways that those interested can keep up to date with what he does. Within the app are several useful links to music and video.

On Monday I reported that the Jobs family yacht had been impounded after a dispute between Philippe Starck and the family over how much he should be paid. Katie Marsal on AppleInsider reports that the problem has now been resolved and the good ship Venus is free to sail the sees.

Wait a moment, wasn't that the first line of a rugby song? "'Twas on the good ship Venus, by god you should have seen us. . . ." There, that betrays some of my past. My word: put that line in a Google search, but make sure the kids have gone to bed.

Half and Half

A couple of weeks after being hauled over the coals for a sensationalist article on the "Apple Tax", Reuters is losing its balance again over Apple and is becoming as unreliable as the BBC and its so-called balance. An article that I saw on Huffington Post by Diane Bartz tells us that, in the long, drawn out court battles between Samsung and Apple, Cupertino just will not take No for an answer, in regard to a sales ban that the courts decline to apply. All well and good: Apple is not taking that No as a given and maybe it should. However, where was Ms Bartz, her editor Leslie Gevirtz and Reuters when Samsung was saying no, no, no and no to everything about the California decision that Apple won, including trying to get the jury verdict overturned? Find this biased crap yourself if you want it.

In the meantime, Foss Patents reports that Samsung - in trouble in Europe over its "overly aggressive assertions of standard-essential patents (SEPs) against Apple" - is now going after Ericsson who are suing Samsung because they just won't talk about relicensing technology they had licensed before. Samsung is now targeting certain equipment that Ericsson brings into the US. Florian Mueller's analysis of what lies behind this makes a rather interesting read. Perhaps Ms Bartz should take the time to read this sort of background before rushing into hit-making texts.

In another report covering this, Peter Clarke on EETimes gives us the facts and at the end tells us that "Samsung is confident that, in due course, the Commission will conclude that we have acted in compliance with European Union competition laws". We see no ships. [My source for this was MacDaily News.]

Other Matters

The US and other members of the Echelon group, supported the UK efforts and tried their own. It was an amazing coincidence that the language they used was so similar in every case. Declan McCullagh, whose credentials on security-watching are rather good, has an analysis of 2012 and why the year mattered in terms of policy and privacy. He looks at 5 main areas, mainly with a US slant, but that is where a lot of the controls (think Homeland Security) begin: The Stop Online Piracy Act; Cybersecurity; United Nations Dubai summit; GPS tracking; and Washington expansionism.

Each could probably deserve a book, but this is a good place to start.

I sort of shrugged when I saw the news from Roger Cheng that Acer was to produce a new tablet computer with a $99 price tag aimed at emerging markets. I guess that translates to those countries where most people cannot afford an iPad. It is called the Iconia B1, but the picture with the article may confuse as it is the Iconia A110 and is marked as such. Clearly it is no iPad, but Acer don't care.

Local Items

I slipped out of the apartment early afternoon and then spent the evening with a university friend who works for Associated Press here: APTV. We meet up 2 or 3 times a year and this time we fixed on 25 December: white chocolate snowman for number one son, creamy dessert for the wife, a bottle of wine for my host and a large gin and tonic or two for me.

One of the things we were told by local politicians was that 2013 was to be the year of piracy. I sniggered a bit of course. We have been this way before. It is all so open here and I thought about this on Saturday when sitting behind two people from a retail outlet in Central Pinklao called iSociety - that was what they had on their t-shirts. This place, and a number of others, sell iPhone and iPad accessories, so there is a legitimate side to it all.

But all these stores have an iMac or two set up so that they can download software for their customers and install it for a price on the customer's iOS device. The developers get nothing, Apple ets 30% of nothing and there are a lot of jailbroken devices just waiting to go wrong the next time a firmware update appears. Many users think that this is the right thing to do.

An interesting comment, however, appeared in iPodNN this week when there was information about the difficulty of jailbreaking the current version of iOS 6 and a Tweet from a hacker suggested that with the added security, the next update will make it even harder. The problem of piracy is mentioned in the article and that apps installed via these back door methods bring with them their own problems. Walled garden? Yes please.

It is not just these stores as there are stories that the proper retail outlets will also load up new Macs with software. As one retailer said to me, if I don't do it for my customers, they will go elsewhere. Always someone willing to cut corners. I would hope that the minister for piracy will authorize a few test purchases and make the fines a suitable size so that the cost is recovered: then they can donate the devices to schools, so everyone wins. Except the pirates of course.

I bumped into someone in town on Xmas day who spends a lot of time in Singapore and we got round to Google Maps. Apparently, while there is not much difference here between the two maps apps, in Singapore the Google app shines: the data there is way better, but both are pretty much at the same level here. So why is this so: is there no better data for Thailand?

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.