By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

I think we can safely say that this year there will be updates to iPhone, iPad and maybe some of the iPod lines. The favourite rumours have concerned a cheap iPhone (see below) and there is some information on that this time. But also we have possibilities with the iPads.

With the update cycle for some products at 6 months, the sources are all aquiver with what comes next and despite the rumours, most do not know. A possible generation 5 iPad is put forward by Electronista and others and an interesting possibility here is the idea that the screen itself could be updated. Currently using a G/G touchscreen arrangement, it could take advantage of the G/F2 (DITO) thin-film touchscreen format that the iPad mini uses.

Whenever phone sales or share figures are announced the bloggers and Twitterati go into a frenzy with the Android/Samsung beating Apple again theme, but you would have been hard pushed to find this last week when it was revealed that Apple had a bigger share than Samsung in the USA (Seth Weintraub, 9to5Mac): that was the iPhone against all the rest, including the 37 Samsung models mentioned recently. Steve Jobs announcing the iPhone said he was looking for 1% of the smartphone market in the first year (to howls of derision from Microsoft and Nokia particularly): Apple is sure beating that.

To remind us of Ballmer's comments on 29 Jun 2007, we are assisted by Alex Bracetti on ComplexTech: "There's no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance."

In China which is a whole different ball game, particularly because of the lower salaries of the majority, Electronista reports that Apple is making some gains - from 7.5% to 12% in a year - although Android has 86% of the market. It is used on most of the local brands, but the smartphone market is growing.

I should insert a report here from Neil Hughes on AppleInsider concerning the sales of Apps for iOS devices, another indicator of success in some ways. He reports that a study discovered that dropping the price of an app increases the number of sales significantly and this has a greater effect on the iPhone than the iPad.

This reminds me of a comment from Steve Ballmer a couple of years back that he made to developers, suggesting that the bottom end of the market ($0.99) was not what they should go for, but rather the apps should be priced high so that a smaller number of sales would generate higher profits. How is that working out for you guys over there?

A more general comment on apps and privacy comes from the FTC, Jordan Kahn reports on 9to5 Mac. A report issued suggests that all developers (whether it be of Apple, Android, Blackberry or Microsoft apps) should pay more heed to the question of user privacy and the safety of the data (Path was fined $800,000 for breaches of children's data). Better disclosures and information for the users is essential the report insists.

Let me add another report to that matter of share. According to Daniel Eran Dilger on AppleInsider, figures from Net Applications suggest that not only has there been an increase in the web usage by iOS devices reports but that there is a corresponding reduction in the use by Android-using devices. With these usage reports, there are questions being asked about the accuracy of IDC statistics that suggested Apple tablet market share worldwide was slipping. So despite what CNNMoney presenter Adrian Covert crowed (along with the bloggers and Twitterati), the figures may not bear out the realities.

Of course it may simply be that iPad users find it easier and hence enjoy using their tablets on the web much more than the others. Or it may be that there is some fudging of the figures, between shipments and sales.

While we are on Daniel Eran Dilger, who usually writes a lot of words, which carry a lot of content, he had one of his non-AppleInsider articles out this weekend, beginning with the mystery iPhone in which he takes a look at the rumours concerning the iPhone Lite, that in some sources has been called the iPhone Math (which is a poor translation). Despite all the history, so many analysts are saying that Apple must release such a device, while Dilger points out that they need to do nothing of the sort. Remember "Apple will have to do a netbook?"

When Apple has followed trends, disaster has been the result, except when Apple does things its own way. Examples might be the Motorola Rokr compared with the iPhone. He also notes the reactions when Apple does release such devices: the tech industry yawns, the customers go wild. That tells us something.

Dilger's lengthy article is worth reading if you want real reasoning behind what Apple does and not the wing-fluttering of the arriviste blogger who started commenting on Apple because the hits would follow. This man does know what he is on about.

There was also a comment from Jordan Kahn on the possibility that Apple would release another "S" iPhone and what this could mean. Kahn mentions that "S" usually means a "few major upgrades" like the better processors or cameras as well as a number of other improvements.

As the previous ones have had some interesting features beneath the surface and I am hanging on to my iPhone 4S for the moment, this is a question more for the panicky analysts and the followers of fashion rather than real users. However, there are some suggestions as to what an iPhone 5S might mean. If that is what Apple is working on.

Some rumours of late have posited the idea of a 5" iPhone and the idea of scaling up a display is possible, but the quality aspect is one that cause some to think this is not going to happen. Rene Ritchie examines this question in some detail and while some think it is a possibility (Apple could do it if they wanted) they tested out what it could look like. Possible. Maybe. But only Apple would know.

Commentary on the recent fall of Apple's share price still appears and a comment by Philip Elmer-DeWitt over the weekend confirmed some of what I (and others) said regarding the 14 week quarter that Apple used last year and that - ignored by many - suggested stagnancy with the profits. It is not simply a theory as there is research to back up the idea that many analysts are just too lazy to find out about this and the way (one would think) it might affect their predictions. And investors rely on these people?

Another sure thing is OS X 10.9 although there are no real details available and we do not even know what it is to be called, which should start its own round of speculation soon enough. However it is known that developer version are already being used in and around Cupertino, which you would expect, and Neil Hughes on AppleInsider writes about this and the web traffic that is already appearing on some logs. He wonders if this is something that will be announced soon (it was about this time last year we were told about Mountain Lion) and also be released during the summer.

There was a bit of a surprise warning from 9to5 Mac on Saturday when Mike Beasley wrote of a discovery that would crash most applications on a Mac using Mountain Lion. If you were to type in the characters, "File:" followed by "///" in most applications it would crash. I tried it myself in one app and sure enough, gone (it was OK in a text screen on TextWrangler and did not crash Safari when I loaded the page, but I have taken out the full 8 characters in case).

Also commenting on this was Erica Sadun on TUAW who tried it out as well and did some deeper analysis that she relates in the article. We are told that it is "an issue with a built in assertion" and "Assertions allow programmers to mandate expected behavior, validating input to assure its correctness." This text suggests a particular behaviour but there is no built-in handler for this.

Reports have been sent to Apple so we may get a change via the 10.8.3 update that ought to be out real soon.

Long overdue as far as updates are concerned is a refresh of iLife. While there have been some rumblings once or twice in the past about iWork (also well overdue), AppleBitch (among others) reports that Apple recruitment hints at new interface designs for iLife: iPhoto, iMovie and GarageBand.

There may also be some news on iWork as Patently Apple reports that some patents were acquired recently by Cupertino from Maya-Systems and this will work well with the way some think that the iPad 128 GB may be aimed at enterprise.

I wonder when they will get round to creaky old Aperture.

One of Apple's Vice Presidents - John Couch, Apple Vice President for Education - spent some time recently with the president of Turkey and among the things they discussed Élyse Betters reports on 9to5 Mac were Turkey's $4.5 billon tablet program, the incorrect layout of the Turkish keyboard and the 2nd class treatment that means Turkey doesn't get products until months after they are released elsewhere in the world. Couch is reported to be heading back to whisper in Tim Cook's ear.

Half and Half

Also at the show was Victor Agreda Jr. who reports in TUAW on a series of mobile monitors for the Mac or iPad from MMT.

Corning makes an Apple-related product in the Thunderbird optical cables. Initially these were all copper and had a shorter length, but now that there is an optical option, these are much longer and Kevin Bostic reports that version of up to 100 metres

Other Matters

Some are not really happy with CBS of late with the way they have been interfering with editorial control at CNet, causing one contributor to resign over the way a prize at CES was awarded then taken away.

This week Will Burns on Forbes reports than CBS banned an ad from SodaStream at the SuperBowl because it might have upset its big contributors (advertisement = money), Pepsi and Coke.

Burns also mentions the CES interference, but this moved another step over the weekend when the Consumer Electronics Association (who run CES) disassociated itself with CNet over the way that the Dish Hopper was denied the awarded first prize (CBS is in litigation with Dish Hopper). They took it one more step (CNet Reports) when they designated the Dish Hopper a 2013 Design and Engineering Award Honoree at CES. So there!

Credibility at stake here and CBS is not looking to be a winner.

We had a report not so long ago about the work being done on liquid metal and its use in Apple devices, but over the weekend an article by Dara Kerr told us about a Nokia project to develop a material called Graphene.

This stuff is 300 times stronger than steel and measures one atom thick. It is also the lightest material, so is likely to have many applications in tech and aerospace industries. While Nokai has been working on this for about 7 years, recently they were given a $1.35 billion grant from the European Union for research and development over the next 10 years of this super-material.

There was a report from MSN this week on the death of the developer of the Etch-a-Sketch, a device that I had as a Xmas present in the early 1960s along with many other kids at that time. André Cassagnes who was 86 died in Paris in mid-January and the report gives an interesting background as to the development of the device and its uses afterwards.

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.