By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

If Apple were to bring the money home and patriotically pay the 30% that the Taxman wanted, I am sure someone else would be suing them for something or other. Wall Street just cannot get over the idea that Apple has all that money, although it is not simply just dollar bills piled high in Tim Cook's office.

One possible solution (and one that Einhorn may want) is that Apple issue Preferred Stock, Peter Burrows writes on Bloomberg and includes some of the advice that Tim Cook is having showered on him from all directions. [My source for this was MacDaily News.]

Also commenting on the action by Eindhorn is Chris Umiastowski on iMore and points out that one of his assertions is wrong:

Greenlight's press release says that Apple is trying to pass a proposal that eliminates the ability to issue prefs. That's not true. According to Apple, they're just proposing to eliminate the board of director's ability to issue such instruments without shareholder approval.

But Great Scott, even Jim Cramer says Eindhorn was wrong to sue and thinks that the money should be put to better use, but does not think Apple is doing anything particularly wrong here. There is a video with the article and Cramer being a performer is entertaining expressing his ideas.

I sat all the way through this and Cramer spoke a lot of sense, pointing out that the company was in fact more successful than Eindhorn had been and also mentioning that peak of share prices that occurred last year. I looked at this last week as when we examine the graph, the peak is the aberration, not the fall at the beginning of the year. Indeed, I made a further examination with the Bloomberg app on the iPad as that allows me a 10-year graph. And who pushed the shares up to those stratospheric levels?

Almost a straight line from 2007 to now

The video is long and I found the best version on another CNBC page that also had a transcript of sorts, from which I copied these sensible words: "but if apple were to do in 2013 what it's always done, create the finest products we have never thought of, that's what the market really wants and nothing else. That's what spurs the growth here." [My link for this excellent input was MacDaily News.]

It was reported that Apple has had some success in India which, like China, has a massive untapped market for high end products. Rene Ritchie reports on iMore that in 3 months, IDC estimates that sales of Apple products rose by 400%. There has been expansion of the workforce like in China before and Apple is making other moves to tap that market. What a surprise.

I despair of the number of analysts, arriviste commentators and other oddballs who keep reporting what Apple must, should or will do. The latest is Brian Bennett who is a Senior Editor and has been with CNet since December 2011, but has learned little about Apple in that time. He explains (he thinks) in an article called "Apple and the iWatch conundrum" why Apple needs an iWatch badly, but likely won't make one.

A conundrum is a confusing or difficult problem, but this is nothing of the sort; and why he and many others think that Apple "need" an iWatch is beyond me but is a typical example of not following what Apple does. The evidence is in the many watches that were seen at CES, he claims. On that, he is certain that Apple will be following along real soon now.

He is right when he adds that "Apple has the knack of catching the competition completely flat-footed," but if CES was full of watches, this would make Apple the also-rans. And he ends this poorly written fluff, not worthy of a cub reporter, with "What Apple needs here is true out-of-the-box action to quell the doubters at large and on Wall Street." Ah, that's it: pandering to those guys; he is after the hits.

And right at the bottom is a CNet push for a watch. Why do I follow these guys, especially if all they can put out is speculation, half-formed ideas and product bait?

A little more sensible comment on a potential watch from Apple comes from Jordan Kahn on 9to5 Mac who reports on the input of Bruce Tognazzini who was an early Apple employee (#66) and once head of the Human Interface Group. Nice ideas, but this is still all speculation.

Then the bandwagon, led this time by NYTimes, we are told by Jordan Kahn on 9to5 Mac. They cite "reliable sources" - including Bruce Tognazzini again - and give us a complete rundown on what it is and what it isn't. Like Kahn, Rene Ritchie on iMore also comments on the rumours with a suitably sarcastic introductory paragraph.

Less speculative, but perhaps linked (my speculation here) is a report on Electronista that Apple has hired Dr. Jueng-jil Lee, a former senior researcher at LG Display who has expertise in OLED displays.

There have been lots of rumours about the next iPhone which may or may not be called a 5S or 6 and may or may not be low cost - one of those things Apple must do, because the analysts think the company should, and thus show they do not understand Apple at all. MacWorld, Australia, report on speculation from an analyst who thinks that because Samsung are going for a new Broadcom chip, Apple will be doing the same, "for its iPhone 6, as well as the rumoured low-cost iPhone." To be fair, there are some good technical points to consider here, especially in the discussion of IEEE standards.

Also looking at rumours of a new iPhone is Chris Oldroyd on iMore who cites a report out of China concerning the 5S iPhone as well as a 5-inch version.

Well, whatever. The only time we will be sure what the new iPhone is, what technology it uses and what it will cost, is when Tim Cook or Phil Schiller pull it out of the bag.

Oh and as a note, AppleInsider reports that the current iPhone 5 has helped push Apple to a 22% share of the global smartphone market. Doomed, doomed, remember.

Another note on failing Apple. We reported recently how the Australian authorities are moving from Blackberry to Apple, a move that is being repeated over and over again, even in the face of Samsung and Android expansion - some say "winning" although it is not really a contest. Now we read in an item by John Paczkowski on All Things Digital that Home Depot is to supply some 10,000 of its employees with iPhones, replacing the Blackberry things they use now.

This initially came from Kevin Bostic on AppleInsider who adds that this is for managerial and corporate staff and that this "will not yet impact the approximately 60,000 rugged Motorola smartphones (34,000+ so-called "First Phones" and 25,000+ "First Phone Jrs") used by store employees". Not yet. [My source for both of these items was MacDaily News.]

As an unfortunate side note, AppleInsider reports that the test Blackberry 10 that was being used by New York Magazine, died after 4 days use, preceded by numerous crashes. A friend recently moved to a Samsung as his Blackberry had done the same. Often. And when I mentioned this to another Blackberry-using friend staying over, he nodded. Often.

Apple and some of the book publishers have been fighting with the US Department of Justice - who seem to be working for Amazon and its interests - over alleged price fixing of ebooks. Electronista reports that the last publisher who had not already given up, MacMillan, has now settled with the DoJ, leaving Apple to fight alone.

A lot of commentators looked at a new app called Mailbox towards the end of last week. This is an app that you need to install and then reserve a place. It works for GMail only at the moment, but among the reviews is one from AppleBitch.

I had a look over the weekend at an interesting app, called Noir that produces monochrome output of images with some interesting tint and vignetting effects.

Half and Half

Other Matters

Dilger also had some more sharp comments on his own Daring Fireball site, mentioning not only Paul Thurrott who saw this as a sign that Apple was damned, but Ed Bott. All it wants now is for Rob Enderle to take a bow.

Dilger must be on a roll as I linked to another article on Daring Fireball that sort of compares the failures of Apple, particularly Ping, with those of Microsoft, focusing on Metro which is a user interface developed for the Zune. And we know how well that went. But if TimCook at Apple gets such a bad press over Ping and more recently Maps, why doesn't Ballmer: late again and with reworked old software.

It is not really a surprise, but Eric Schmidt of Google is cashing in almost half of his 7.6 million shares and is expected to rake in about $2.51 billion, Daniel Terdiman writes.

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.