By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

A later report from Mikey Campbell on AppleInsider tells us that following the court's decision, Apple pulled the proposal from the shareholder meeting that is due to take place on 27 February: Wednesday.

Apple expressed disappointment with the decision. Campbell's report also outlines Eindhorn's own idea for what he calls "iPrefs": perpetual preferred stock that would pay out a quarterly 50 cents dividend equating to $2 per year. This is all about Apple's cash hoard and making sure that Eindhorn the shareholders get their hands on it. Chris Umiastowski on iMore has an article in which he explains in some detail about these iPrefs and why this seems to be a useful instrument.

Also examining this, "Jedi mind trick" is Anders Bylund at Ars Technica who is not as convinced as Chris Umiastowski. He was not the only one and apparently Eindhorn had to explain the trick to "a room full of seasoned financial professionals and he still had to explain many of the core concepts all over again" in a question and answer session.

When Steve Jobs arrived back at Apple with his NeXT OS that became OS X and a lot of ideas, he cut down the product line quite ruthlessly and one of the items to go - with a collective gasp from many customers - was the Newton, which coincidentally was a John Sculley brainchild. Apple kept the trademark, but now, Patently Apple reports, Apple has now officially abandoned the Newton name

It is Oscar week this week and while the ceremony will be on TV for those who have the time to sit through the hours of self-congratulation and hubris, there are a number of iOS apps that some users may find useful. Victor Agreda, Jr. on TUAW outlines five free apps that he thinks may help users who are interested in the golden statuettes.

The first of them is from the Academy and unlike Sundance, Hong Kong or other film festivals, this is not available in the Thai store - people here do pay for the movies, you know. Also not available here is Live from the Red Carpet. The others are. Not bad: one international event and two out of three apps not available here.

I have been impressed with the way the iPad (and iPad mini) have taken off in the last couple of years, with millions being sold each year now. Patently Apple suggests this is just going to expand even more with a news agency in Taiwan predicting that something like 80 million iPads are expected to be shipped in 2013, which would be a growth of some 25%.

Slightly contradicting this report, Electronista cites Millenial Media who are a mobile ad network. They report that the iPhone generates the most ad impressions amongst phones, growing 72 percent year-over-year to a 15.59 percent share. However the Samsung Galaxy S series grew 182 percent to hit a 4.24 percent share. So the iPhone share grows to almost 16% and the small Samsung share grows from about 2% to just over 4% and that is the evidence?

Another part of the Millenial Media report covers tablet computers and Kevin Bostic on AppleInsider reports that Apple is top all others with 31.2% of all mobile-based ad impressions (Samsung 2nd with 22.32%). As part of the report it is shown that ad impression growth for the iPad mini was a rate of 28% per day.

One of the reasons the iPhone may be popular apart from the system integration and the better security (walled garden and all that) is the reliability of the device itself, unless like me you drop it in water. Philip Elmer-DeWitt on Fortune reports on a survey that examined phone reliability of the top brands with Apple coming out way ahead of Samsung, Nokia and Motorola (the last were miles behind): three times more reliable than Samsung. My link for this was MacDaily News.

There was a slight downside to reliability this week when it was reported that Apple was being sued for personal injury damages after an iPod touch exploded last year. Patently Apple reports that the device apparently blew up in the user's face (laying in her bed with her iPod touch) and although her medical costs were $600 she is suing Apple for $75,000. If you hug an iPod touch or iPhone would that not create unusual heat? The case is filed in East Texas.

Another day another lawsuit: this time OS X Server and iCloud. Patently Apple reports on a patent troll in Texas. Do they all live there? The courts in Tyler, the self-styled Rose Capital of the World, certainly seem to make it easy for patent litigation. The full claim is that Apple's Remote Desktop, OS X Server, iCloud, iTunes and App Store services infringe on the patent they picked up from someone called Sandy Kronenberg and reading this it looks like the packet switching method that Vinton Cerf and others came up with to create the Internet.

As well as being popular with consumers (and companies), the iPad and the iPhone are also popular with thieves. A few months ago the mayor of New York tried to blame Apple for rising crime figures in the city as so many of the devices were being sold. Rather than wringing their hands and blaming others for the problem, like the mayor, the NYPD put a plan into action and created a squad to focus on this specific area of crime, Jordan Kahn reports on 9to5 Mac.

Not only do they use tracking information that the victims are able to supply, but they also work with Apple who are able to track the devices using the IMEI: the International Mobile Station Equipment Identity, which is unique to each device and cannot be changed. Also writing about this is Steven Sande on TUAW, who writes, "a number of arrests have been made and devices have been recovered from as far away as the Dominican Republic."

Cameras in smartphones and tablet devices are popular with many consumers and this week Kent German has comments on a back to back comparison between the iPhone 5 and the HTC One (4 mp). The links in the article to a CNETAsia item by John Chan are not really enough for a good comparison, other than one-off shots.

While I have tried to move some of my daily tasks to the iPad and the iPhone, I cannot. I always come back to the Macs for input, although on the road I am capable of inputting text, editing images taken with the iPhone and the Nikons, creating presentations and managing a lot of other tasks. I am just so computer-based that cutting the cord is not easy. Other people - those who have never used a computer for example - do not have such problems as their needs are different. Ted Landau has given this question some thought and in an article on MacWorld he writes about why (he thinks) the iPad cannot be a true Mac replacement.

He discusses the storage problem, but does not think cloud solutions are the answer, as well as devices that may be connected for data storage. Also under examination is the connection of peripheral devices, and the use of keyboards. I am on the same page for may of these weaknesses (if that is what they are) but not really worried about multiple windows as there are other ways to check on what else is going on. Nonetheless, there is food for thought here.

A few months ago Apple took a lot of flak for the version of the Maps app that appeared with the update to iOS. Most people commented on the app itself saying Apple was wrong, but the app was the same one that Google had used, so they were wrong there. It was the data. Agreed, there were a lot of errors. Two that I am aware of are the BTS extension that app and Google maps show as a flat concrete slab, when I see trains running in and out of the recently opened station a few hundred metres away; and another concerns the Bukkhalo branch of the Bangkok Bank which I can confirm is not in the middle of the Chao Praya river.

There were a number of problems with the data in Australia, causing the police to tell users not to rely on the app for serious navigation. Now, MacNN and others report that Apple is advertising for a "Maps Ground Truth Data Specialist" for Australia and there is a description of the skills they will need. I hope they have one for Thailand.

While many long term Mac users tell you that there are no viruses for OS X, there have been a number of attacks in recent times involving Trojan Horse malware as well as through the weaker vectors of Flash and Java. So much so that I do not use Java any more on my Macs and restrict the use of Flash with an extension called Click to Flash. Jürgen Schmidt on H-Security discusses these problems and the basic uselessness of anti-virus software on OS X, but warns about the risks from a number of other methods by which, sooner or later, access may be gained.

Apart from when I am at work, when I use WriteRoom because of the way it synchronises via Dropbox, most of my basic writing - and the coding for the webpages - is done in TextWrangler. Agen G. N. Schmitz on TidBits reported over the weekend that there is a new version. I use v 4.0.1 and the article reports that v. 4.5 is now available with a large number of additions. While I was working on this text, there was a reminder from TextWrangler, but I put this on hold for now.

Apple tries to keep its suppliers under control and recently dropped one for violations. Now Electronista reports that another is being fined in China for polluting a river. That in itself is a real advance in a country where such violations are usually ignored and it looks as if the company was being complacent for a bit too long and a bit too often.

Half and Half

Let me comment on the second one first as Apple is often slow to roll out such updates to technology, although with the iPad now able to use this, how does Brooke know that such an update is not just around the corner, although none of Apple's notebook computers or desktops have even 3G, relying on Wi-Fi. A fat lot of good LTE will be in many countries of course, but US-based contributors do not often think outside the box; or even outside the city.

As to a touch screen, this is always going to be contentious. Steve Jobs commented on the point that Apple had tried touch technology on an iMac and the amount of strain on the arms made this an unrealistic investment. The screen of a notebook is similar and although it may be good to be able to advertise that the Pixel thing is up to date with the latest tech, is it usable in a real situation? He writes,

Then there's Apple's your-arm-wants-to-fall-off on vertical touch surfaces excuse. That will eventually give way to a touch-screen MacBook of some sort. You heard it here first.

Duly noted. I also note that Crothers made no comment about actually using the touch screen.

Critical of the concept and the price, is Nathan Edwards on The Wire Cutter, who writes that "it's so expensive that I can't think of a single person who should get one." He is also critical of the app ecosystem and adds, "Maybe someday Chrome OS will really be enough of an operating system to replace Mac OS X or Windows on a productivity machine."

Laugh of the week was another say-anything-as-long-as-it-disses-Apple article from Rob Enderle on TGDaily (Thai Gas?). With NVidia just announcing its new HQ in California, he concocted an item comparing this and the planned Apple mothership: he would rather work in the NVidia one, based (he admits) on a number of assumptions that may turn out not to be true. Which is even more fantastical than normal from Enderle.

Other Matters

One of the icons of the 20th Century came from a 30 minute TV program that started in the early 60s starring a famous old movie actor, William Hartnell: Doctor Who. The Doctor has gone through several regenerations, starting with the father of a high school classmate, Patrick Troughton, then radio and comedy actor, Jon Pertwee. Throughout the many series two things have been constant, the police box Tardis, and the reappearances of the Daleks.

Over the weekend the BBC reported that the man who created the Daleks, Ray Cusick had passed away. He was 84.

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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.