By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

He is also critical of Tim Cook referring to this as a small sideshow. It is not and some of Pendolas's ideas tie in with those I aired last month in a series of articles:

• Why would Wall Street want Apple as a Broken Company (1): The Chicken in the Barrel
• Why would Wall Street want Apple as a Broken Company (2): Repeating Themes
• Why would Wall Street want Apple as a Broken Company (3): Apple under attack

I outlined some of the ridiculous attacks by Wall Street on Apple over the previous few months - dragging the shares down, when the figures were good - and suggested that the real reason was control. With the shares at a low enough price, it is easier to buy them; and with enough, control of the company is a possibility. As Pendola writes, "An external force coming in and dictating the terms of engagement to Apple management -- that's what matters" and he has a clear message for Cook who unlike Steve Jobs is never strident in public, wielding power quietly. Maybe this is a signal for change in more ways than one. [My link for the Rocco Pendola article was MacDaily News.]

There are some interesting comments on Apple from James Surowiecki on The New Yorker this week (4 March issue). He examines the weaknesses and the Eidhorn case as well as the way competitors have caught up (for now). He also mentions the Apple doomsayers.

He does think there are some problems, but that the fundametals are sound, including that cash: "bigger than the market cap of almost every company in the S. & P. 500" and in the end does not think that this sounds like a company whose stock deserves to trade at a price-to-earnings ratio well below the market average.

He concludes: "It's always been the proverbial bumblebee: it shouldn't be able to fly but it does. A wobble in flight is all it takes for people to proclaim its inevitable crash."

As a note, the shareholders meeting is Wednesday, but as Josh Lowensohn notes, the most controversial item is no longer on the agenda. There may well be some other questions raised, however.

On a late note that appeared overnight, following a Tweet from Duglas Kass (is this all it takes?) 9to5 Mac report that Apple shores rose sharply with the suggestion that the shareholders meeting could see a stock split announcement. There of course may be more to this Tweet than meets the eye.

With the massive populations in Asia (China, India, Indonesia especially), Apple has not gone all out for market dominance some complain. This should not actually be a surprise as most of the populations of those countries are not exactly wealthy, so the main handset market is bottom of the line. Apple can sell what it wants to the limited top end market. As part of a bigger move into the markets in India, Mike Schramm reports on TUAW that Apple has been "adding local distributors, making deals with retailers and providing a big marketing push" and with iPhone sales tripling in the last few years, Apple has slashed prices and implemented payment plans there.

The move sort of yanks the carpet out from under the feet of Om Malik who analyses the Indian market (rather well too) but complains about Apple's lack of a real push in that country. Malik also wants there to be an Apple store there and writes that "I even found the perfect location for the first Apple Store".

Good heavens, someone in the UK is actually buying Macs (my sister says no one buys Macs there). Indeed, Kevin Bostic on AppleInsider tells us that a lot of someones are buying Apple products and that the brand is rated number two in a survey of British business professionals. I presume that if they approve, they must be buying too.

As a note, there was much disappointment when the most recent Apple financial figures were released because of lower Mac sales than some analysts expected. They must have missed the announcement from Apple that warned of this because of iMac production difficulties. All that is behind us now and sales of Macs for January this year are up a significant 31% over last year Randy Nelson reports on TUAW. Citing the same report, it also seems that iPad sales rose around 2%.

Also expected top expand are sales of the iPad mini according to information on Patently Apple: DigiTimes is reporting . . . that LG is currently shipping 3.5 to 4 million iPad mini panels a month. This suggests that something like 65% of iPad shipments will be the iPad mini.

It is always worth taking note of the comments of Jean-Louis Gassée, even when he may be wrong. On one of his Monday Notes, he examines the file system of the iPad and the isolation of apps. It is not total as there is some file access these days when exporting or printing, for example, but he decries the lack of a system that allows users to visualise the organisation of files on the device.

Many users are quite happy with that and that does not make them any less sophisticated as users because of that. I like access to the Unix that OS X is above, but most users could not care less about this, with the idea of working at the command line totally alien to them. Gassée is putting forward the idea of a similar 2-tier system. There are apps that allow some limited access, but (he writes), ". . . success with any of these apps is limited and comes at a price". Is there not a lesson there?

He wants an "Easy mode for my Mother-In-Law, and the Pro Mode for engineers" which I suggest may open the doors to more than just file manipulation by technicians. Leave well alone. Ask yourself this (for those without jailbroken iOS devices) how many examples of malware or other attacks are there?

Apple the company that has stopped innovating and is doomed, was granted another bunch of patents this week according to Patently Apple, who tell us that of the 34 newly granted patents including two covering Multi-Touch input discrimination and user interface gestures that relate to all iOS input gesturing. In another posting, Patently Apple examine two more patents: for the mechanics behind Apple's fifth generation iPod nano; and a unique security latch for a possible future MacBook Pro that will include a pivotal and detachable camera.

And while we are on patents, AppleInsider reports that SmartPhone is suing Apple for the second time in 15 months. "SmartPhone is alleging that Apple's complete line-up of iPhones and iPads, including the new iPad mini infringe upon their patents. Because these devices run on the AT&T network, SmartPhone adds AT&T to the lawsuit." And what a surprise: East Texas again. "

If I can I like to link to articles that have hints and tips for Mac users. This time there is an item by Joe Kissell on MacWorld who examines the question of what to do when a Mac cannot get an internet connection. He starts with the simplest - another site or application (I go for the Apple site: if I cannot link to that, something is wrong in Internet land) and works through the router and DNS settings.

Some users have problems with the eXtensions site when they use Google DNS. The IP number work fine and other DNS settings are OK. Mind you, when I suggest they change the DNS server, there is a moment's silence: don't want to mess with that in case it upsets something; which is sort of contradictory as it is not working for some sites.

One interesting idea from Joe Kissell was to "nudge" the router, by trying making sure the wifi link is correct and turning wifi off and on. Trying to link to another visible network as a temporary measure, then switching back again immediately is also worth a try.

We read in an item by Dan Goodin on Ars Technica that Adobe has released another security update for Flash this week: the third this month.

But there is still no sign of the next update to OS X - 10.8.3.

Half and Half

Other Matters

To add to what I think is a bad joke, Luke Westaway had a report at the weekend on the new Asus Fonepad. That's right Padphone and Fonepad: let's see if Samsung copies these. Seriously, Westaway seems enthusiastic about this 7" phone and can't wait for it to arrive in the USA. I have a colleague who uses one of the Samsung large screen phone things and I snigger every time he makes a call on it.

We sort of regret the death of Palm and the WebOS when HP decided to have a reorganisation that was so good that the CEO was dumped. None of the decisions were reversed however and HP was out of the tablet business, despite having one of the nicest solutions around. Not so fast.

Having dumped its own answer to the iPad, it now has another answer in a 7" tablet that costs $169 and runs Android, AppleInsider reports. The HP Slate 7 was announced at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain and will be powered by a 1.6-gigahertz ARM dual-core Cortex-A9 chip.

As if to add insult to injury, in a move that must have produced much forehead slapping, HP has also sold its WebOS to LG and they are to use it to power smart HDTV sets, AppleInsider tells us. LG say it will offer an intuitive user experience and Internet services: perfect for a tablet computer, wouldn't you think?

In a previous existence I was a graduate student in the USA where I was introduced to some fine US literature, including the works of Thomas Pynchon. I must admit that after reading all of the early novels I tailed off with Mason & Dixon and did not finish that. Nor have I seen the books that followed (Against the Day, Inherent Vice). However, now is my chance to catch up as Dan Farber reports on the next work, The Bleeding Edge: "the book is set in 2001 in New York's Silicon Alley and deals with the "lull between the collapse of the dot-com boom and the terrible events of September 11." (As a note this is already in the Wikipedia entry for Pynchon.)

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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.