eXtensions - Friday 30 August 2024
By Graham K. Rogers
Apple has announced a "Glowtime" event for Monday 9 September: iPhones and maybe more are expected. Other devices could be an anniversary Watch, M4 Macs and a new iPad mini. After the iPhones, iOS, iPadOS and macOS will arrive. A new French drama series about fashion will be arriving on Apple TV: La Maison. As had been expected for a while, Luca Maestri, Apple CFO is to step down. Some app problems and a welcome return of an old Apple favorite, albeit by a new developer.
Some local news first, about one of the many international companies (Nikon, Toyota, Huawei, Delta Electronics and hundreds more) that make their products here. Anton Shilov, in Tom's Hardware reports that "the Board of Investment (BOI) of the Kingdom of Thailand has approved Western Digital's plan to expand its hard disk drive production facility in the country" adding that "this will be the first significant expansion of its HDD production capacity in years". The investment will be in two locations: Ayutthaya which already has considerable industrial investments, with good road links to the capital and airports; and Prachinburi, which is less well-linked currently.
Let us also hope the high water levels in the Chao Phraya do not lead to flooding in the Central plains. The article discusses the strategic implications for WD which is "splitting the company into a maker of HDDs and a producer of NAND flash and SSDs." The article also notes that with Seagate also manufacturing disks here, Thailand accounts for 80% of global hard drive production.
Also local, it is good to see that Somkiat Chantra who has raced in Moto2 for a few years has been recruited by the IDEMITSU Honda LCR team: MotoGP. He was of course delighted to receive the offer. Many fans were also happy to see this advance. With the first race of next season in Buri Ram, where he often tries hard for the fans (all racers want to win their own country's race), he should treat this as a learning session. Keep it all under control and learn the new bike first.
In the MotoGP Press Conference at Aragon, Somkiat was suitably modest and recognised that he will be learning, particularly from Aleix Espargaro who was also there, and outlined some potential strategies at pre-season testing in Malaysia.
I had seen no official announcement, but on Instagram Friday morning (30 Aug) one of the postings was from Harman (the parent company of Ilford Films) who had recently surprised the photographic world with its Phoenix color film (Harman not Ilford branded). I tried a couple of the 35mm rolls but prefer working in 120 (medium format).
The posting was little more than the instantly recognizable Phoenix label, with words, in a font that looks like handwriting: "Sometimes Size Matters". Like many in the Comments, I speculate that this may be the arrival of a 120 version of this new film, although some were equally hopeful that we could see 4x5 or 8x10, with a few comments on 110.
From Sunday through Monday, there were several rumors published and all agreed with Mark Gurman that the iPhone 16 announcement would be on 10 September. Apple disagrees with Mark Gurman's rumor that was slavishly followed, and have announced that the event will be on 9 September. The first report of this unusual Monday event that I saw came from Chance Miller (9to5 Mac) and shows a time of 23:01 (26 Aug).
Apple has as subtitle: It's Glowtime. I expect all the experts will be trying to parse that in the next few days. Macworld's Michael Simon notes that Monday is an "incredibly rare day for any Apple event but especially an iPhone event." Except for the first one of course which I attended on a bitterly cold January day at the Moscone Center. Now Apple is breaking the mold again. 9 September is also the 10th Anniversary of the Apple Watch announcement, so can we hope there is something horologically special on Monday? The rest of the article is flaccid speculation on what Apple could mean by the logo and the words.
No doubt the iPhone will be announced, but with the end of the year coming and 3 months (May) since the M4 iPad Pro was announced, it could be that other products, particularly M4 Macs will be announced too (Connor Jewiss, iMore). With the video format Apple uses these days for these events, this could just as well be put out in another announcement a day or a week later. Only Apple knows. One rumor connected with the Macs suggests that (finally) Apple will increase RAM to be a standard 16GB RAM (Rajesh Pandey, Cult of Mac). As this was my norm anyway, that could save me some cash which would go towards larger storage: 512GB is a bit thin.
I would normally dismiss this next idea, but there is another factual point that some people miss: sales and availability. When more 3rd party outlets offer devices at reduced prices, that often means a new device is on the way. When shortages of the same device are reported, that may also indicate a new one on the way. It looks as if the iPad mini meets both of those parameters and Juli Clover (MacRumors) like others (and me) thinks that there is a possibility that this will be on the menu Monday evening; or some time in the near future. Note too that M3 Macs are being sold at reduced prices in some areas.
However, Filipe Espósito (9 to 5 Mac) thinks that Macs are less likely to be announced on Monday. He makes some good points. Only Apple knows. Espósito does, however, suggest new AirPods could be in the mix as these are more closely related to the iPhone. The iPad mini is also not in his sights this week. Later several commentators, including Malcolm Owen (AppleInsider) reported that production of M4 MacBook Pro computers had been ramped up, "indicating M4 Pro and Max MacBook Pro upgrades are being prepared for a fall release." There is only a brief footnote about the iMac and the Mac mini, which had earlier been mentioned as a favorite for an update. The Mac Studio and Mac Pro are more likely to be updated next year.
The time of the event is shown as 10am Cupertino time and Miller has provided a brief, but helpful list of the time in other countries. Thailand is not listed, but my World Clock shows me this will be midnight, so I will pick up the news on Tuesday morning and view the video later that day.
Once the iPhones have been announced, there will be releases of iOS and iPadOS in time for the appearance of the new devices. Some sources also report that macOS will be released at the same time. This usually comes a little later, but with the AI components, it may be proper for these all to arrive at the same time to avoid conflicts. One feature that is expected to appear in Photos is a new object removal tool: Clean Up (Ivan Mehta, TechCrunch). It is not clear if this is in addition to, or replaces the current Retouch tool in Photos. I am already unsure about the ethics of the current Retouch tool in Photos as it uses some intelligent processing to make the repair. Would Clean Up - that does use AI - cross the line?
Several sources who are already running the beta versions of the next releases are happy with the new features. Jason Snell compared the versions that users in the EU will be able to use, with those that will be released for the rest of us. He thinks that it is a better world and that the users have more freedom, particularly with the alternative app downloads (side-loading). John Voorhees (MacStories) comments on Snell's views and in general agrees with what he writes. Rather than users in the EU being jealous when new features available outside Europe (such as AI, due to potential legal restrictions), Snell feels that those outside the EU will be envious of the new freedom. Be careful what you wish for.
Apple has announced a new French series, La Maison, about a fashion house (in Paris of course). MacDaily News carries a trailer. The lead actor is Lambert Wilson, whom some may remember as the Merovingian in Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions. I saw him recently in Mrs Harris goes to Paris on Netflix, where he plays an aging nobleman somewhat taken by Mrs Harris (Lesley Manville), who is a working class cleaner in London determined to buy a dress from Dior.
Manville is an actress with a pedigree although I thought this stretched her a bit as she channelled her inner Kathleen Harrison. That was perhaps as much a problem with the script: working class dialogue is so difficult - Shaw, Pygmalion; My Fair Lady. Wilson was relaxed and comfortable in his role as a member of the gentry. La Maison is no "Emily in Paris".
Also on AppleTV+ I am enjoying Bad Monkey, which I initially avoided: another American series; set in Florida which normally means rich people; and a funny title. I gave it a try and balked initially at the slow drawl of the narrator, which eventually grew on me. It quickly caught me, perhaps when the tourist hooked an arm; or when the hero who lost his job as detective (Vince Vaughn) was so obviously anti-hero; with the other anti-hero (Ronald Peet) working at about the same level of energy and both fated to collide; or at the end of the 3rd episode when there was an unusual and unexpected twist. . . . This is a good one. The locations and filming are good, while the script has some lovely side comments and giveaways.
Also just arrived is Kaos on Netflix, with Jeff Goldblum playing Zeus in a modern rendition that looks at the mythology of the gods of Olympus. I caught mention of this in a Guardian review by Lucy Mangan who outlined this so well I had a look at Netflix immediately. It arrived Thursday evening (29 Aug). The series is narrated by Prometheus (Stephen Dillane) - the one who has his liver pecked out every day, which regrows each night. Mangan calls it "an absolute triumph". I have seen only the first 2 episodes, but I would tend to agree.
The same day as the Glowtime event was announced Apple also put out a press release revealing that Luca Maestri is to "transition" from his role as Chief Financial Officer. This has been rumored for some time, with some suggestions that he could take up a position closer to Italy. Back in February 2022, Nestlé posted that it had proposed Maestri for a position on its board, that was later confirmed.
Maestri's position at Apple will be taken up by Kevan Parekh, Apple's Vice President of Financial Planning and Analysis. Maestri will continue to lead the Corporate Services teams. Ben Lovejoy (9to5 Mac) thinks that this looks like how Apple eased the transition when Jony Ive left Apple, with a token title, in this case the Corporate Services teams position.
Last week I wrote about a cleanup of older apps after using the Apparency app. It showed data of apps that are no longer signed by Apple and potentially less safe. I overstepped the mark deleting a couple, while others revealed problems with updating: the current version was unsigned, but there had been no information concerning updates from the developer. BBEdit, VueScan and others nag me as soon as an updated version is available. I am still waiting for a reply from one developer whose payments page does not include Thailand, so I am unable to use the credit card.
Another app was Feeder, now on version 4. I had V3. It was working fine creating and uploading the RSS feed to the web. However, Apparency showed it was no longer signed and there had been no information about any update. Feeder 4 was 1990 baht on the App Store, but the developer site allowed me to update for $25 if the older version of the app was installed. Rather than try and find a download of the out-of-date app, I connected Time Machine disks. Backups are shown for several days, but data for the day accessed may not be on the particular disk even if the app is shown. Eventually, after a number of tries I was able to recover the app, which worked perfectly (including accessing the relevant data). Once I downloaded Version 4 of the app, we were back in business.
For a long time on my Macs I used the Network Utility, which was pretty much a series of UNIX commands wrapped in a graphical interface (ping, lookup, traceroute, finger, et al). That disappeared in Big Sur with Apple telling users to use the command line. That does not work for all users. You usually only see this nowadays with old guys or in movies.
UNIX commands can be somewhat complex especially if options are included and most users these days have never worked at the command line. I would also sometimes use the utility to show students about networking in an ethics class; and when suspect phishing mail arrived, it was invaluable for checking sources.
Adam Engst (TidBits) reports that DEVONTechnologies has resurrected the utility and added a couple of other tools, such as Speed (which shows why I prefer working at home rather than at the office). There is a link in the article for the DEVON site and the download. Another link on the TidBits page accesses an earlier article (7 Aug) that has more details.
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. After 3 years writing a column in the Life supplement, he is now no longer associated with the Bangkok Post. He can be followed on X (@extensions_th). The RSS feed for the articles is http://www.extensions.in.th/ext_link.xml - copy and paste into your feed reader.
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