By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

As for using the factories in China (and other countries), that has been put forward recently as the cause of job losses at many US companies in one article -- the links being tenuous at best with some and despite many of those being named also making good use of manufacturing in China. The same has occurred with its green credentials; again something that other companies deal with, but Apple is the negative poster boy every time. My view is that the focus is because of Apple's massive profits and its cash reserves: everyone wants a share. This what I tend to call the Chicken in the Barrel syndrome: as soon as one gets near the top, the others pull it down.

Following on from the recent Greenpeace attempts to embarrass Apple with the type of power that it may use at its data centers for Cloud operations (and note that this weekend Japan closed its last nuclear plant), another group chained itself to train tracks and put an Apple logo over a coal truck MacNN reports. Not that anyone really knows how much power will come from fossil fuel or how much from other (green) sources are to be used at Apple's new center, but it looks good, eh? And do none of the others -- Dell, Microsoft, Google, HP, GM, Ford, et al -- use electricity that comes from the grid: anyone protesting them? Of course not.

Also a bit miffed with output of those who can do little little but put out negative comments on Apple is John Martellaro who focuses on the bloggers who take it out on Tim Cook. Take what out? The man has made it to the head of the largest company in the world, made some great deals on the way, and is heading the company in such a way that is impressing an awful lot of people. But not those who seem to blame him most of all for not being Steve Jobs, and therefore Apple must collapse.

The logic fails somewhere I am afraid, but this makes for good hits. Martellaro takes these faux-commentators to task and outlines some of the more impressive achievements of Apple's CEO and on the way references Woody from Phuket for his amazement at the way Cook managed to get Oracle to take over Java updating, something that Steve Jobs did not manage. As a related note, Topher Kessler has some useful information on the Java updates and how this will work.

We have heard this sort of thing before, and note that market share is not everything: Apple is in the iPad business for the long term. AppleInsider reports that a market research firm is predicting that the iPad will only have 50% of the market in 2017, which is a long time, and who knows what the market itself will be then? Android and Windows tablets are supposed to be the ones to do the damage. I would wait until the end of some court cases before making long-term predictions.

While I have the new iPad (anyone want to buy a 32GB iPad 2?) Apple is continuing with the previous device at a slightly lower price. However, they have also changed the specifications for the better we read on a couple of sites this weekend. Josh Ong on AppleInsider had some news concerning the new version of the A5 processor which leads to battery improvements. Simon Sage on iMore also had some similar information while his article included a comparison chart between the current iPad 2 and the previous version as well as the latest iPad which has less battery life when it comes to video playback. Even the Register was positive about Apple, with Tony Smith writing about the iPad2's new processor and the better battery life adding that this iPad 2 is a wifi only device.

Electronista outlines a report from a source I had never heard of, Chitkla. They surveyed advertising data and came up with the fact that the iPad has the "highest portion of web-use share over any other tablet" with a figure of 94%, although the figures are slightly lower (by around 10%) outside the US.

There was a major panic at the start of the weekend over the possible early release (a surprise of course) of the iPhone 5. Don't get excited, this was all a mistake. It started when there were reports that Walmart had reduced the prices of the iPhone 4S. I saw it on a number of sites, but the article by Steven Sande was updated later to show that the initial report -- which many thought was a precursor to a new model -- was a pricing error.

On Friday we reported that the man who invented Liquid Metal had been quoted as saying Apple was years away from being able to develop a device that used the super-alloy. MacDaily News, citing online sources, tells us that Atakan Peker actually hadn't worked for the company for a few years and would probably not really be in a position to confirm such things. Rumours, on the other hand, are much more fun.

Last year there was a considerable amount of noise about location services that Apple and others had in their mobile phones. These are actually useful if you make proper use of them, and Apple's were predictive as I showed by use of software on the Mac that pulled up a map of places I might go in the north of Thailand when I was not actually within 50 Kms of some of the antennas. If I had gone to these locations, the data was ready.

Nonetheless, with the outcry, Apple made some changes, but there are always people who want to sue, with the best possible intentions of course (like the guy we wrote about last week who is suing Apple for $5 million because of a couple of iTunes store charges). We are told by AppleInsider that a case is ongoing in California (where else?) and the judge (Lucy Koh, who is involved in other Apple cases) has ruled that Apple must proceed despite their being no demonstrated injury.

When Apple things go wrong (like the Location services) or there are problems with the devices, the press is full of the problem, with the name "Apple" prominently displayed. When things go right, there is little in the press. When things are proved wrong there is also little. Last year for example, an iPhone started smoking on an Australian plane and of course everyone pointed fingers in the direction of Cupertino. Was it the battery, was it badly made was the iPhone itself badly designed? None of the above.

The cause was investigated by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, Luke Hopewell reports on ZDNet, and they found a loose screw that had not been properly reinserted during an unauthorised repair [my italics]: a screen replacement. While a couple of IT sources had this as well as the Apple-centric sites, where was the mainstream press? Looking in the other direction for hits I expect. My source for this was the ever-useful MacDaily News.

Actually something did go wrong with the last update (10.7.3) we are told by Topher Kessler. A change to FileVault means that passwords may be accessible to some. I guess there may be a change in the update to 10.7.4 coming soon, or (because of its seriousness for those who use FileVault) there could be a Security Update released in the interim. Nothing in Software Update this morning.

A small change to my iTunes app store use came last week. Or at least, I actually noticed it last week when after a couple of days downloading updates, I suddenly realised I had not been asked for a password. I was asked when I downloaded a new app, but not updates for those I already had. There had been some comments about Apple asking questions concerning heightened security and maybe this is one of the results.

A hint that is more of a setup process from OS X Daily who write about how to use an iPhone for remote access to a Mac running a security camera. Needs some hard work and I am saving this for when I have a spare couple of hours.

A report by Erik Silva on MacRumors tells readers that, although we do not know the name of the next iPhone for sure, Apple is after the iPhone5.com domain name. There is a discussion group that owns it now but Apple may think it has some claim to the name. As the group seems genuinely to have been using it as a forum, Apple may have a difficult time unless the group comes round.

Half and Half

That great hope of beating the Apple iPad was how so many sites reported the arrival of the Amazon Kindle a few months ago. Now, John Paczkowski reports on All Things Digital that even though Amazon are still saying this is the biggest, brightest, best, etc. (with no actual sales numbers to back this up) those who have access to real figures are reporting that sales have sort of dropped off a cliff. Backing this up is Electronista who say the figure is less than 750,000 Kindle things shipped in the last quarter against the 11.8 million iPads.

Other Matters

There is far more to this that meets the eye as the former head of the anti-virus company is in the country using his fortune for good purposes and the problems began for him when he declined to make a donation to Belize's ruling United Democratic Party. Jamillah Knowles on TNW fills in a lot of the background, with a lot of comments from McAfee's own statement to a local TV station. More to this than meets the eye and there is a ring of truth about the idea of dealing with certain politicians outside the West.

Google have some problems at the moment with the jury out all weekend on the case it has with Oracle, while the FTC is going to impose a fine of more than $10 million for the way Google breached Safari security, we are told by Electronista. They did this apparently with not a care in the world: the data is there, we want the data, which seems to be typical of Google's cavalier attitude. They seem to do this and reinterpret facts to suit them. Foss Patents has a bit more on the Oracle case and the way Google wanted to use "fair use" with Java, when the APIs it was highjacking are software and part of copyright.

Nokia is being sued by one of its shareholders, we read in an item by Zach Epstein on BGR, because despite the promises that Windows Phone would stop the slide in the company's share in the global market (and presumably the shares in the company too), the death of Symbian has done no such thing and the latest Lumia thing was not perfect so customers were given a $100 discount. The article ends with a statement from Nokia. They believe it is without merit. Junk shares and all.

The CEO of Seagate has joined the board of Microsoft Chris Mellor reports on The Register.

Something that appealed to me on a couple of levels was the idea of testing spaceship parts using a Triumph motorcycle. Adi Robertson reports on The Verge about how the similarity of the engine to certain features of the pumps on the spaceship saved a lot of money in testing. And they did it on Route 66 near Roswell.

I read a Tweet sometime over the weekend from someone who already has his Raspberry Pi on the way which suggests that more orders are being filled: fingers crossed here.

Local Items

Over the weekend there was a major chemical accident at Map Ta Phut in Rayong. Several were killed and injured. Only a couple of years ago, the local population got the authorities to stop further development, but then interest groups put pressure on and bit by bit the protection was eroded. The projects that had been put on hold were allowed to carry on by the courts in 2010. And now this. Coincidental, I am sure, but no less unfortunate.

Then on Sunday evening there were reports of a second accident: a chemical leak. Never mind, the people who make the money will still keep their Benzes, wear their designer clothes and shop in the most exclusive stores. They will also pressure the government against the 300 baht a day minimum wage because they will (they say) be unable to operate profitably. Chemical fires, disco fires, refinery fires, minibus accidents, building violations, sex, drugs . . . life goes on as normal in the Land of Smiles.

Now, even if they don't actually come right out and say it, someone will probably be thinking, "If you don't like it, leave". All well and good, but my Thai friends and my students cannot leave. And this is not just a problem here. Most countries have the same (or similar) problems.

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.