By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Apple Stuff

I note that in the article, Brian uses the now apparently compulsory modifier when mentioning the Maps App, "much-maligned" which is like the BBC's Maida Vale studios that some DJs cannot announce without the adjective, "legendary". True, but overdone.

There have been criticisms in many countries about the way some corporations appear to avoid paying taxes. It is often the politicians who make the most noise about this, but there is a stench of hypocrisy there as it is the politicians who are the law makers. If they write laws that allow corporations to move money about and thus avoid paying those (usually severe) taxes, then they have no one to blame but themselves. Trying to shift the blame back to the corporations is disingenuous.

It was no coincidence to find that once the US girded its loins and formed a committee to look into such avoidance, so other governments got their acts together and played the same games, often targeting the same companies, with Apple, Google, HP and others being the star turns and thus a chance for the politicians to make the headlines.

Now Mikey Campbell on AppleInsider reports that the investigation in the US is wrapping up and Apple was featured.

We are told that Apple deferred taxes on over $35.4 billion between 2009 and 2011, but the Feds still relieved Cupertino of $3.3 billion in 2011 and commenting on the current year, Apple released a statement saying, "In fiscal 2012 we paid $6 billion in federal corporate income taxes, which is 1 out of every 40 dollars in corporate income taxes collected by the U.S. government". That would seem to makle Apple a pretty high roller.

As Cupertino does most of its business overseas these days, and the penalty for moving large amounts of money back to the US is a 30% levy, it is not a surprise that Apple wants to keep the money there, rather than paying for a new aircraft carrier, although a new Nimitz class, USS Steve Jobs does have a certain ring to it. I know it is not smart to comment on what the former CEO of Apple would have done, but Steve would be horrified.

Thus far there has been no suggestion of relief on that foreign cash, were it to be repatriated, but Apple is in talks, and if these talks were to be successful, that would help a lot of other US companies and stimulate the US economy just a bit (as long as they don't really go for more military spending).

When Phil Schiller announced the Fusion Drive late last year and then we had a look at the innovative technologies behind it, I wanted one: good storage and fast disk access speeds; a great compromise. Initially, the disk type was limited to top of the range Mac mini and iMac models, but now AppleInsider report that it is to be an option on the 21.5" Mac, moving this much closer to the top of my list. In the Thai online store, this adds 8,200 baht to the 42,900 price for the basic 2.7 GHz 21.5" iMac. Remember also that ordering this online takes a week, while the iStudio stores take another 3 weeks to deliver.

Phil Schiller also announced the Lightning connector at the same product announcement and made much of the twin Thunderbolt and Lightning to some amusement. Steven Sande reports that the US Customs has seized some US$635,000 in counterfeit Lightning cables and adapters at Anchorage, Alaska, that came from China in boxes with fake Apple logos and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) trademarks, but the quality of the material the boxes were made from, was under par.

In slightly related news, Corning has announced new Thunderbolt optic cables that can be up to 30 metres in length: 10m (32.8 feet), 20m (65.6 feet), and 30m (98.4 feet). Electronista reports on this and mentions that Apple's standard (copper) Thunderbolt cables are currently 2 metres long.

A report late last week covered by Steve Sande on TUAW tells us that there was a drop of 6% in sales of MacBooks (I presume he means the MacBook Pro) over the Xmas period. Right at the end of the article, however, is the point that sales of Windows PCs dropped 11% for the same period and these had selling prices considerably lower than the respective Macs. I guess in a market where most are buying tablet devices and smartphones, sales of traditional computers will take a hit. Taking less of a hit with a more expensive product takes some doing.

Half and Half

Another week another patent troll, another lawsuit with the iPhone 5 and iPad mini in the frame this time. Patently Apple reports that a company (company? - patent troll) called Adaptix has filed against Apple for infringement concerning 4G technology, although in this case, the company did actually file the patent itself.

In another case, Patently Apple reports that a second lawsuit has been filed by Steelhead Licensing concerning a patent - Mobile Radio Handover Initiation Determination - that was originally owned by British Telecom. They sold the patent, knowing it would be used in this way. While Bell Labs developed the original technology for cell handovers (U.S. Patent 3,663,762), this lawsuit appears to be for LTE although I am not sure how the methods differ. I am sure the lawyers will explain.

Other Matters

Starting this week in Las Vegas, is International CES for 2013. There are expected to be some new product announcements and one of these is late Sunday (US time) when NVidia have a press conference, Shara Tibken reports. There will be a live commentary (too late now I know) and analysis. One thing expected is a processor for mobile devices.

However, Roger Cheng reports that the shine seems to be going off this show as many of the big names in wireless are not making any appearance this year, so maybe this one has run its course as well.

With Mobile World Congress running 25 - 28 February in Barcelona, perhaps some of the big names are waiting for that before making significant product announcements.

We do have at least one mobile phone maker; and we have . . . Lexus. Casey Newton writes about an announcement from LG expected to be about the new Optimus G2; and Paul Sloan reports that the company is to make an announcement at around 11pm (Pacific Time) expected to be about autonomous driving features. Several other companies are to make announcement - probably too late by the time you read this - including Fujifilm, Intel, Cisco and Ford. Roll on Madrid.

Local Items

I wrote back on Tuesday, "The new guide is not good enough. Not enough content. Cost-cutting. Not a proper service for all users."

No reply so far. There's customer service for you.

I had a fairly impolite email from someone who claims to read my web output from time to time and wondered what had happened to all those mail-order bride ads that had been on my site. Mail order what? All I see when I load my pages are ads for Condos, Art research tools, grammar checking software and Mac utilities.

And then the penny dropped. These are Google ads which use algorithms to ensure that those ads displayed are aimed at the user, as decided by the user's own web and search engine use.

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.