By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit:

Updates to iOS 6 and OS X

I had a look at iOS 6 fairly quickly and wrote a brief report that went online; and then I followed that with news of several updates. That was when things began to go wrong for me; and it was all my fault.

With all the apps to be transferred to the iPhone it took too long and I needed to get out of the door. I stopped the sync. iTunes crashed. Several apps had not been updated and although I tried to complete the process via the online store, the iPhone was not cooperating. The apps that were unaffected were OK, but those that were partway through, did not work.

Back home in the early evening, I started iTunes and began the sync again. Mercifully, although it began where it left off with GarageBand, the update went through -- albeit slowly -- and was followed by an equally slow iMovie. I guess these are just big and need time.

There has been some criticism over the new Maps app and I am half and half about this. Where I live, seems OK and the 3D display is better than I expected, although not up to what US users will experience. I found the search feature a mess. All the bookmarks, appeared to be useless. I do not use this much, but I can quite see how users who do would be put out by this. While the maps appear OK, satellite images once the view is of outside Bangkok gets quite poor.

The administration here are still looking for Reds under beds, now updated to terrorists, drug dealers, criminals (all of whom do quite well with assistance from corrupt forces, we see in the news) so the bogey of "security" is rolled out every time. At one time it was difficult to by maps with coordinates for some areas, which made touring less easy, but while map views like this have restrictions, GPS devices are openly available.

There were lots of complaints about the missing features, Erica Sadun reports on TUAW, but a look showed that some areas I know were better than the old Google maps, especially where I used to live that had a street missing that I knew had existed for over 15 years: the new maps have this. There are also floating labels that conveniently zoom out as the map is enlarged. There were also some comments on maps in Europe from Mike Butcher on Tech Crunch.

I later saw some useful information from Rene Ritchie on iMore who writes on "How to add a location or report a problem in iOS 6 Maps". A few screen shots showing some bad examples of maps in different countries, are shown on The Amazing iOS6 Maps (yes, looks like someone set up a website for this).

Apple are apparently aware (of course they are) and in an article on MacWorld by Lex Friedman, a spokeswoman says it will get better the more we use it. She said a lot more, but you can read that yourself and bet that Apple will be sliding in some fixes as time goes by: some English place names might help worldwide. AppleBitch (sometimes sharply critical) agrees that the Maps need improvement, but is prepared to cut some slack here as Apple is just getting going on this, while Google had years of data. OK, but they need to act pretty fast to cover some of the fallout: should Scott Forestall fall on his sword?

As well as Maps, some users were reporting Wi-Fi issues. Mikey Campbell writes on AppleInsider, "It appears the problem is rooted in how iOS 6 handles network verification. In order to test whether an accessible Wi-Fi connection is present, Safari is led to a special page, which apparently has gone down." I cannot report that I am having this problem.

One problem I did note was that I kept getting a report that the iPhone could not connect to the App Store, and then it would connect right after. I am not alone apparently and Dave Caolo on TUAW tells us that there may be a fix in setting the date a year ahead, then trying again; then resetting the date to Automatic.

Significant bugs are being reported by several users, we read in a report on iPodNN. As well as the Maps, wifi and the store (above), Passbook is causing problems for some and this seems to take the same fix that Dave Caolo reported (above)

As I looked at the iPhone during the day, I examined other parts, not the least of which was Siri's new ability to open apps. That is going to be useful when I can get Siri to understand me, although Mail and Twitter were OK, but she got a bit confused between Keynote and Remote.

Someone else who looked at the iOS update was Will Chadwick who compiled a useful list of new features that he had found. Richard Barrow wrote a Tweet Thursday morning on the new Thai keyboard which does appear to have smaller keys (more of them) than before. I am not sure how that will go down locally. One of the things Chadwick mentions is the new auto-dim feature. I found my phone was too dim and saw that the slider had moved almost all the way to the left. I soon put that right.

One of the iOS 6 changes was a fix for the SMS flaw that was shown to be a possible problem earlier, AppleInsider report.

In an email, Crossover, who make software that allows OS X users to run Windows applications without needing to install Windows, report that something in the 10.8.2 update now prevents certain applications from opening. While they are working on a fix, they suggest users who need applications that use 3D functions, do not upgrade.

And in another email, this time from Apple, I am offered the chance to buy an iPhone. This is not going to work as it is from the UK, but the thought was there.

Apple Stuff

The first one I saw was from Jim Dalrymple on the Loop and then they came thick and fast. To save me the trouble of writing them all out, Rene Ritchie of iMore has already done the job and he has links to the stories of M.G. Siegler of Tech Crunch, John Gruber (Daring Fireball), Tim Stevens of Engadget, Vincent NGuyen of SlashGear, Walt Mossberg, David Pogue, Ed Baig of USA Today, Scott Stein at CNET, Stuart Miles of Pocket Lint, Peter Nowak of CBC, Luke Peters (T3), Shane Richmond of The Telegraph, Patrick Gross of TechRadar and Mark Prigg (Daily Mail). Not me (unsurprising), not Macworld's Jason Snell (a surprise to me); and not The Register (snigger).

As a late note, Seeking Alpha are reporting that wait times for the iPhone 5 have slipped from 2-3 weeks, to 3-4 weeks in the online store.

On CNET, Brian Bennett and Jessica Dolcourt tried hard to write a comparison between the iPhone 5, Galaxy S3 and Lumia 920. It creaked as they had so much information missing so the vote for the iPhone 5 was not really validated. I think it should have won, of course, but then I am biased and they should not have been. A little better was Scott Stein who penned an item on 5 things that had surprised him about Apple's latest device: weight (rather light apparently); Maps, despite what others say; speed which was mainly about LTE so we can forget that for the next 20 years; Lightning and Thunderbolt are not compatible he says, but surely there are ways to connect the two; and lots of other incremental changes.

This week Apple closed for the first time at just over $700 MacNN reports, although it had crept up that way in after hours trading before. Late Thursday night here (and remember the iPhone goes on sale in a few hours officially) stock was down just below at $698.

As well as the iOS download there was that OS X update which could be found as a combo version on the Apple Downloads Pages. Oddly, the normal download was smaller than the combo, while the delta version I had was about half the size. I will grab the combo later. Also available were updates to 10.7.5 Lion, a Security Update for Snow Leopard and (never seen this before) a download of iOS 6.

I later saw on AppleInsider (Mikey Campbell) that there had been updates to Aperture and iPhoto, so I checked Software Update again. And again. In the end I downloaded the Aperture update (3.4) from the Downloads pages. We are told that among other things, it "Includes performance and stability improvements" which would be welcome. From the looks of the downloads pages, there are several other applications that have been updated, but are not appearing in the App Store when I use Software Update.

When I checked on the Aperture download, it failed the first time, and the second time was showing over 12 hours for completion. With all the releases on Thursday, I expect the Internet is feeling the strain. This is sort of confirmed by Darrell Etherington on Tech Crunch who reports that the update to iOS 6 has caused massive spikes in internet use, with the "total size of the combined updates . . . well over 2GB spread across all products."

I ended up quitting the Mac App Store and when I restarted, Aperture 3.4 was shown as waiting for me, as well as iPhoto 9.4: a total of 1.37 GB. That was a lot of downloading on Thursday. It was still slow, so I went to bed, but the system voice woke me up at 1:53. The download and installation were complete.

While the US case on the iBookstore seems to be moving forward, it is reported by Mikey Campbell on AppleInsider that Apple and publishers Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Hachette Livre and Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck, have all agreed to settle. Penguin has declined.

However, in the US, Apple seems to be going on the offensive against the DoJ and Laura Hazard Owen on PaidContent reports that it is to demand that the conversations the DoJ recorded in preparation, be handed over in what is called "Discovery" (finding out what the other side has). My source for this was MacDaily News. There was more on this in an item by Jeff Gamet on The MacObserver and it seems that, indeed, Amazon may well have been the driving force behind the DoJ investigation, but that now they have bene found out, they are fighting the handover of document in the case. Jeff has some interesting comments at the end.

There is an insecurity in Safari on the iPhone and it still exists in iOS 6 we are told by Kelly Hodgkins on TUAW. The exploit was discovered by some Dutch researchers: "it circumvented Apple's code-signing requirements and grabbed the entire address book, photo and video database and web browsing history." I guess we can expect a 6.0.1 update some time soon.

We mentioned on Wednesday the Microsoft patent that would enable users to Whack off a phone, well now Apple has a patent that allows a user to shake to charge. Mikey Campbell on AppleInsider reports that it uses induction, but it is the clever way lots of coils are put together that makes this innovative.

Half and Half

As we mentioned last week Motorola has asked the ITC to look at Apple's use of certain patents it says it owns, Kelly Hodgkins reports on TUAW. This could mean a ban against the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch in the US. Just as well that for Apple America is not its sole market: important as it is. Plenty of other customers outside waiting to get their hands on these.

With the iPhone 5 not yet officially out of the door for a few hours, Miyoung Kim on Reuters reports that Samsung is going to add the device to lawsuits it already has against Apple in some 10 countries. Samsung believes that it was the victim: that Apple copied Samsung and not the other way round.

However in a new patent case, Apple and Google are being sued by a company called Unwired Planet for use of patents regarding internet use. Ina Fried reports that this is part of Unwired's intent to change from mobile browser vendor to a company focused on its patent holdings: from a real company to a patent troll.

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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.