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By Graham K. Rogers
Opening Gambit:
Reduced orders for iPhone 5 screen: much more to that for those who waited and did not jump on headlines. iPads released in China. Mac sales up not down. New Thunderbolt display rumoured. It is Tim Cook's Apple now and the bloggers are going to hate that. More on the cheapo iPhone. Apple to invest in R&D and servers in China. Michael Dell to give the money back. Surface: flat sales. Integrity from Greg Sandoval at CNET over CBS editorial interference. Singapore consumers and pay-TV operators. Bangkok consumers and TrueVisions.
Apple Stuff
Shock, horror of the week was the news that Apple had reduced orders for certain parts that the iPhone 5 uses. Without stopping for a moment to think, as this might mean that someone else could beat them to the hits and advertising income, much of the blogosphere began to bray about this: the sky is falling, the sky is falling. . . .
Or maybe not.
Let's see, Eric Zeman on Information Week mentioned that the order of LCD panels had been cut by half from 65 million. Watch that number. As Tero Kuittinen writes on BGR, that is an odd cut and presumes a couple of things, like this was all for the iPhone 5 (noting that the iPod touch uses the same display) and then examines the figures.
With the expected sales of the iPhone 5 at around 30-40 million, that leaves 25 million screens spare. Throw in some of the screens for the iPod touch (as per above) and maybe a few for spares (people do break them) and the number is still a bit high. But then the WSJ removed that figure later, but none of the bloggers seem to have mentioned that. [My source for this link was MacDaily News.]
Also commenting on the problems with the report of the cuts was Rene Ritchie on iMore who smells a rat - some of this does not make sense to him - and is taking a wait and see attitude. Neil Hughes on AppleInsider is also circumspect and takes a look at some other analysts' comments who are not seeing dire consequences, with J.P. Morgan suggesting this is just "more noise". On the same track is Dan Moren of MacWorld who also thinks the Wall Street Journal has barked up the wrong tree (again) with this and also adds in the possibility that this is a preparation for an iPhone refresh.
After all the comments and dire predictions, we were reminded by UBS, via The Tell on MarketWatch, that this was actually old news: it was reported last month. [My source for this was MacDaily News.]
So why were so many making big news about it this week? They jumped too soon and didn't think it through like the commentators above.
However, on Thursday morning Apple had a press release with the information that "Wi-Fi + Cellular Models of iPad mini & Fourth Generation iPad Available in China This Friday". That will add some sales.
Not long ago we reported that Mac sales over Xmas had dropped 6% while PCs were down 11% which was slightly warming for Apple in what is widely thought to be a shrinking market, especially with the economy contracting (we are told) and the onslaught of iPads. Neil Hughes on AppleInsider has a slightly adjusted story about the numbers with new figures from Gartner that are at odds with the earlier IDC numbers. It now seems that in that contracting market, Apple sales have grown by 5.4%. We will of course find out the real levels of Macs that have been sold at the Q1 financial announcements in a few days; but both analysts agree that PC shipments are down. Note also that "Dell, which ranked third worldwide, saw its PC shipments tumble 20.9 percent in the holiday quarter." More on that below.
An interesting observation appeared a couple of days ago and was reported on many sites - including by Neil Hughes on AppleInsider - that the inventory of Thunderbolt displays had "dwindled". In Apple land this can mean a new product is on the way.
Everybody keeps writing about Tim Cook and wondering if he is going to make it; when he has far surpassed what was expected. They are not looking at where the puck is going but at where it was. As part of the Cook Apple, it is noted by some, like Jacqui Cheng on Ars Technica that Cook has dealt with the departures of four top executives. She examines these changes and what it means for the stamping of Cook's personality on Apple.
On this there is an interesting story that is somewhat anecdotal by Nick Bilton on meeting Tim Cook who talked to him seriously not about technology but about design. This is so deeply embedded at Apple.
I was a bit surprised by an article that Steven Sande produced on TUAW this week, when he wrote about a freelance journalist - Peter Falck - who is still using an iPhone 3G. I know a number of people here who still have these, and I even have one friend who uses his iPhone 2 all the time.
That cheap iPhone rumour will not lie down and Mikey Campbell on AppleInsider has information from sources that suggest it will be made of plastic and be partly see-through. He does refer to the source as "the sometimes reliable DigiTimes" although that also infers that it could be "the sometimes unreliable DigiTimes". Patently Apple had similar information although the source is not the same: a major Chinese website called Tencent Tech. However, the main thrust of the information seems identical; but this also adds the idea of new iPhones to replace the iPhone 5. This was added to on Wednesday morning by an AppleInsider reports that suggests a new iPhone will begin preliminary production in March for a June or July release.
Another rumour (perhaps with some more meat) is the idea reported on Patently Apple that Apple is to establish an R&D center in Beijing and moving some servers for online sales there too. This may not be a surprise after the meetings Tim Cook had last week and may be a way of oiling the wheels.
A while back Apple had problems with its warranties and AppleCare in Italy. Now, MacNN reports that Belgium is also going down the same road and is to sue Apple over the 2-year warranties.
Sometimes users have problems and call on friends or family to help. I have covered this before, and there are a number of online sources, but diagnosis and connecting remotely to a Mac can deal with such situations. It may not always be easy to do this, and Lex Friedman on MacWorld has some information on how this may be done and a couple of interesting stories.
Something else I have also mentioned in the past is the way to use zoom on a Mac. Topher Kessler has some zoom hints that apply specifically to Safari: useful
Other Matters
Many Apple regulars will have been rubbing their hands in glee this week with the news that Michael Dell may be buying back the shares and taking the company private after disastrous sales Serena Saitto and Jeffrey McCracken report on Bloomberg. We remember his comments when Apple was in its darkest days that "I'd shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders." Since then, the comment has come back to haunt him over and over again as Apple recovered then passed Dell and then became the largest company. To its credit, despite the reminders list it displays, MacDaily News did not gloat too much about this new position, despite earlier criticisms.
As well as lower sales of PCs over the last quarter, the Surface did not fare that well, despite the rousing comments of Microsoft mouthpieces: 1 million. Of course, for Microsoft, worldwide only means North America and they only include the rest of the world when calculating figures for piracy and lost sales of software. Now that they claim to be in the hardware business, they are up against some real competition, most notably the iPad which is what the Surface was designed to beat. Lance Whitney reports on these disappointing figures.
Lance is one of a number of writers who contribute to CNET, although we wonder how their credibility is going to suffer after the news that Greg Sandoval walked after reacting to CNET's actions concerning CBS interfering in CNet editorial decisions with the CES awards, we are told by Jim Dalrymple on The Loop, who writes, "At least there is one honest person at CNet - too bad he's gone."
Sandoval reported his resignation to the world via Twitter and the reaction was almost universally approving.
Local Items
There are apparently allegations that the website of the Ministry of Culture was hacked recently, we read on Richard Barrow's site. But he also asked was this a real hack or was someone selling links on the side? This would not be the first time that unusual activity on official servers has been seen. I had a look at the Ministry of University Affairs server once when a phishing link led me there. I found that there was an invisible directory at Root level that had a site within it, and all unsuspecting users were directed back to the Ukraine. Another site - of a school - had a naughty website installed at a low level (far below Root) and there were no internal links on the real site.
With perfect timing I saw an item on the Singapore, Straits Times this week with the headline, "Consumers at mercy of pay-TV operators" and just had to have a look, especially with recent opinions I have been developing concerning TrueVisions. The brief Singapore article makes for some interesting reading.
My examination of True and its ultra-thin TV guide took a new turn recently when a reader told me about the iOS version, and wrote about the problems he had. I could not resist, although in some ways wish I had. Sort of underwhelming: far too much data to handle, and overkill with registration. I did not have the same problems the reader had: I had a set all my own. I made some suitable comments and put the article online on Tuesday evening.
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.
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