By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit

Apple App Store Contradictions

This week an apparently-explicit comic by Brian K. Vaughan was not made available on the app store and everyone jumped because it was presumed that explicit images were the cause and Apple had been censoring. As Dan Moren (and others now) notes, this had not been a problem before with the same author; and the same content was apparently available on the iBookstore (not here of course). But what had really happened is that Comixology had decided that the content might cause a problem, so had stopped the release in case.

Apple does not like porn. And there are plenty of other places to find it if one is so inclined, I am told, but in context, some is permissible: take for example the works of Caravaggio or Goya and a number of famous advertisements.

The CEO of Comxology put his hands up to the withdrawal and said that the company was trying to respect Apple's policies for apps; and that the intepretation they put on the work was mistaken.

In his report and analysis of this, Dan Moren is OK until he gets to the part where he writes, "Given Apple's history of filtering content on the App Store, it's not surprising that the natural inclination was to assume that the company was responsible in this scenario as well." Right, it is not surprising with the current flock of blog writers who are more interested in hits than facts. Moren turns this into a diatribe against Apple's selection and review process.

A further report on the ways Apple may need to change its review processes, following some app rejections and removals comes from Jacqui Cheng on Ars Technica. The item brings in a good amount of background concerning the rules about apps for developers when focussing on a popular app that was removed: AppGratis. According to the information here, the app may well have breached a couple of Apple's rules concerning the point that "that apps cannot display other apps 'for purchase or promotion in a manner similar to or confusing with the App Store.'"

The developer says he had tried to work with "contacts at the App Store" which sounds dubious to me - the sort of thing that may happen in some Asian countries - and having had it approved, it was then withdrawn. It is not good publicity for Apple of course, but it may be that we do not have all the information, especally that bit about "contacts at the App Store".

The article does have a sound argument concerning the way this sort of action could be better carried out, then has the article spoiled by bringing in the Comixology conflict; but then has to correct that, diluting her original argument.

Also writing on the AppGratis removal - but not on Comixology - is John Paczkowski on All Things Digital, who suggests this is the start of a larger cleanout of the app store. One of the reasons is that these in-app store fronts may "threaten the legitimacy of the App Store charts by providing a way for developers to spend their way to a high ranking". At least that is Apple's feeling apparently; but there may be some other reasons. John Paczkowski does suggest that Apple is being "unclear and scattershot in . . . actual enforcement".

There were some good points made by all three articles, but while the ones by John Paczkowski and Jacqui Cheng examined the opposite sides of these conficts in a balanced way, Dan Moren seemed more interested in scoring points.

Of course as AppGratis is a French app, dignity is affected and the digital industry minister, Fleur Pellerin, has a number of strong words for Apple and its "Unilateral decisions", Charles Cooper writes. She should check the rules

Other Apple Stuff

I have looked a great deal at what I believe may be stock manipulation, or at least a trend - like chickens in a barrel - that once someone starts tugging at Apple, the rest join in. This is perhaps defined a little better by Mal Spooner from Money whose theories are explained by Chris Umiastowski on iMore, but who disagrees with how Spooner explains the idea of "swarming". As well as disagreeing, there is one of the clearest explanations of short selling (and long selling), which I certainly found useful. Chris Umiastowski takes the view, like I do, that this may begin with some collaboration - an intent to bring the price down - but the fire is stoked by the media (desperate for hits).

This week there was a report that sales at Foxconn had dropped by some 19% (bear in mind, Foxconn and others have been recruiting). Ben Lovejoy reports on 9to5 Mac on an analysts theory that this fall is due to lower iPhone orders, but as Lovejoy adds, Foxconn is a supplier for several other companies. Actually, those include Microsoft, Dell, Samsung and a number of others, many of whom are involved in the shrinking PC industry (see below).

Also carrying this information was an item by Neil Hughes on AppleInsider who includes some more details about Foxconn's figures, but also the same analyst's comments on iPhone implications.

Slightly related - at least as regards manufacturing - is the suggestion that, with the forthcoming A7 processor that should find its way into iOS devices sometime, Samsung will no longer be the manufacturer, Ben Lovejoy reports on 9to5 Mac. This originally came from the Korea Times, but it is something I have hoped for, for a long time. Developing its own processor allows Apple to bake in certain coding that no other manufacturer could have; but if Samsung makes the processor, they can see it, even if the fabricating side is supposedly the other side of a wall from the handset business. However, regarding the source, Lovejoy does add that the Times, "regularly claims that Apple is abandoning Samsung as a supplier, and is regularly wrong."

Also reporting on this is Sam Oliver on AppleInsider who has some other interesting info-graphics and the news that Samsung will be picking up some of the slack with NVidia. There is another report from Brooke Crothers who also mentions that the A6 chip that Samsung makes will run its course there.

A rumour that appeared in a few sources on Friday morning, including AppleBitch, was that there are "challenges surrounding the construction and manufacturing of the new iPhone 5S and the second generation iPad mini" and that this could see these products (for which we did not have a release data anyway, apart from those provided by knowing pundits) delayed. The source for this was an analyst. So this is an analyst trying to trump other analysts?

If this rumour is true, then the iPhone release would have the same 12 month product cycle as it has in the past, so all that speculation was just so much hot air: generation of hits.

While we are on manufacturing and design, Apple listed a job for a Senior Optical Engineer recently, which caused all manner of speculation about curved screens and future iPhones or iWatches. Jordan Kahn reports on the possibilities, but has to use a screenshot as Apple removed the advertisement. This is worth reading as the requirements do indeed suggest some interesting display technology is at least being examined at Cupertino. Also commenting on this, but more on the pulling of the ad, is Electronista who have little more than the Jordan Kahn

How dare they? Just after Apple relesed new connectors for the iOS devices, Mikey Campbell reports that Cupertino is working on a new system that uses fiber optics. They have a patent for a system that can transfer both electrical and optical signals through fiber optic cables. There is one ray of sunshine, this may be backwards compatible which will save those who do not want lightning fast speeds a little money.

We have been hearing about the new update to OS X which is with developers now. The latest build has some interesting coding inside we are told by Lance Whitney among others, concerning support for the wifi standard of 802.11ac. It is speculated that this could mean Macs on the way that would support this new and faster IEEE standard. The idea that such Macs could be developed is not new and we examined the idea some months ago when the standard itself was being confirmed in the IEEE process; but with the new information about OS X, this does have a new life.

Last time we wondered about the new availability of Ron Johnson: out at JCPenney, analysts wondered if he would be invited back to Apple to resume duties as head of retail. There were a number of speculations about this, but we are told by MacDaily News, who link to the original video on Bloomberg, that former (and failed) Apple CEO John Sculley says that "If I Were Samsung, I Would Tap Ron Johnson". Of course that does not admit the idea that Johnson might say No. Sculley suggests that he would be a good CEO for the Samsung store in store concept which was appearing in JCPenney; so he would be working with and against his former company in a concept that by definition has a smaller importance; I don't think this would work at all. And nor does MacDaily News who lay into Sculley rather well, even bringing Ballmer into the mix.

Also related to the Johnson exit from JCP, news from James Covert on the NewYork Post tells us that three other former Apple employees have also resigned: "Chief Operating Officer Mike Kramer, Chief Talent Officer Daniel Walker and Chief Creative Officer Mike Fisher kicked off an exodus of high-profile Johnson hires that is expected to continue in the wake of his ouster." [My link for this item was MacDaily News.]

The latest version of SimCity that had a bad press a couple of weeks ago as it needs a permanent connection to the Internet, will be released in a completely new OS X version at the beginning of June, Jordan Kahn writes on 9to5 Mac. He notes that if you buy the PC version now, the Mac version will be free. However, it is implied that the Mac SimCity will still need Internt on access, so this will not be coming onto my computer.

As a related note, the next Xbox may also require an always-on connection and Lance Whitney reports that a Microsoft exec, Adam Orth, who thinks this is a good idea is apparently no longer with the company after a series of Tweets. It is not clear if he jumped or if he was pushed. After the Tweets, "Microsoft issued a public apology". Imagine the kiddies (or the dads) trying to play with the Xbox in deepest Yasothon or, come to that, some parts of Bangkok when the internet is having one of its off-days here.

Half and Half

IDC estimates that sales of PCs have fallen by 14% which is more than had been expected (particularly with the release of Windows 8 - what does that suggest?). That figure is apparently an 18.3% drop compared to Q4 2012. Not just falling, but really falling. But wait, Apple shipments dropped, but less: 7.5%, some of which may be due to the iPad stealing sales (Tim Cook does not care - money in the bank, is money in the bank). On top of that, Number 1 (Apple is Number 3) HP suffered 23.7 percent negative growth year over year due to internal restructuring. How does internal restructuring affect sales of PCs on the street?

Now this is where it may get interesting as while Gartner agrees more or less on PC shipments overall, while IDG saw negative growth, Gartner saw 7.4% (positive) growth with remarkably different figures of 1.65 million Macs for the quarter compared to 1.533 million that IDG reports. Other placings are the same (HP is still at 2 for Gartner) but all figures differ.

Don't you just love the accuracy of analysts?

Following that, it is also reported by Ben Lovejoy on 9to5 Mac that Morgan Stanley's Katy Huberty has been adjusting the estimates for the current quarter: some down, some (like iPads) up. She also thinks the iWallet ideas has some legs.

Keeping up to date as ever (this is irony, dears) is Microsoft who - we are told in an item on AppleInsider - have a product roadmap for Office which claims that Office for the iPad is scheduled to debut in late 2014. That will be an amazingly speedy rollout of such a product for a device that will have been released for 4 years by then (7 if it works on the iPhone as well). The report which originally came from Mary Jo Foley, suggests a new Office for the Mac at that time too, although she had earlier predicted 2013 for the iOS Office launch.

Time to roll out my "No one needs this bloatware" lesson again. I do all my writing with text editors and if anything does need formatting, Apple's TextEdit and sometimes Pages will be used. Certainly those just writing letters home and the occasional report do not need this Redmond overkill. That said, lawyers may need this to ensure circulated document copies are correct, although I recently saw two Wills that both had the same error; and engineers working in groups may need to track changes; but then some of my engineering students manage this very well with Google Docs which has the additional cachet of the cloud.

Office for the iPad is largely irrelevant. There are plenty of other apps that enable users of such devices to create text files, format them and export in a number of formats. Waiting so long, yet still being unable to deliver an iOS app for what is suppposed to be one of its flagship applications, suggests that (with the damp squib of Windows 8 and falling PC sales) Microsoft is making itself unimportant to today's users. The world is not running to buy PCs, or tablets that only work with keyboards and PC software. The younger market (and a lot of older first-time users) are no longer a PC generation and Microsoft has missed that, at great peril.

We tend to look a lot at patent information as this has in some ways defined the electronics industry (and others) in recent years. The former Palm had a lot of useful patents and was a leader in the technology of hand-held devices. Steve Jobs was not impressed apparently and had earlier dismissed the value of what had been done. Current management think differently and have paid the equivalent of about $10 million for a licence agreement for the Palm tech and some from Bell Communications Research and Geoworks, Sam Oliver reports on AppleInsider.He also notes that the Palm OS is now known by the name Access.

A less than happy judge in Florida is critical of Apple and Samsung (but see below) who he says uses the courts and litigation as part of their business strategy. Dave Caolo reports on TUAW that the companies wanted the scope of the many cases reduced, but the judge refused to be the mop that cleaned up the mess they had made and gave them 4 months to come to some form of agreement. An almost identically phrased report from Don Reisinger - even down to the name of the judge - tells us that a less than happy judge in Florida is critical of Apple and Motorola who he says uses the courts and litigation as part of their worldwide business strategy. . .

Following this back, both reports link to an article on Bloomberg by Susan Decker who writes about Apple, Motorola and Google and the term, "worldwide business strategy" is used.

Other Matters

I am so dubious about this article that I checked the Korean News Agency, which has no such posting that I can see, nor on their Facebook page.

Wait and see with this one.

Here is one expansion of the state that follows a format that has been covered here before. The taxman in the US, the IRS, has the belief that it does not need a search warrant to read e-mail, Declan McCullagh reports; with their lawyers adding that "Americans enjoy 'generally no privacy' in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications". Run that past me again. . .

The IRS handbook has apparently cancelled the Fourth Amendment when it comes to emails, despite case law being against this (U.S. v. Warshak) and apparently against the current thinking in the Senate.

I saw an interesting Tweet on Thursday evening from someone called, dkdsgn:

Samsung Android Screen Sizes:
2.8
3.14
3.2
3.4
3.5
3.6
3.65
3.7
3.97
4
4.2
4.27
4.3
4.5
4.52
4.65
4.8
5
5.3
5.5
5.8
6.3
7
7.7
8
10
10.1

I find that rather revealing.

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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.