By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit

Apple Stuff

I see from an article by Mike Beasley on 9to5Mac that iOS 6 has been updated to version 6.1.4, but this is for the iPhone 5 only. There are always bug fixes that we do not read about but the main change here is that this "includes an updated speakerphone profile"

As well as iOS 7, we can expect announcements on OS X, 10.9 (which may be called Lynx). Karl Johnson on T-Gaap suggests that one of the features that will be ported over from iOS is Siri, although there may be a fair amount of development needed: it is not going to be just a shoe-in. He gives some of the background, including the way Siri inspired others to come up with their own solutions, and it is clearly an important area [My source for this was MacDaily News.]

Despite this, another analyst says Siri will not be part of OS X 10.9. Greg Keizer on ComputerWorld writes on the opinions of Ezra Gottheil of Technology Business Research who says it would need both hardware and software changes. Also in the article, there are the comments of Aaron Vronko, CEO of Rapid Repair who thinks Siri could be part of OS X [My source for this was also MacDaily News.]

Last year the Mayor of New York, Bloomberg, tried to blame Apple for the increase in crime in the city: most thefts were of iOS devices, therefore Apple was at fault. Rather than go down that road, the NYPD set up a system with Apple that allowed better tracking of stolen phones and arests were made. Now, Philip Elmer-DeWitt tells us, in another article critical of journalists targetting Apple, that the NYTimes is blaming Apple for smartphone thefts. He deconstructs the piece by pointing out a number of problems with their thesis. [My source for this was MacDaily News.]

A couple of patent applications may point to the way battery technology is to be used in future Apple products, Mikey Campbell tells us on AppleInsider. The designs are unusually curved and this may be part of a design as there may need to be easy installation into curved and non-rectangular device designs. This would reduce wasted space.

A few months ago, it was widely reported that certain airlines were shifting their essential books and maps from a massive 20 Kg bag that the pilots carry on, to the iPad. Steven Sande reports on TUAW that at a conference on Tablet Strategy (really), Patrick O'Keefe a VP of American Airlines reported on the benefits which - as well as easier updates to essential data - include fewer pilot injuries (I expect back injuries were to the fore). Less weight also means fuel savings of about $1 million.

While we are on iOS and the airlines, Richard Devine, the new guy on iMore (see below) reports that QANTAS has released its new iOS app and that it has support for Passbook, which means easy boarding

Also about to approve use of the iOS devices including the iPad is the US Department of Defense which is "expected to grant security approval for devices from Apple and Samsung in the coming weeks" Joseph Keller writes on iMore. BlackBerry was the device of choice before, but things are changing.

The iPad was joined by the iPad mini and some are shocked that the newer device is beginning to outsell its larger cousin. Brooke Crothers writes about such differences as if there is some surprise in this, but Tim Cook already anticipated cannibalisation of this nature in the Q1 2013 financial report Q&A session and with a metaphorical shrug of the shoulders said this was expected. The analysts say it is the slim size, but realistically, it is cheaper.

The figures that showed the iPad mini was selling more was in an IDG report that was later described as "questionable" (See below). The numbers seem to have caused some panic with those who can only think about market share: always a lost cause when we are dealing with Apple. It is not how things work. Dara Kerr (among many other breathless and uncritical commentators) begins by asking if Apple is losing its edge. How many times has that question (or others like it) been asked in the last few months? Always guaranteed to produce a few hits.

The reason is that market share has dropped and Apple now only has 39.6% (down from 58.1% a year ago). Oh quick, quick, sell the shares, the sky is falling. However, a couple of points may be worth noting concerning that market share which itself has risen by 142% to 49.2 million units. Apple's share has actually risen by 65.3% to 19.5 million iPads sold which is more than the next 4 best sellers combined. No one mentioned that. Samsung rose by an impressive 283% to sell 8.8 million, less than half of Apple's market.

But let's hear it for ASUS, who have an amazing market share increase of 350%. They sold 2.7 million, up from 0.6 million. Of the five named tablet makers, I wonder who is making the most money?

A couple of days before those figures appeared, I was directed to an article by Andrés Cardenal on The Motley Fool in which he suggested that Wall Street was seriously underestimating the iPad. He used the same figures that IDG produced and came to a different conclusion from the headline hunters. He notes that it is not simply price that makes the difference, but (as we have suggested many times before) reliability, quality and the vertical infrastructure - apps, synchronisation, cloud and all. He is one of the few to make the point that Apple offers "a wide variety of choices at different price points . . . putting long-term growth above short-term profit margins."

That is worth a paragraph on its own: putting long-term growth above short-term profit margins.

I guess it all depends on whom Wall Street listens to, or what it wants to hear. [My source for that item was MacDaily News.]

However, a later article from Electronista calls that IDG survey, "Questionable" and claims that the results were not supported by sales evidence. The article also points out that "IDC is estimating shipments, not sales" and explains why any one manufacturer's figures may be wide of the real mark. This is a far better analysis and shows some real attention to what the figures mean, rather than going for the knee-jerk headlines as so many do these days in the hope that the hits will follow.

There are some new options for storage on the latest iMacs according to AppleInsider, with additions to flash storage for both models. I checked with the online store for Thailand and indeed, these options are available here for those who want such upgrades. A number of other sources had this news, including AppleBitch

A number of schools in the UK have been failing in recent years, especially those in inner-city areas. In one case, profiled by Apple, the principal turned it into an independent academy and reinvented Essa as a hub of technology, initially giving every student an iPod touch for direct access to information. Test scores improved and the iPod touch was replaced with the iPad. Teachers create their own iBooks and all of its courses are available on iTunesU. The full report (with video) details the dramatic turnaround from a failed school to a successs story that others are now trying to emulate.

A report has appeared from Lex Friedman on MacWorld of an iOS app that has somehow slipped through Apple's App Store processes that contains a Trojan horse: a URL link embedded in an MP3 file. The code itself may well not harm an iOS device (or the user's data) but this is a slip up, although the full details are not yet known. A MacWorld reader discovered the malware and passed the information on.

The time approaches when app number 50,000,000,000 will be downloaded from the iTunes App Store and 9to5Mac report that Apple will be giving an iTunes gift card worth $10,000 to the person who makes that 50 billionth download. When I had a look this morning, the counter on the App Store page was showing 49,215,530,000 and was dropping at about 1,000 a second. By the time I typed that and worked out the rate it was at 49,215,600,000.

Directly related to that is an article from Federico Viticci on MacStories that links to Apple's publication of the top 25 apps of all time: paid and unpaid lists. The top paid app is Apple's own Pages.

A couple of sources had news of an EFF report this week that showed who was good and who was not good when it came to privacy and government snooping. Apple did quite badly and only scored a star in the category of fighting for consumer rights in Congress but there was no real indication in the Electronista news item on what criteria there were for scoring stars: all, or some, or nothing?

I did note that many articles made the headline about Apple and Yahoo (MySpace and Verizon score no stars) and seemed to leave it at that. So I looked. The report and sections are easily accessible. On the relevant EFF web page the Criteria are listed as well as several comments as to why categories were included and also why certain companies were included: they comment on the good, but make no negative comments on the companies that need to make changes.

The report outline also concludes how things can be improved and I hope Apple does take note as several of the sections (e.g. Publishing Transparency Reports Publishing Law Enforcement Guidelines and perhaps even Telling Users About Government Data Requests) are things that Apple could implement easily. As to the other parts, that might need some executive decisions.

There are a number of ways to run Windows on a Mac for those who need to take this step. As a test a couple of years back, I did run the CrossOver solution for a while which used Linux concept of bottles to set up a system within a sytem to run individual Windows programs. I also found it interesting to see it start up on occasions when it identified Windows malware that tried to install itself without permission. It can't do that on a Mac (not that exe files work anyway). I am informed that the latest version of Crossover (12.2.0) has now been released and is available for download.

One of the online sources I look at quite a lot on a day to day basis is iMore which has begun to move more to the Mac as well as retaining its original mobile phone inspired background. As part of the expansion, Rene Ritchie reports that Richard Devine from the UK has been recruited to fill the gap left by the departure of Chris Oldroyd.

A heads-up to local Twitter user daveoli for a link to a item by Jeff Blagdon on The Verge in which we are told that Adobe are working on a Lightroom app for iOS that will allow users to work on RAW images. This is just at the working prototype stage right now, but Apple is long overdue with Aperture for the iPad. Actually Apple is long overdue with an update to Aperture for the Mac.

I have used the iPad a couple of times to work on images from my Nikon. These are imported as RAW and are sent to the Mac using PhotoStream as RAW images, but if edited they are processed on the iPad as JPG or other lossy formats in the main. If Adobe do come out with this, I wonder if they will have the two apps format that they do with Adobe Photoshop Touch (unlike Apple's iPhoto).

Apple has released updates to Xerox drivers for Snow Leopard, Lion and Mountain Lion - OS X 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8 - MacNN reports.

We often have links to hints and tips here, and sometimes I even post my own. Bryan Chaffin on The MacObserver tells us about a new site launched by well-known contributor, Jim Tanous, called TekRevue. This is to be a broad tech news and tip site covering a number of desktop and mobile platforms.

Half and Half

For ebooks, I tend to use Amazon's Kindle app. There are several reasons, beginning with the point that apart from a few Guternberg Project copyright free works (and a couple of other specials) there is nothing in the iBookStore for users in Thailand: certainly nothing to buy.

I did try the Barnes & Noble Nook app but, despite sending me email, the address used stopped working as the account/password were not recognised. I moved on. The Kindle app just works. I can download purchased books onto Mac, iPad and iPhone and purchasing of books is easy. It is just the other stuff, like hardware, that causes problems.

Oh, and one more thing, when I read a book I sometimes want to copy and paste sections of it (say when writing a review or an article. You cannot do this with the Kindle app although there are ways to highlight, send a message to Twitter/Facebook, see a definition; but not to use a specific part of the text in any useful way.

The app was updated this week and Mark on AppleBitch writes that the app now has VoiceOver support which is highly useful for those who need it. To make this work, the VoiceOver feature needs to be turned on first in Settings > General > Accessibility and then there is some frustration when we need to learn again how to use an iPhone with this feature. It does work, however.

JC Penney the store that took on Apple's retail wizard Ron Jonson had poor results when he tried to rebuild the company. He was dropped and they are now trying to rebuild themselves again. As part of this, a TV ad has been put out which is nicely made and acts as a form of mea culpa, ending, "Come back to JC Penney. We heard you; now we'd like to see you". Comments on this and a video link to the ad itself are in an AppleInsider article that appeared on Wednesday which adds that the video was made while Jonson was still CEO.

Other Matters

Every time a worker fell ill, or there were problems at Foxconn plants that made Apple products, despite them making devices for Dell, Microsoft, Lenovo, Samsung and others, Apple was internationally criticised in the Press, with the tree-hugger chorus wringing their hands and crying, DO SOMETHING. Electronista is reporting this week that an incident involving hydrochloric acid occurred at a Samsung production facility, but not for the first time. Outcry? Outrage?

There were an interesting couple of observations on Squawk Box from Jim Cramer who was looking at Microsoft and the surge in their share prices. The cause was the XBox and this he suggests is changing from being a games device to a home entertainment console. This is likely to be complemented by the new services of Skype and the growing concern with cloud services. Microsoft he suggests is turning into two companies: taking the cash from the software like Windows and putting it into new media that is likely to be profitable in the long run.

When I looked at the news sources I follow, there was more information about the surge that Redmond had seen. The price had hit a 5-year high despite, as Jay Greene writes, Windows 8.

There were two good articles on TechDirt this week concerning privacy and the authorities. First, Tim Cushing writes on the comments of the NY police chief who expresses the opinion that after the Boston bombings, "the privacy issue has really been taken off the table". We must all submit to 24-hour CCTV surveillance: the terrorists have won.

Couple this with an item by Ben Zevenbergen concerning the insistence by UK law enforcement that, despite the killing off of the "snooper's charter" the authorities "will continue to push for ubiquitous interception, because it is useful". Define "useful". The article demolishes this view and includes the opinions of a number of experts. As one says, recording, analysing such transmissions of ordinary folk is "simply tyrannical". Orwell and 1984 are ignored again.

It is not really a surprise, as it was known that Paul Otellini was stepping down from the top job at Intel, but Shara Tibken reports that to replace him, Intel has not gone for an outsider as some had hoped. Instead they have gone for safety and the current COO, Brian Krzanich is to become CEO as from 16 May. There is no information as yet about what direction he may take the company, but the article has lots of supposedly helpful suggestions from a selection of analysts.

Local Items

We also read that there is to be an IP Fair at Queen Sirikit Convention Centre on May 17-19 to encourage business negotiations on IP innovations and create understanding among the general public on intellectual property protection.

Meanwhile is it off to Klong Thom and Phantip to buy the videos and the software for those PCs? Much of that stuff may well be found in government officials' homes and offices of course, along with their fake Gucci ware and the rest.

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.