By Graham K. Rogers

Opening Gambit

Apple Stuff

Seeming to have forgotten its many earlier hatchet jobs on Apple, the NYTimes has reported, I read in an article on MacNN, that Steve Jobs was a giver to charities on several occasions over the last 20 years. The article links to an item from 2011 by Andrew Ross Sorkin that (up to the time of uploading this comment) has not been corrected or updated. The MacNN article also mentions other ways in which Jobs had been involved in backing charitable causes. As a point, reader comments on that Sorkin hatchet job are worth looking at too.

In his item, Sorkin is alternately critical and fawning on Jobs - reminding me of the recent televised hearing of the Senate sub-committee that is after Apple for tax - but behind the criticisms of Jobs, lie criticisms concerning Apple's cash reserves, is more in the line of, He has all that money, he should DO something.

Apparently he was.

Despite the NYTimes previous criticisms of Steve Jobs, the title and main thrust of the article by Clair Cain Miller is on the work of Jobs' widow, and Jobs' himself has a half-sentence reference that, sort of infers that, perhaps he was giving to charity as well. A final quote on the charitable work of Laurene Powell Jobs' and the Emerson Collective, comes from one of the venture funds Ms Jobs is involved in: "the fact that they've not needed to splash their name around speaks quite highly to their intense focus on the work."

Isn't the question about doing good because you want to, rather than doing good to gain publicity or because of the tax credits.

Talking of taxes, I wrote two items on the Senate hearings last week when the two main performers there, the double team of Levin and McCain, were highly critical of Apple's use of the laws that allow them not to pay certain taxes, until they actually faced Tim Cook.

• Cassandra - Taxes, the Senate and Apple; and
• Cassandra - Taxes, the Senate and Apple (2): The New Moral Compass.

When Cook was unable to reply further, Levin went on the attack again, missing out what the evidence presented had told him: he had preconceived ideas and conclusions that nothing - not even the truth - were going to sway him from.

During the hearing Rand Paul was highly critical of the way the Committee had decided to use Apple as a whipping boy (although Cook and Co. had volunteered to appear) and after, commentators such as Rush Limbaugh also made angry comments about the two main speakers on the Committee: Levin and McCain. It is not often that I agree with such right wing personalities as Paul and Limbaugh.

They - and the Committee stars, and the witnesses - all agreed that Apple had used the laws (so the use of morals as a stick to beat Cupertino with was even more disingenuous) and what was needed was a change in the laws. Note also that some of the laws had been changed as far back as in the Kennedy era, but the law-makers themselves had diluted the provisions passed in regulation changes since. And they had the gall to criticise Apple?

During the hearing, the government of Ireland was criticised, as that was where Apple set up the subsidiary it uses to keep funds offshore. However the establishment of the Irish arm was done in 1980, even before the first Mac. Smarting under the attacks - the Irish government was not called to give evidence of course - many sources reported the anger that was felt in Dublin. Electronista for example, reports that "Ireland's finance minister Michael Noonan declared that neither he nor his country would be the "whipping boy" for US tax loopholes. Another minister agreed that the ways taxes are organised internationally needed changing through cooperation. Not by blame.

Also, as I predicted in those articles, the changes wanted will affect ALL corporations - even News International and the Koch Brothers. In the meantime, Electronista reports that now "Google, Yahoo, Cisco, and others have been found to be using an assortment of tax loopholes and off-shoring" to keep their tax bills lower. It would seem that the comments in Apple's statements to the Committe about Cayman Islands or Caribbean accounts were more pointed than were realised. Why am I not surprised: and once more, where is the outrage especially from Senators Levin and McCain, the Grand-Standers in Chief?

I also almost liked an article by a writer on tax matters, Howard Gleckman of the Tax Policy Center, which is part of the Brookings Institution - a well-known centrist US think-tank. He expresses no surprise at the situation: "Apple cut its taxes with the same tools multinationals have been using for years to minimize their worldwide tax liability." He helpfully explains the tools used, especially deferral, transfer pricing, and check-the-box.

And then he spoils it at the end with the cheap comment on hiring software experts instead of tax lawyers as "It might win back some of the market share it has been losing to Android in recent years." Stick to what you know, not what you read in Bloomberg.

We do expect Apple to keep making improvements and there are a number of rumours concerning a new MacBook Air with supplies of the current model beginning to dry up. However, some of the tech that is included in new Macs may not be usable by all. It took me ages to use the 802.11n capability of the MacBook Pro and that only worked when I bought the Airport Extreme Router, but it only works inside the apartment: with a broadband speed of 7 Mbps (currently), the 802.11n capacities of 15, 30, 45, 60, 90, 120, 135, 150 Mbps are largely wasted (Wikipedia). So Evan Niu on The Motley Fool commenting on the expected new specs for the next Macs that "may support the newest Wi-Fi standard, 802.11ac, that offers theoretical maximum speeds of 1,000 Mbps" suggests this may be wasted too, at least for now [My source for this was MacDaily News.]

In addition, supporting some of the comments above, is news from The Fairer Platform, concerning the latest build of 10.8.4, the next update to OS X, Mountain Lion. As well as mention of the new WiFi standard, there are several other interesting additions [My source for this was MacDaily News.]

It is a bit thin, but a new ad from Apple has some tongues wagging over the appearance in one scene of a man wearing a watch or a "a large, wrist-device", Michael Steeber writes on 9to5Mac. He thinks it is an Apple tease. Of course it is rumour time again and the iWatch comes to the fore.

A major theme of rumors last week concerned the supposed flat look of the upcoming iOS 7 interface. With Forestall out and Ive in charge now, many are expecting the death of skeuomorphism and a stripped down, even clinical interface. I don't quite see it like that, but first Mark Gurman on 9to5Mac discusses the idea of "black, white and flat all over", but reading the rest of the article the idea appears to be that certain parts will be redesigned with a more sparse look, with some of the input here being speculative.

There are several ways this could go, but an approach in which all apps look pretty much the same is unlikely to be Ive's way. While there are certain design parameters, variety is also a keynote of design, although the controversial Contacts and Calendars interfaces are almost certain to have some of the new treatment. We must wait for WWDC.

While it was expected, several sources, such as Federico Viticci on MacStories, report Apple confirmed that the Keynote speech will be on 10 June, which is a Monday. I agree that Tim Cook will open the conference, but the next speaker will probably be Phil Schiller.

Who makes the pitch for iOS 7 and OS X is a guess, although Craig Federighi was on stage last year for OS X and did a good job, although Rene Ritchie on iMore favours Eddy Cue for an appearance too. Ritchie wonders about Jony Ive taking the stage, but I think neither he nor Bob Mansfield will appear on stage, though I expect Apple will run videos with these two commenting.

Building on the reports of the interface changes, Daniel Eran Dilger writes a fairly lengthy commentary on changes that are needed to the interface. He does note that four attempts by others to improve their interfaces met with comparative disasters - Microsoft, Palm, Nokia and Blackberry - adding that Android is so diverse there seem to be several different platforms.

Apple spares us from that; and yes it is almost the same interface as the original iPhone, but it was good then and still is, but with improvements to APIs, so that apps work better: that is where the experience counts. I tried an Android phone this weekend and ended up feeling quite confused, albeit only on a brief acquaintance. As Dilger suggests, Android is iOS with gaudy makeup.

The article looks at some Apple history with the developments of the Mac OS which was fairly stable on the surface: a user of a 1984 Mac would be able to work right away with one from the late 1990s. Then came OS X (I started writing articles for the Bangkok Post on the new system in 2003) and again, while there have been some changes to the interface, it is still similar to the OS X, 10.1 that I first worked on.

Dilger focuses not on the need for an interface change but radical improvements to its own apps, without damaging the interests of developers already producing relevant software. As an example he notes how hard it is to import contact data from a business card - one of the reasons I use QR code on my cards created with Optishare ($0.99) and read the codes with Optiscan or a couple of others I have. Actually scanning a printed card and reading the data in is much more difficult.

What is needed, Dilger concludes, is a full set of features, not a pretty (or black) interface: eye candy without the functions.

A side note from AppleBitch this week suggests that Apple is not offering 24-hour shipments in some markets, like the USA, UK and Canada. Instead, the products will be shipped in 1-2 days. I checked the Apple Store for Thailand. Some of the products with amended dates in the US Store are still shown with a 24-hour cycle. I wonder if this is due more to advertising standards than supply lines?

A couple of weeks ago Apple was waiting for Pentagon approval so that its devices could be used in security situations. That was granted, but there may be more to this as Patently Apple reports that a report on a military website suggests that the Pentagon wants a management system and an application store. There are three companies in the running - Apple, BlackBerry and Samsung - but only one of those is American. All three are also believed to be adding fingerprint security to their devices.

Half and Half

I wrote a few days ago about some questionable use of what is called "photoshopping" of images, but for dishonesty in advertising you may not even need to go that far according to an article by Elliot Temple on his Curi blog.

Other Matters

The notion that you're trying to control the process and prevent error screws things up. We all know the saying it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission. And everyone knows that, but I think there is a corollary: if everyone is trying to prevent error, it screws things up. It's better to fix problems than to prevent them. And the natural tendency for managers is to try and prevent error and over plan things.

This should be over every bureaucrat's desk, especially the part, "if everyone is trying to prevent error, it screws things up". That is why often nothing gets done here.

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand where he is also Assistant Dean. 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.