eXtensions - Sunday 20 April 2025
By Graham K. Rogers
Apple operating systems were updated in the past few days. Changes I would like to see on the iPad Pro. Google is facing litigation on several fronts: just how does it use student data; and how has it flexed its advertising muscles? The courts decide. With access to AppleTV and Netflix here, I should have a good selection of viewing. Not all offerings work for me, but sometimes there are nice surprises.
I was slightly surprised Thursday morning when reading email to see that macOS had been updated to version 15.4.1. This had been on the cards for a while. Although there was plenty of information about beta releases, there had been no imminent postings about this. I checked the iPhone and saw that iOS had also been updated (18.4.1). I backed up all the devices, then installed the updates. The iPad Pro came last as I was working on that for the moment. I will probably install tvOS 18.4.1 at the weekend. When the iPhone signaled that the update was complete, I checked in files and saw that all my recents were in the Recents folder, unlike the last time. The same was so on the iPad mini. I crossed my fingers when I updated the iPad Pro, but all was well.
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There are already rumors about WWDC and many repeated Mark Gurman's claim that iPadOS will be developed to be more like the Mac. That is not what I want, although there are many changes I would like to see to make it less than a big iPhone (without the calls). The iPad Pro (particularly) with the keyboard, that includes a trackpad, already has some nods towards the Mac, such as key commands which add to the productivity in the same way they do on the Mac.
There is more that could be done without making it a Mac, starting with Photos. I have never liked the iOS Photos, and this is even worse on the iPad. If I go back to iOS 8 (2015), that appeared with a usable version of Photos, but the way it has been savaged since then have not delighted me. On the iPad it is worse as the device deserves far better. After some basic changes to images in Photos, I often switch to Photomator, which has far better tools (straighten, et al, and repair particularly). As Apple now owns Photomator, perhaps some of its best features will be available on the iPad. The recent AI change to CleanUp in Apple Photos replaced the previously reasonable Repair tool with one that was difficult to use, unless you want to remove larger objects, like people: not something I do.
I have a wish list for the iPad: features I would like to see that would make the Pro device more efficient and professional. Apart from a redesign for Photos (the Mac version works fairly well, apart from the inaccuracy of sliders for straighten et al and the CleanUp tool), I would like to be able to use a flatbed scanner with the iPad. To scan, I have to switch to the Mac. No hardship really, but Why? Another image-related feature is tethering. One of the reasons I bought my first iPad Pro was because I could download photographs directly from my DSLR. It would be a boon to be able to use the camera directly from within the iPad. After all, Final Cut Pro has Final Cut Camera allowing simultaneous input from 4 devices.
Long overdue too, is the idea of multi-user accounts. I have been able to do this on the Mac since OS X arrived: convenient if a friend comes to stay, if a student has a project to run, or to allow access to another family member without opening access to the crown jewels (or the financial details). As a note, although I must have an Admin account on the Mac, I always work from a user account. On the iPad, if you lend the device to someone else, unless you absolutely trust the person you hand it to, everything is open.
There was a sigh of relief last weekend when there were reports that some electronic devices would be exempt from tariffs. That was officially confirmed by the US Customs service. That now appears to be only temporary, Michael Burkhardt (9to5Mac) reports. It has also been vehemently denied by some officials of the administration, despite the existence of the Customs notice. No specific time for new tariffs has been mentioned as yet, but the tariffs will be applied "in a month or two". There is also a "fentanyl tariff", although I am fairly sure that Apple is not importing opioids. Apple will be liable to "a special tech tariff [which] will be determined at a later date".
This has all the look and feel of an administration that does not really know what it is doing (although it thinks it does) and is liable to whims or perhaps the way the wind is blowing. There is another report on this and the potential directions levies might take in a report in the Guardian. This is clearly still a developing - and continuously changing - story. It will be interesting to see how this all effects the Apple earnings report, due 1 May.
A few years back the Faculty was involved in a region-wide education project that was a US education initiative, backed by Google. One of the attractions for students taking part were the Google Chrome notebook computers that were used, although these only really worked if they were connected to the internet. At the end of one event, there was a contest with one of our students winning a Chrome notebook. I did express some concerns at the time concerning the logins. We were all given special Google university login accounts for the purpose of the project which are still in use (edu as well as the standard ac.th). I pointed out that the data of any student joining the project (in several regional countries) would be sent to Google. That was brushed aside by one of the (non-university) project managers as being of no real concern. I was never really sure. Hundreds and hundreds of students in several countries signed up and they all logged in to Google. At that time such data would have been previously unrecorded and possibly a good resource for anyone wanting to model the potential of the region.
Google is also being sued in the British courts by activist Dr. Or Brook for some £5 billion for abuse of its position in internet search: stifling competition and inflating the cost of advertising for businesses (Jamie Young, Business Matters). Although Alphabet (the parent company ) is denying this, calling the case, "speculative and opportunistic", it all "centres on the tech giant's alleged manipulation of the search ecosystem - including contracts with Android phone manufacturers and Apple - to cement its control" over search and advertising. As well as this case, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is also poking into Google's practices, mirroring world-wide examinations of just how the company has become so powerful (e.g. "around 90 per cent of all UK internet searches") in the UK and elsewhere.
While all that is going on, a court in the USA has found that "Google violated antitrust laws by "willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power" in the advertising technology market", Rebecca Bellan (TechCrunch) reports. I wonder if that will have a bearing on the UK case. A later hearing will decide remedies that could force Google to sell of some of its associated businesses. This is separate from another Federal antitrust case that will decide remedies later this year.
Also this week, it is reported that Google is offering students free access to its AI tools: Gemini Advanced et al, as well as 2TB of cloud storage (Ian Carlos Campbell, Engadget). I am not a lover of AI in education. Students should learn how to do the job (particularly writing) from the ground up before handing over to produce often-suspect, wordy and ethically questionable output. I am also wary of anything Google offers, particularly with its history of moving the goalposts or shutting down features. Then there is the free, aspect, designed to draw these students in and use their data: timeo Danaos et dona ferentes - I fear the Geeks and the gifts they bear.
One of the most exciting series this year was Adolescence. This is still generating news. Its four episodes, each with a different look at the same story, and at different times, were all shot as single sequences. It has been a massive hit and the production company are looking at ways to make a second series, although Jamie's story is done (Adrian Horton, Guardian). Another surprise return on AppleTV is The Long Way Home (Part 2) with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman taking an extended motorcycle ride from Scotland to the south of England via Scandinavia and the Arctic Circle. The trailer is on YouTube and it looks as if this time they are using old Moto Guzzi and BMW bikes. I approve. Also coming soon is a series from the same team who produced Blackbird named Smoke with Taron Egerton, Greg Kinnear, John Leguizamo and others. This is about an arson investigator (Egerton) hunting serial arsonists and is based on real events (Ryan Christoffel, 9to5Mac).
With the long weekend of Songkran and its water battles (now passed), I lock myself away. I catch up on reading and viewing. An interesting clip on Facebook of a shootout in a Soviet Russian restaurant, caught my attention and I put the movie Anna in my "possibles" list. This was my choice for last Sunday. In Anna, a Luc Besson film, the heroine survives the risky job of female assassin and eventually outplays the security services of the USA and USSR. In some ways it reminded me of Nikita (La Femme Nikita), also by Besson, and I ran a search coming up with a list: The best female movie assassins of all time (ScreenRant). This included a couple of movies I had already seen. I am not sure if Lucy was really an assassin, although she does kill a lot of people on her way to enlightenment, and this was another Besson movie. For reference, Luc Besson does make movies that are not just about female assassins (e.g. Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets).
I was not sure about the first couple of episodes of The Studio on Apple TV, then episode three brought in Ron Howard which made me think that perhaps there was something to this after all. I was disappointed by the 4th episode which had a weak story of a lost film reel and which involved more shouting than I was willing to put up with. Apple needs to step out of California, as it has done with some excellent series in the past year or two. This just seems self-indulgent. A note however, on Seth Rogan, who was censored after speaking at the presentations ceremony for the Breakthrough Prize, "funded by Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, and other tech oligarchs." He criticised those same funders who (he said), "underwrote electing a man who, in the last week, single-handedly destroyed all of American science" ;Ellsworth Tooley (Boing Boing). There was more and the article also linked to the Hollywood Reporter, whoseJulian Sancton writes that "they cut out parts of his remarks from the official video that streamed on YouTube a week later." The organisers claimed that the cuts were because the ceremony lasted longer than expected. The Studio has been renewed for a second season.
Fortunately, also in my timeline was the newly released Your Friends & Neighbours. We are still locked into an unreal world of the super-wealthy, but the hero is an outlier because he has lost his job and been betrayed. He tries to keep his lifestyle going by petty theft from his friends' houses. Mind you, while I may have some electronics and a couple of decent cameras, his friends have top end watches and huge rolls of cash. I liked the first couple of episodes so shall keep watching this. Coming soon on Apple TV we are told the sci-fi Murderbot. I watched a new Netflix production this week: iHostage. Malcolm Owen (AppleInsider) reports on this rendition of a real life hostage situation at an Apple store in Holland in 2022. The police actions were realistically displayed and it was good to see their emotions, and those of all the characters portrayed.
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. After 3 years writing a column in the Life supplement, he is now no longer associated with the Bangkok Post. He can be followed on X (@extensions_th). The RSS feed for the articles is http://www.extensions.in.th/ext_link.xml - copy and paste into your feed reader.
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