eXtensions - Tuesday 2 September 2025
By Graham K. Rogers
I am looking forward to the Awe Dropping, jaw dropping announcements from Apple next week. But pricing is an unknown, with different tariffs on countries where Apple products are manufactured or assembled. Why should those in countries where tariffs do not apply (India to Thailand for example) pay a higher price to subsidise US customers? According to released information, British security services wanted not just iCloud access but the keys to the kingdom. Now US tech companies are warned not to give access to users' information when some administrations demand it.
I am looking forward to Tuesday next week following the cryptic announcement from Apple - Awe Dropping - on what is expected to be the iPhone release at 10am Cupertino time, which looks like 12 midnight here. Joe Rossignol (MacRumors) parses the logo and suggests that this predicts "new color options and a vapor chamber cooling system." In the article he explains about the new means of heat dissipation.
These days I do not stay up for these events, but read the news, comments and opinions over breakfast: around 6am Wednesday morning. I will also view the presentation video later in the day. As this is between the MotoGP races at Catalunya and San Marino, it will be an exciting week for me. This week is less frantic, although I am working on a report about the large model track layout used for the Railway Engineering program at the Faculty.
There are of course plenty of rumors about what Apple will release, but I prefer to wait until the event: the rumor-mongers spoil things for me and they rarely have the whole picture. Some are just plain wrong. I particularly object to Mark Gurman's too frequent interventions that appear to be fueled by internal information. However, last year, there was one rumor from Gurman that was perfectly timed: the advent of the M4 iPad Pro when everyone had been expecting the M3. My "surely not" at the weekend, was replaced by delight when Apple announced the device, particularly as I had already budgeted for a new iPad Pro that month.
The iPhone is a different matter. It used to be that these would arrive in Thailand in the 3rd wave of releases, but with the iPhone 15 (if memory serves) for once Thailand was included in the first wave of releases, that always includes USA, UK, Japan, Singapore and other Apple favorites. The biggest question concerns pricing. With tariffs fluctuating over the last weeks, and exceptions being introduced, it must be the devil of a job for any company to balance these forces. With China seen by the authorities in Washington as the top economic enemy, tariffs from any products made there are prohibitively high. But Apple has tried to play this game to its best advantage.
Components are made in several countries with lower tariffs, and the whole is now assembled in India. There had been some problems with the factories that Apple suppliers had been using a couple of years ago, but management changes appear to have sorted those difficulties out. Even with India, however, things changed quickly when the original tariffs on Indian goods were increased, infuriating Prime Minister Modi who is this week in China.
What I am unsure of is how the tariffs will affect the rest of us when the iPhone is released in the various markets worldwide. I will be less than happy if I am paying the same price (or more) as a customer in the USA as tariffs on products from India to the USA will not be the same as from India to Thailand. Tariffs on goods from India to Thailand have been eliminated and are subject only to 7% VAT, although some specific items do attract additional excise taxes (ITA).
Users here already pay more (in many cases) for Apple hardware and its related software that have fewer features (Siri on AppleTV for example). I will feel hard done by if I am subsidizing users in the USA again. I am in such a position that if I feel the pricing is unreasonable this time round, instead of my usual two year renewal cycle, I will extend this to three unless there is a compelling reason, such as a previously unannounced must-have hardware feature. I will not be alone I am sure.
I write these notes with the knowledge that a court in the USA ruled on Friday that almost all of the tariffs that have been put in place by the US authorities are illegal. This was, as might be expected, covered widely in the news. How this plays out is not certain at this time, particularly as the current administration has ignored many rulings in the lower courts and relied on a somewhat-slanted Supreme Court, where angry dissensions are often made by the minority justices. The tariffs are ruled to be in contravention of the Constitution (not that some in the USA appear to care) as the power to levy taxes is held by Congress. The Administration will appeal this decision, and that means the Supreme Court. For now, the tariffs are continuing.
I was neither surprised nor disappointed to read this week that Adobe is losing sales. For months I have been following stories of dissatisfied users, particularly with regard to subscriptions and to the use of AI. Now, Justin Tedford (FStoppers) writes that many previous users of Adobe's software are walking away. For years there has been other software that has most of the features that would satisfy many users. Tedford mentions Capture One and Affinity Photo as suitable replacements. I would also add Pixelmator Pro for the Mac and Pixelmator for the iPad. The last two are now owned by Apple, while Serif, the developers of Affinity software, was acquired by Canva last year. I am looking forward to Apple incorporating some of the features of Pixelmator and Photomator into Photos or developing other apps - dare we hope for a reworked Aperture?
Tedford is critical of the way the subscription lockin has worked against users: "Adobe has created a locked-down system that could be described as a hostage situation." Cancel, forget to pay the subscription or experience other payment difficulties and it could mean that access is lost. That could be devastating for a business. I detest subscriptions and avoid them if at all possible, particularly if alternatives are available. I also avoid software with an over-reliance on AI, particularly for photography, although I accept that some editing features use this. For example, instead of the reasonable Repair tool that had been available in Photos for the last couple of years, I avoid the new Clean Up feature, mainly because of the way it appears on the screen with a great blob, when repairing an image often needs some gentle care. I tend to switch to the Repair tool in Photomator.
I became fed up with Adobe in the days of Flash when the frequent updates, due to insecurities, meant that every time I needed to visit the Adobe site, and log in - itself a tortuous process - and then download the zip file, only to have to do it again a few days later. When we finally transitioned to HTML 5, that ended. Adobe is the author of its own problems, starting with the subscription-only approach, and the decision (as part of the T&C agreement) to use subscriber content for AI learning. Once more, Mortimer, in Christopher Marlowe's, Edward II: "There is a point, to which when men aspire, They tumble headlong down". When you reach the top, the only way left is Down. As Justin Teford concludes (in part), "Unfortunately for Adobe, they did this to themselves in a short matter of time."
A week or so ago, we expressed some thanks about the news that US pressure (amongst other things) had perhaps brought the UK authorities to their senses and they had dropped their demands for backdoor access to iCloud. They have, however, not yet legally ended their request and, as Mariella Moon (Engadget) reports, the demands went further than had originally been understood.
This was to "provide and maintain a capability to disclose categories of data stored within a cloud-based service" and appears to apply not only to data in the cloud but also to passwords and messages [My italics]. In other words, the UK authorities "wanted broad access to Apple iCloud accounts". Even from a government that has for centuries been obsessed with secrecy that is a little rich.
There appears to be more on this - or at least Mila Fiordalisi (Wired) reports what appears to be related content - following a warning to "Big Tech Companies" in the USA from the FTC. In what is described as "a scathing letter" to companies (Meta, Google, Microsoft, Amazon and Apple are mentioned), they are advised not to apply the European Digital Services Act "if it jeopardizes freedom of expression and, above all, the safety of US citizens." It is interesting that that comes in two parts (and not "the freedom of expression and safety of US citizens"). It may just be a grammatical nicety and I may be reading something into this, but it may leave the companies some wiggle room for those who are not US citizens.
There are some interesting arguments aired here and, while I am broadly not in favour of the current US Administration, this does seem to be a major push back on the unreasonable and growing demands of (particularly) the EU and UK, who have sometimes cavalierly ignored the input from companies like Apple because the case appears to have been pre-decided.
Following a rumor on Facebook I checked the Netflix app on the iPad and saw that Series 3 of The Diplomat is listed for 16 October. Both previous seasons ended with cliff-hangers (explosion, death of the president), so this should hit the ground running.
I started watching Hostage on Netflix last week. Although the story premise has potential, I am not totally convinced by the characters, particularly the interaction between the British Prime Minister and the French President. The series certainly had enough action, but the plot creaked a bit once or twice, particularly on protocol and security aspects. It was an exciting enough watch.
The 2nd episode of Invasion on AppleTV switched to Japan although this was clearly linked to what we had seen in episode 1. The first series examined events in different countries, and with the ways different characters were linked to the alien invasion, most notably Casper, who did tie up with Trevante at the end of that first series. In the next episode we remeet Aneesha and Clarke who tie up with Trevante. Although Invasion and Foundation have high ratings, they sometimes creak a little.
The 3rd season of Foundation had me scratching my head once or twice with the arrival of the Mule, and the breaking down of order in the Empire with Dawn lost (temporarily), Dusk about to meet his end of life, and Day AWOL. I found his trial on the planet, Mycogen, somewhat artificial, particularly with the writhing dancers. Condemned to be recycled, we last see Day falling towards his messy doom. This is serial TV, it cannot be the end.
One of the series I have enjoyed in the past is Trying. This is quite understated and simple, but has been quite a hit. We are waiting now for Series 5, but news just announced tells us that the first 3 seasons have been bought by the BBC. That is a new achievement by Apple TV. While it may mean more from Apple TV on the BBC, I hope that it might mean more of the excellent BBC drama (and comedy) output from the BBC on AppleTV (Patently Apple). Another production I enjoyed from AppleTV was Bad Monkey and I was pleased to see that a second season was green-lighted. I was even more pleased to read this week that John Malkovich is to be in the new season Dennis Sellers (AppleWorld Today).
As a Sunday lunchtime relaxation I tried The Man from Toronto on Netflix which was in My List, probably because Woody Harrelson was listed. He was not the original for the part as Jason Statham was listed as star. He left abruptly after "differences". This movie was a disappointment. If it were a book, it might have been classed as a potboiler. Although there were some funny moments, overall it sagged and critics were not overly kind to it.
I also tried the newly released Thursday Murder Club and while this appeared a little weak at times it did pick up. There is a strong supporting cast, including David Tennant, Jonathan Pryce, Richard E. Grant, some of whom are around for only a short time. The premise of retired folks solving murders is unrealistic, but this is fun and each of the major stars, Helen Mirren, Pierce Brosnan and Ben Kingsley have been given interesting back stories. Mirren, for example, has an Aston Martin gifted to her by MI6 on her retirement.
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. No AI was used in writing this item.
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