eXtensions - Friday 5 September 2025
By Graham K. Rogers
Decisions on the future of monopoly Google were announced. Not everyone agrees, but some argue there is some sense here. With the new iPhone almost upon us, patents may be of interest. Slow Horses Season 5 trailer; and a heads up for a controversial documentary on Netflix: The Stringer. Site stats reveal unusual trends.
The decision by the judge looking at the litigation brought by the US Justice Department against Alphabet/Google concerning its perceived monopoly position was released this week. Not everyone is happy, although as well as knee-jerk reactions there has been some careful analysis. It was expected that Alphabet would have to sell off Chrome and that is not happening. Nor will they have to divest Android. However, reading the link to the article by Jennifer Elias (CNBC) sent by Charles Arthur, it does appear that exclusive contracts will be banned, but that does not mean the end of the $18+ billion Apple is paid each year. Apple shares rose 4%, Elias writes. Google shares rose 8%. By the next morning (here) a few hours later, Malcolm Owen (AppleInsider) reports that Apple shares rose considerably, and my Stocks app showed the price at $235.58.
Charles Arthur is not happy. The trial decided that Google was a monopoly - I think we all believed that anyway - but the judgement was a "cop-out". With Alphabet able to hold on to its two most influential assets, I would not disagree, although having seen what happened after the breakup of AT&T, particularly the effect on Bell Labs, I have questions about how valid a break up might be. There was an interesting comment from Adam Engst (Tid-Bits) who was disappointed that the $20 billion Apple deal remains, as he is "curious about what Apple would have come up with as an alternative." While he thinks that the obvious route would be Bing, "it would have been more interesting to see Apple take the opportunity to develop its own search engine."
The Techdirt site has another point of view and the analysis by Mike Masnick puts the litigation into a somewhat different context. Maybe Google is not all bad and, as I sensed, a total breakup may not be the best way. As Masnick notes, Apple and others were happy to make Google the search engine because that is what people want. Whatever we may think of the ethics behind Search and the way data was used, Google does work. An interesting read: recommended.
With the arrival of the newest iPhone in the next few days, we looked at some comments last time by Joe Rossignol when discussing the hidden meaning behind Apple's Awe Dropping icon. Rossignol suggested that as well as color options, this predicted "a vapor chamber cooling system". Coincidentally, this week, Patently Apple has just reported on a new patent granted to Apple for a "thermal module design that enhances heat dissipation in compact electronic devices while preserving internal space and structural integrity."
This appears to be different from the vapor chamber method and involves material bonding with "divergent wall geometry" (different angles) that guide paste into narrow gaps. The method could be used across several of Apple's product lines, including Macs, iPhones and iPads. The article has a lot more detail about the solution than I have space for.
Although this was not unexpected, Patently Apple reports that a trailer for season 5 of the hot series, Slow Horses is now available. The article provides some background and comments, ". . . everyone is suspicious when resident tech nerd Roddy Ho has a glamorous new girlfriend, but when a series of increasingly bizarre events occur across the city, it falls to the Slow Horses to work out how everything is connected." I am going to stick my neck out and suggest that the girlfriend is a red herring. The new season arrives on 24 September. Even the trailer is worth watching.
One of the most memorable and iconic photographs from the Vietnam War is often called The Napalm Girl. A naked Kim Phuc (aged 9 at the time) was photographed running down a road, with other children, after a napalm attack on her village by the South Vietnamese air force. The two frames from the incident are incredibly moving and are sometimes credited as hastening the end of the conflict. The photograph was credited to Nick Ut, but a film this year at the Sundance Film Festival suggested that the photographs should instead be credited to Nguy ễn Thành Nghê and an investigation by AP followed, although Ut insists that the photographs were taken by him.
Netflix has now apparently acquired The Stringer, although Jaron Schneider (PetaPixel) writes in the article about the events, "Netflix has not publicly confirmed the report nor has it published a timeline for when the documentary will be available to stream, although The Wrap claims it will be released in 2025." I checked. It is listed in my Netflix app, although there is just a Remind Me bar at present.
Well. . . . Finally. After 15 years and 6 months, Meta has released an iPad version of Instagram Ivan Mehta (TechCrunch). This was widely reported by others online. This iPad version is way overdue, especially considering the number of people who use the iPad and make content on the device. With that in mind, the app now opens in Reels, which is not really my scene at all, but I can soon change that. In landscape mode, which is how I work most of the time (with the Magic Keyboard) the main panel still looks a bit like the iPhone screen, but with controls to the left, stories to the top or a feed when Comments is selected. Portrait mode makes the main panel a bit larger, but when Comments is selected the list is overlayed onto the main panel. Jeremy Gray (PetaPixel) notes that the new design is likely to be made available for Android tablets soon.
William Gallagher (AppleInsider) is somewhat disdainful of the excuse that Meta executives had given - not enough users - for not developing an iPad-specific version of the app, suggesting that maybe it was because a Meta boss preferred Android. Gallagher is also somewhat critical of the ironic Meta statement that people have been asking for this for a while. It only took 15 years and 396 updates.
As each month changes, the statistics for this site sometimes reveal an interesting idea or two. I do not post items online every day (I do have a day job) so the first few days reveal that users are still accessing some of the items I posted years ago. I am grateful, although some are of less value these days, but it also indicates that the site is useful as an archive. This month, three early September, top ten hits caught my eye. The first, from 2014, is a review of how Apple retailers had begun to expand after Apple opened its first proper office here. Previously it was limited pretty much to Phantip Plaza with some stores that were less than welcoming. The iStudio stores began to appear, although initially there were none on the Thonburi side of the river. I was told (pre-Apple office) that this was because no one on that side would buy Macs, although you don't know if you don't try. The iPhone and iPad fixed that.
Also from 2014 was a look at some of the hypocrisy and lies surrounding Apple, particularly with regard to the iPhone and iPad, with an early Monday Review from March of that year. Some things don't really change it appears. Finally, before the list of statistics fills up with more recent items, in April 2020 I had a look at reusable and disposable cameras from Harman, the parent company of Ilford films who also make Kentmere and Phoenix. Although the output from the cameras was reasonable, I have done better, but this is all part of the evolution taking place, and more importantly for me, the discovery.
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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