We may be running longer this week. As I prepare for recording, I am not sure what is in the Post Database this week. It is the 22nd anniversary of the Database and I was asked to write a piece for that. In preparation, I am going to include that.

Apple and Macs During the 22 Years of Post Database

Not knowing in advance what was being printed today, I had to record both pieces. So now I have saved myself some work for next week. I think.

Let's start with a nice rumour on something that is a bit overdue: Flash for the iPhone and iPod touch. There have been some recriminations from both Apple and Adobe over the pace of development in recent months, but Aidan Malley in AppleInsider reports that the two are now working happily together: it is in both their interests after all.

We already heard about the iPhone nano, and this has appeared again recently, but there are also noises that Apple is thinking of a video-conferencing facility with the iPhone itself. Some of this has to do with its threats to take action regarding patents is holds, specifically aimed at the new Palm; but this is hardly surprising: when Steve Jobs introduced it, bottom of the list of specifications he said, "And Boy, have we patented it."

Alexander Wolfe in Information Week details all of this and the rumour with some comments on the patents involved. He may be wrong, in what is an opinion piece, but he has done his homework. Another discussion on Apple's potential use of patents comes in an item by Connie Guglielmo and Susan Decker in Bloomberg News.

Another version of the iPhone is not actually beyond possibilities according to Sam Oliver in AppleInsider. Going back to the 2007 keynote, which I looked at again this week, Jobs clearly said that while they were going with GSM and EDGE, there were other variants down the line and at that stage he did mention 3G which of course has now appeared. There is to be a release of the iPhone service in the Emirates this month, but June is also cited as someone at Etisalat may have let the cat out of the bag in an interview; while this is also supported by none other than Phil Schiller who also referred to a product cycle, and the month of June.

And there are major architectural changes suggested by data found with the recent update to the iPhone software where there was reference to "iPhone 2,1". This was first seen on Electronista.

Other iPhone news concerns an update that may allow background applications to run. Right now, if you are working in one and want to use another, apart from a couple when music keeps playing, the first stops and the other runs. The new rumour suggests that an application might be allowed to collect data while not running as top application.

In a rerun of the iTunes start when it was said that no one would buy online music, people said that no one would develop, let alone buy apps from the Apps Store. This week we are told by Sindya N. Bhanoo in the Washington Post, that there are some 18,000 apps now available. Actually, 18,737 when the check was made. Oh, and 500 million downloads.

True have updated the Thai dictionary app for the iPhone and iPod touch which now does go on the first generation iPod touch that I have.

The last week has seen another rumour concerning the App Store and this time it is suggested that other content, like premium games, might be offered online this way. They are available in the iTMS, but that only reaches a limited audience, unlike the wider availability via the Apps Stores.

We are told that Music Executives live in fear of Steve Jobs. Well, I would too if I kept burying my head in the sand and someone came round with an axe. The TUAW article by Robert Palmer looks at some of the hardball that was played with DRM and losing that for those who can use the iTunes store.

TUAW also has something, along with several other sources this week, on the increase in Apple's market share, which is now tipping 10%, while Windows is beginning to recede down to about 88%. The Over-reachers t Redmond ought to be getting some of the message by now. Or perhaps not. I know, let's put out another version and increase the price.

There are also a couple of hardware rumours this week.

Apple and AT&T could be working on a MacBook 3G we are told, or could that be the Tablet again? Jacqui Cheng of Ars Technica also suggests the Tablet, making good use of patent filings.

There are also some noises again about the computers. Let's start with the MacPro, which has been quietly getting on with things like movie-making and recording of music for a while now. Some people are suggesting that towards the end of next month we might see a number of updates and the MacPro could be part of this.

The previous version of iWork had some updates this week. Pages, Keynote and Numbers were all updated to deal with certain compatibility issues with Microsoft products. The latest version of iWork -- the one I am currently reviewing -- is not affected.

I ordered the new iLife last Tuesday afternoon from the online Apple shop and checked the progress of the delivery via a link that Apple sends all customers. I saw that it had been sent off by Thursday morning and Friday, as I was waiting for the bus, DHL phoned me to check where I would take delivery and told me it would be later that day. Sure enough, just after lunch it was at the security guard's desk and I put it on my MacBookPro almost immediately. The installation took me about 15 minutes, although another installation on an iMac later took closer to 30 minutes.

Once the iPhoto library was updated, I started playing with the new features: Places and Faces. It took a few minutes to get the hang of things -- and I would really now like a camera with GPS (mine cannot use the attachment that Nikon sells). With a bit of work with the version of Google Maps that loads in iPhoto, we managed to locate a few images as a test, but I have not yet tried the Flickr connection. I use that rather than Facebook which is also available in iPhoto.

Faces is interesting and it takes a few attempts for iPhoto to use the algorithms to learn a face, but after playing around it does seem to work OK. As a point, the face detection software was probably produced by a Japanese company called Omron Global and this use may be something that helps them as well as Apple.

But what really impressed me, once I used it a couple of times, was the new slideshow effect called Shatter and I think the whole iLife suite is worth the money just for this. There are 6 themes with the Classic and Ken Burns being already familiar, but the new ones -- Scrapbook, Sliding Panels and Snapshots -- impressing me somewhat. Scrapbook has an interesting layout that may be well suited to family pictures, while Sliding Panels reminded me of something already used in Aperture. Snapshots may be an acquired taste, but has an interesting delivery nonetheless.

I have a touch more interest at the moment in locations of photos with the new features in iPhoto but still use Aperture for most pictures. There is a direct link icon to Flickr as well as Facebook and Mobile Me in iPhoto, while Aperture only has a link to Mobile Me.

While hunting about on the internet the other day I found that Flickr itself now has an Aperture plugin so I downloaded that, dropped it into the right directory and started a test upload.

It needed my authorisation, but as I was already logged into Flickr, that was just a single click, then back to the upload. Most useful.

I also looked at Garageband -- I have to use it every week for the podcast -- and tried the Lessons. When I clicked on the icon to try Artist Lessons -- the ones done by well-known professionals -- I was told that these were not available in the region. When I checked with Apple, I received a brief, "Artist Lessons are currently not available in Thailand."

I paid 3190 baht for iLife of which GarageBand is just one component, which is about $91: about $6 more than the US price after taxes; but again we get a restricted product, probably because of copyright. I know I said that the price is worth it for me over the slideshow themes, but that IS subjective. Others may want to buy the suite for Garageband Lessons they have read about, but can only get part of the deal.

Pushing things a bit while at MacWorld, I suggested to Apple personnel that the time had come to move podcasts to the App Stores, the second tier of the iTunes shops which has worked really well for the apps of course; and podcasts in the main do not have copyright problems in the same way. Those that do, like some from the BBC are simply controlled by the copyright owner and trying to subscribe shows that the podcast is unavailable. Those GarageBand Artist Lessons also need to be made available.

Too Good to Miss?

Last week we mentioned the NVidia graphics update, but for some reasons, that was pulled after a couple of days and I have seen nothing more concerning this since.

On Saturday, there was a problem with the [Google] search engine when any search began to report "This site may harm your computer" as the list they use to protect users from malware sites was updated wrongly: human error we are told.

The last week saw an Update to Open Office which is now at version 3.0.1.

We have heard stories of exploding phones in the last and a lot of work went into finding out about these, but they were all found to be non-standard batteries: you get what you pay for. This week, there is a tragic turn to this when a Chinese man was killed apparently by the battery exploding in his pocket. The blast must have hit something important like a major artery and from the report it may well have been the carotid artery: we have two. Severing this could polish you off in about 15 seconds.

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