Back from the UK this week; and the current Database article is the first on two I have written concerning my tenure of the 16G iPhone 3G.

Using an iPhone (1): Some Observations

And just to make the point about the iPhone and its apps, what you just heard, and this, right now has all been recorded on the iPhone using an app called Quick Voice Recorder. More on that later.

The party was at the house of a gracious Italian lady who dresses beautifully and is completely relaxed about everything. Her partner is a techno-freak and has every gadget -- or toy -- that he wants. On arrival we were enjoined to try the vibrating chair, and on our departure several hours later, he was trying out metal scalp-massage devices on everyone. I declined.

During the meal, he was one of those who display that annoying trait of demanding attention: like Shakespeare's's sound and fury signifying nothing. After my conversation with the lady, I had put the iPhone away and chatted on other things -- immigration seems to be on everyone's mind in that part of Britain. The Bore came out and spent several minutes telling me what was wrong with Apple.

One of the problems, he said, was that Apple keeps updating things. So, he reasoned, all the fan boys (and that made me prickly) all go out and buy new computers. Sitting here working on a MacBookPro that is a bit over 2 years old and firing on all six cylinders (with the exception of that Sony battery), I must be the exception that proves the general rule. Except I know loads of Mac uses who have computers 1, 2 or more years old and the machines are still running and putting out good work.

I asked him why it was wrong for a hardware company to be on the cusp of development and added that Dell, Sony, HP and others were all expected to work with the latest developments. But, no, Apple forces its users to update.

We then came onto the iPhone which does seem to have a 12-month hardware development cycle. That is wrong too, as all the fan boys are expected there to go out and buy new iPhones too.

Well, wait a sec. Mr Bore. Is that a new Nokia I see before me? And is that the first Nokia you bought? So why is brand loyalty for Nokia permissible but not for Apple? I don't think we were looking at the whole picture.

On the other hand, my sister's partner has a Blackberry, and without taking a partisan line he explained why the device was better suited to what he did and how he worked, but also examined the iPhone and understood why I like that type of device. That made sense. We also had a look at RSS feeds, which are still not in widespread use there and he tried Safari for Windows that he had installed but never used, being quite happy with Firefox.

As a note, the Palm Pré is due to be released the day before the Apple WWDC, on 6 June.

Although I mentioned last week that I had downloaded but not installed the 10.5.7 update, I succumbed on Thursday once I had access to my external hard disk which carries repair software and backup data. I did a file system check in Single User mode then did another restart and repaired permissions. I also installed this from the Admin account rather than the User account I am in most of the time. It went on quickly and the Mac restarts twice on its own as part of the process; then I did another repair of permissions and restarted once more. It has not missed a beat.

Two notes to that: Single User Mode is one of the ways to start the Mac and access special features. To do this, when the startup sound is made, hold down the Command and S keys. This gives a Unix shell in which we can work and I use the file system check by entering the command fsck; I also add extra parameters with a dash after a space: Y for Yes (which makes sure it goes ahead with repairs) and F for Force which came in after the Jaguar update I seem to remember. For anyone who wants to see what this looks like, instead of S, enter Command + V: Verbose mode. That lets you see the Unix type of start then goes into OS X. To get out of Single User Mode, I always type the command "reboot" when the work is done.

Now I have to do the iMac at home.

I have been trying to figure out what has been changed with the update. It has been such a non-event for me. I was looking in Console on Monday, however, and saw a new type of log, called All Messages. This brings in the several types of logs that Console usually monitors (and which are still there). At the bottom of the panel there is also new types of button marked Earlier and Later, which refer to logs: when the log is full, a new one is made.

Unless you really need to look in Console, don't. There is so much information there that you might get worried by what you see and what are really part of the normal second by second operations.

A disappointment in the UK was the exhibition of Hockney works I mentioned a couple of weeks ago. Someone got it wrong and then the story was retransmitted to other news sources. There were no images created on the iPhone. My sister and her teenage son quite liked what was on display so that part of the day was not totally a loss. They also liked a lot of what was on show at the Tate Modern where we went after lunch. Some of the exhibits are not so easy to understand there, but we certainly came out with some new ideas. For my nephew, who is hoping to join the Navy soon, this was an education.

Just round the corner from the gallery that had the Hockney show was the Apple store in Regent Street. My nephew knew the way as he had been driving delivery trucks to London for a while. In the Apple store, which I talked about last week, the space available was lovely for users and there were loads in there testing. Even my sister tapped a few keys. I picked up a neat little A6 booklet issued by Apple's UK operation, titled "One to One" which was on personal training at Apple Stores. I know there are sessions in certain of the iStudio stores here, but the one on one approach might be a good idea too.

My other sister's boyfriend rules the house with a rod of iron and no one but he is allowed to touch their computer, which is connected by Ethernet to a Netgear wifi router. The wifi is on, and I could read a signal, but it has a password and he cannot figure that part out.

Almost as soon as I got to the UK, the time changed automatically on the iPhone, and also on my ordinary phone which I used once I had bought a local SIM card. I had experienced this when I visited the US on a number of occasions. When I come back to Thailand, however, the phone remains on the UK (or US) time. I guess DTAC forgot to press that button and it does not work even though the phone has a "Set Automatically" feature, but when I turned that off, the wheels used to select the time, were already showing the right time.

I have been trying to catch up since I came back, and that included reading the last couple of copies of Post Database. In last week's I see that Sasiwimon has a nice spread on Image Gang software. As the photo of the shop in Siam Square shows someone using an iMac, I had a closer look.

The site is in Thai only apart from one or two of the specifications but to use their software, you need Adobe Air which I passed on.

I will try and call into the Siam Square premises as that allows people to do the job there. It seems just as easy, for me, to put it all together in iPhoto or Aperture and export in PDF format or as an image. Posters I do in Posterino.

Wanda Sloan has a mini-review of a Windows program called Switcher in last week's Database in which Apple's Exposé is compared and is lauded as "a sensational built-in program. . . ." Praise indeed.

About once or twice a week in the Apple forums there is a posting that starts with something like, "Do I have a virus." No, no, no and no. There are no viruses for Apple's OS X. There are a couple of Trojans but these need a user to visit certain websites or download pirate versions of software and then agree to the installation, so hard cheese there. One I saw this week seems to have a failing hard drive as its problem source. The sort of corruption that might be exhibited by a poorly maintained operating system also causes a lot of people to come to the same knee-jerk conclusion.

A major event in the IT world occurred while I was in the UK and this concerned the massive fine levied by the EU on Intel for its practices in allegedly getting computer makers to favour its processors and not those from AMD. Much more to come from this.

I see this week that Nvidia are also chiming in and calling Intel's practices unfair. While Intel are carrying on and have just announced the release of an 8-core processor, the Nehalem-EX.

I was wondering where they would get such a name, but Wikipedia tells us it is "the place where people live" in the Salish language, which is the name of a native American tribe from Oregon, as well as a number of other Oregon-related names.

Last week I mentioned the MP's fees scandal which made daily headlines in every newspaper for all of the week. Lots of MPs from all parties are being found out and only a dozen or so have so far been shown to be clean: not claiming for what they could, paying back money years ago when genuine accounting errors were discovered, and the like. There was a small article in the Post on Monday, but what is not evident in that is the anger that the public is feeling. Apart from a number of resignations and even sackings, the political landscape is expected to change as the electorate reject the parties and vote for independents or alternatives next time round; and I see now that the Speaker has gone.

I noticed several big changes while I was in the UK and one concerned TV which is pretty much all digital these days. There are subscription services with hundreds of channels, but most I met were using a service called Freeview which, as the name suggests is free. It has more channels than I get on my expensive True Visions cable service, and there is also the red spot feature that allows extra features, including multiple screens for Formula One races and allows recording of programs. There is also FreeSat which is not free and comes from Sky - a Murdoch company. Even on Freeview, there are hundreds of interesting programs which we never see here.

Some of the podcast today was done using the iPhone and an app called QuickVoice. The "lite" version I have only allows up to 2.5MB for emailing, which is the only way to get it off the iPhone, but as the Pro version is only 99c, I thought, why not? And then there was a bonus as the Pro version also converts the sound file to text and that can be mailed as well.

It creates files in CAF format which is File Audio Extension which is based on Apple's Core Audio technology. These are Quick Time compatible of course and should drop straight into GarageBand. The problem is to get to them, they need to be sent via email.

During the tests, I checked one on the Phone instead of the browser or the mail program on my Mac and it took a few moments to download the file then played it in a simple interface which I guess is part of the iPhone's firmware installation, but looks similar to the tunes playing section: which makes sense. It also plays on the iPod touch, but I need headphones of course.

The files are sent to the Quick Voice servers and then forwarded to the email address; and with the text file it sends the sound as well as the converted text which was perfect on my first, fairly simple, try of a message done in this way.

There were a couple of oddities, however. I would like to be able to turn off the feature that sends a file and the text: if you want to send text, that is all you want probably. I also noticed that the sound files I received were in different formats. CAF as I mentioned before and one, later, in WAV.

While I was using the iPhone on Tuesday evening, I had a nasty reminder from DTAC about the state of my account. I have a credit limit of 3,000 baht, but I had reached almost double that. Why on earth, if I have a credit limit, would they not stop me before? Anyone using the iPhone needs to make sure that the data package allows transfers of large amounts of data. There has clearly been a huge mistake on my part either with making calls while in the UK where even when I used an O2 SIM card, local calls there were really expensive, or excessive data use here. That True package begins to make more sense.

Apple has issued a warning about static charge with earbuds in a dry climate, so this is not likely to affect Thai users. Apparently, any such devices can build up static electricity, not just Apple's ones, and there may be a small shock imparted to the user. Let's see how many amplify the Apple part of the problem. It is like when I go to Siam Discovery Center from Siam Centre, I always get a shock from the guard rail. As there are two iStudio stores on that floor, I am sure that must be Apple's fault too.

A heads-up from The Unofficial Apple Weblog this week on a phishing email that seems to be directed towards users of MobileMe asking them (us) to update information. The link is, of course, to a spurious site, although this now seems to have been shut down. DO NOT CLICK on the button.

There was a beta update this week of version 1.4 of Adium the messenger that most Mac users have rather than MSN. It includes Twitter support and several improvements including IRC support, but no video yet. There is also a release of the stable 1.3.4. It also looks like they have a new URL.

A lot of the news in the last week revolves round the approaching WWDC and rumours pertaining to that. For a start, a lot of commentators, including me, think that a new iPhone is a safe bet. I will post the link to John Gruber's Daring Fireball as there are many other interesting snippets there.

Several sources made much of the way that Apple may well be allowing apps to run in the background, which would help things like Undercover for example, but drain the battery even more. We also hear from developers, like Associated Press, that they are being asked to test push notifications and Erica Ogg has some screen shots to illustrate this with her article. And while we are on apps, it appears that Yahoo! Mobile has abandoned the Blackberry in favour of the iPhone, according to Erick Schonfield in Tech Crunch.

MacBidouille, the French publication that has made some successful discoveries in the past suggest that as well as the iPhone camera, which we mentioned recently is due for upgrading, there may be cameras in the iPod touch and the nano. I don't see that myself. Allied to this is the idea that there may be several iPhone types. I am not sure if that is now or in the future, but we are fairly sure that a 32G iPhone is on the cards. James Sherwood over at the Register tells us that Apple is "considering launching multiple iPhone models each differentiated by software, rather than hardware capabilities." A pinch of salt here, perhaps.

One rumour suggests an iPhone with a rubberized back is among a list of suggestions for what we know and may infer about coming product updates. One of them, a built-in FM transmitter, would probably preclude the sale of the device in many markets worldwide, so I have my doubts concerning this as does Rob of iPhone apps DOT com who analyses the list.

There is also an oddity, that perhaps points to a new product. Leander Kahney, whose name we have heard a number of times before, tells us that Apple are planning a large helpdesk operation and are recruiting staff in several US locations. More oddities come via an article by Rik Myslewski in the Register who looks at some of the patents granted recently to Apple, indeed so recently that they are unlikely to be in any new products just yet. One, however, has had an airing before: a camera incorporated into the screen. Rik deals with most of the patents fairly quickly but has a longer look at that screen.

We made lots of comments on the first of the new Microsoft advertisements that proved Apples were expensive and that what people really needed were HP laptops with something from Microsoft on board. As the campaign continued, we were not altogether surprised to note that ALL of the happy buyers -- happy more because they were getting the cash back -- had chosen HP, so Redmond was paying out a fortune for TV spots and selling stuff for Hewlett Packard. Smart.

Dr Macenstein has a look at the campaign and, as we did earlier, comments on the before and after. You may remember Laura entered the shop and looked round so fast that a guy passing as she went in was still passing as she came out. Now there is another with a couple of girls before going in to a shop and then getting the money for the purchase after: except the clouds have hardly moved.

I am beginning to wonder if the director was setting Microsoft up. Not hard of course; but then this week, we read an article by John Oates in the Register, which tells us that HP have had to recall several laptops following overheating battery problems in a couple of machines: something over 200,000 are involved. I hope Laura's wasn't one of them.

Apple sales have dipped a bit in recent weeks apparently, but that is not unexpected. Walmart however, are looking to expand its electronics departments and are thinking of including an Apple section, as well as sections for other powerful brands.

There were a couple of gems from Sony this week. First off Howard Stringer the man at the top still thinks that Apple uses 100% DRM. There were some suitable comments from MacDaily News concerning that faux pas; while Dave Rosenberg on CNET points out that one of the lesser gods there, Michael Lynton of Sony Pictures, hates the Internet and thinks that it is totally worthless. Perhaps its the old fashioned thinking of these movie and music execs that has less worth.

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