This week I am working my way through some ideas around the iPad and what Apple is trying to do. It looks to me, especially with the movements by publishers and others, that Apple is once again playing the catalyst.
The iPad: Old Media, New Display Formats
As ever I record this podcast before the Post is published on Wednesday, so I never know what has been edited out (or in) to the print version. Near the end of the item, I discuss the Nation app and it was not out of any sense of it being "the opposition" that I am critical of their approach to charging. I have had the app for a long time and when I first saw it praised it, as the Nation Group were on the ball here long before the Post. I am also not objecting to the actual charges that they intend to levy; but I am critical of the clear difference between Thai and English content, something that gets me heated pretty quickly as a taxpayer in Thailand of more than 20 years. So when I am refused service because I am not Thai, or charged far more (with Thai prices being in Thai script), or a Thai friend who has hired a taxi at Hat Yai airport for 200 baht was told that the farang price was 400 baht, I object. With a population mainly below the age of 20, I have paid more taxes here than most Thais and like a lot of westerners here for the long haul I support Thais on a personal level too.
So, as I said a couple of weeks ago, the Nation app is in the trash.
We also saw that Hearst publishing was now coming to the party with apps and according to the Wall Street Journal, they were cranking out scores of apps with thousands being a target.
On apps, I had a heads up this Monday from Travelfish. This is the organisation who sent me that app on Angkor Wat that I reviewed a few weeks back.
Now they have another app on Koh Phi Phi. I went down there in 1988 and it was lovely, although I was not impressed diving in the water looking for sharks, even if they were small. I saw the images after the Tsunami a couple of years back and was shocked not just because of the destruction, but the way the island had been built up: destroyed twice. I did go to the beach that became the Beach beach, on the other island, but what the moviemakers created on film was nothing like the reality. The $3.99 app has some direct links to accommodation and from the looks of the photos there may still be a couple of secluded spots.
I am glad I got this week's article idea into the Post first, because on Tuesday I saw an AP article in the Business Section that has some of the same ideas I covered in this week's article, at least as far as the daily newspaper is concerned. This appeared on many sources online, and the link I use is to the Huffington Post. The writer is David Bauder.
While on Wednesday, right alongside my article in the Post Database was another on the same theme by Georgina Prodhan who also discusses the value of the smartphone to media companies.
Today (Wednesday) we also saw an article in Macsimum News suggesting that magazine circulations will be boosted by the iPad. For sure, I said that too. But this is really about the way numbers are counted and the way the num,bers are counted by the Audit Bureau of Circulations. As they are changing the method to include digital subscriptions, the numbers will be higher and more important for the publishers, they can charge more for advertising.
And in a related story, the author John Grisham is to allow his works to be published as eBooks.
I have been looking at the EDGE signals in recent weeks and using several apps, including one which I will report on next week for timing of Grand Prix races: last year that would only work with wifi, but this week I was able to use it with the EDGE signal in my home out in the western suburbs. Other apps too are also responding well when they would crash in the past. For all True's 3G efforts, a wider and more reliable EDGE signal may be a better selling point. Plus there are all those people like me with DTAC numbers.
The Bahrain GP was on the weekend DTAC started selling the iPhone at Siam Paragon: but out in the heat was not the place to line up. True's launch for example, was inside: in the evening. I only went past on my way to buy bread and as soon as I had that and some other essentials, I was back on the bus out of town: much red in some areas.
However, according to Reuters, despite the heat and despite the other heated events elsewhere in the city, DTAC's initial orders of the iPhone surprised many and they have raised the sales target which I am sure is disturbing news for True. However, I think this may be a bit premature as the excitement comes on the back of a figure of 1,700 phones.
While plans for iPhone purchasers suggest some nice low data rates, all those of us who kept with DTAC for the last few years, even if we had iPhones, have to wait. I think my bill is 400 baht plus the 999 unlimited data, while new iPhone owners with DTAC are paying in the region of 600 - 700 baht. However, True hit back and now provide a SIM fror the iPhone for the same price as the DTAC sim with the iPhone. DTAC are lagging here, although I read on Wednesday in the Database that in the near future they will be providing a package for users of any smartphone at 650 baht a month. No details of this as yet.
On that question of connection speed, the iPhones right now have 802.11g connection speed to wifi networks, with 3G and EDGE being slower of course. When connected it is nice to know how fast the link is and I have a couple of these apps, but found a new one this week from the US Government Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
To my surprise it is in the Thai app store, so down it came. With it I can select one of a number of US servers and find out how fast my connection really is. A bit disappointing really, but this indicates how some of the information from carriers may be misleading.
If there are a number of tests run, these can be saved as a CSV file and mailed out.
While we are still on apps, I mentioned in the column section the app from Bloomberg. I had a look through that app again this week and found a sound file download section I had not known of before. Select your news, press the download button and then play.
We have been hearing a lot about the Apple and Adobe spat over Flash and last week the Register, among others, was quick to cry foul when a report appeared concerning some of the problems Mac users have with this plugin. However, Daniel Eran Dilger says, Not so fast. Not only was the message a little off key, but the messenger was too. A proponent of Flash, perhaps he made the mistake of some researchers and asked the wrong question. Dilger writes, that Ozer "framed the debate around an absurd premise to shift the conversation from real issues to contrived garbage".
Dilger goes through a number of problems that Flash presents, locking the users in as much as certain systems, and ends with a section explaining that Flash is irrelevant to today's computing. You may not think so with the number of site implementations, but these are static and the whole online scene is evolving.
And there is a late note on the Wall Street Journal app which Electronista confirms as using HTML5. The site will be able to detect the unit and redirect to the right content. Other content providers are beginning to follow suit. So much for Adobe's claim that Flash is necessary for video content. Apple the catalyst again.
Remember all that derision because the iPhone did not have copy and paste? And then remember there was even more sarcasm when copy and paste did arrive on the iPhone? We wonder what comments local and international press will present when they hear that Windows 7 - this much lauded new OS for some mobile phones - has no copy and paste?
Another person taking some flak right now is Rupert Murdoch who owns a good part of the news outlets we use; or his companies own shares in them. He has been making noises about new technology of late, including the iPad. Like Bill Gates, because of where and who he is, whatever he says is pounced on by many wether he makes sense or not. We should stop giving these so-called experts so much space, suggests Jeff Beercovi in an article on Daily Finance, titled, "Rupert Murdoch Doesn't Get The Web. So Why's He Talking About It?"
Beercovi focuses on Murdoch's comments concerning search engines and what he says is a clear misunderstanding of what search engines are. Indeed, other sources, such as this podcast, because what I do is look at the news, summarise what interests me and provide a link back to that source if I can. I may get advertising income if someone clicks on the ads on the text page, and Murdoch may also get some if someone visits his pages using my links. So why doesn't he give me anything for pushing people in his direction? Murdoch, may not understand that part of the equation.
To give some idea of the importance of the iPad, when the ordering opened last Friday, the Apple main page was changed so that there is now a separate iPad section.
Orders on that opening day were in the region of 25,000 per hour, according to Philip Elmer de Witt on Fortune (MacNN has this as 20,000 per hour). There were some other figures ranging up to 120,000 for the day and I caught one mention of 152,000.
We hear from Electronista that a couple of those accessories we mentioned in the main article are going to be delayed for a month or so. These are the keyboard dock and the 10w power supply.
The iPad is having the same sort of responses in some quarters that the iPhone had. We remember a couple of years back when the Zune was released that a large box was provided at Redmond and those of a mind were expected to drop their iPods into it, to show solidarity or something. Stupidity may be a better word. According to Nick Wingfield, it seems Microsoft is at it again, at least by inference, as those in their employ who use iPhones are having to be mighty careful at work and take great pains to conceal them, although one MS employee who works in China tweets about his iPhone, so it may be only in certain offices and with certain managers who need to show they are acting in the company's interests and the company's data suggest that as many as 10,000 users accessed company email last year using iPhones.
We also had some news on that patent case last August concerning Word, which Microsoft expressed supreme confidence about. They lost the appeal. Redmond has to remove the offending software and stop selling the programs that this applies to according to the BBC. There is one more appeal they can make but it might simply be cheaper to come to an agreement with i4i, pay up and look big. Which is what they should have done in the first place.
And in a patent case concerning private network technology, Elinor Mills tells us that Microsoft lost again in a Texas court and was ordered to pay just over $100m, but a disappointed Redmond is going to keep trying this one.
We mentioned last week Mandelson's Digital Economy Bill which we hear has now been passed by the UK upper chamber, which is still called the House of Lords: most of the so-called Lords these days are appointed by governments and the peers themselves stay there until they die. Sounds like a good case for an elected upper house now that the UK has universal suffrage and education for all. Some of the Bill, if it becomes law (and this is quite likely) will require ISPs to retain data, ostensibly as a way to deal with illegal file-sharing. The problem with anything like this is that it opens the doors to other enforcement and data retention on the internet use of others. As a policeman, it was my job to enforce the law, but sometimes we would push the limits: the wording might allow something that the law's framers did not foresee or intend.
There was an upset when the iPod came out and some people had problems with the batteries which are not user-replaceable: indeed, in those days trying to get this done was a major task which Apple seem to have learned from. The iPhone 3Gs and iPod touch I use are fairly economical with battery use, and the touch is still giving me a good performance after more than two years. Steve Jobs did announce that the iPad battery would be good for San Francisco to Tokyo movie watching at 10 hours and Apple has now announced a program that basically makes the replacement of an end of life battery free: they replace the iPad and there is a $99 service charge (at least in the US). That is about 3,500 baht.
There was an update to Safari last week with several changes affecting the usual performance, stability, and security. These included:
- Performance improvements for Top Sites
- Stability improvements for 3rd-party plug-ins
- Stability improvements for websites with online forms and Scalable Vector Graphics
- Fixes an issue that prevented Safari from changing settings on some Linksys routers
- Fixes an issue that prevented some iWork.com users from commenting on documents
There was more detailed information on the update in a KB document.
And on Tuesday morning, I found there was an update called Aperture Slideshow Support Update, version 1.1. This has something to do with synchronisation in HD slideshows and is available via Software Update.
If anyone is still having problems with Aperture, which is not perfect as yet, Apple has released a KB article on Troubleshooting Basics that some users may find helpful.
I read on TUAW on Friday that iCal share had relaunched. I had wondered where this had gone as it had been a fairly useful way to find a calendar for some events, for example the MotGP season, and not have to type them all in yourself. Which is what I had to do this year.
A note on what we may be having on TV here in the near future. I rather enjoyed the HBO mini-series, Band of Brothers, which came out of an idea following Saving Private Ryan. Tom Hanks had a hand in that and he also has a lot to do with the new HBO offering, The Pacific, a story of another major part of WW2. It has apparently just been run in the US and Ed Martin, describes it as a masterpiece. If it has anything of the gritty reality of Band of Brothers, that will be little surprise.
A friend who lives in Indonesia sent me a link to a YouTube video of a concept which would turn portable computing around somewhat. There are some interesting design ideas, but the screen would take a pounding in normal usage, I bet.
