One size does not fit - Windows 8.1 upgrade

It appears Microsoft has not learned that one-size does not fit all when designing Windows 8 to replace Windows 7. The comments from this article <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/09/12/windows_eight_one_review> puts it succinctly the difficulties Microsoft is facing inflicted by herself:

The Search app also deserves a mention. Search “Everywhere” from the Charms menu, and an app pieces together local and web results into a multimedia view that works brilliantly for certain types of search. It is an excellent app. The question is: will users who are stuck in the desktop ever discover it? That question expresses Microsoft’s difficulty. The more it steers users towards the Windows 8 tablet platform, the more complaints it gets from bemused and often conservative Windows users. The more it enables user to stay in the desktop environment, the harder it becomes to establish its new app platform.

I honestly don't understand why Microsoft is hell-bend on subscribing to this silly idea that there is only one way to use a computing device. The only conclusion is to use a force users to use the "Modern" (aka Metro) apps so that their effort will quickly boost up the number to compete with Apple and Google. In order words, Microsoft is using her customers as their foot soldiers.

Apple seems to understand this issue much better than Microsoft and handles the situation with finesse. Apple does not try to make MacOS to run and behave like iOS. This is not only sensible but free each group of designers the constraint one form of device would impose on the other learning to all sort of ridiculous compromises.

Microsoft appears to be incapable of learning from its past. When Microsoft brought out the PDA (Personal Digital Assistant), a fore-father of today's smart phone, it tried to make its operating system emulating the Windows' and this exercise failed miserably.

Now Microsoft is contended on forcing Desktop user to run like a 9-10" touch devices when they do not have any touch facility. Surely with the kind of resources available in Microsoft, they can build into the Windows the intelligence to detect the operating hardware and to be adaptive.

As a concession to Desktop user with 19+" monitors, Windows 8.1 now allows user to resize their "Modern" apps. 

I actually find this term "Modern" user interface kind of inappropriate. What is so 'modern' when you look at one, it reminds one of the good old dumb terminal display - always fixed at that size (80x24) - except that this now has color and gaphics. Nevertheless, it is fixed and can't be resized, except in Windows 8.1. All controls are flat ugly as compared to those in Windows 7, even without Aero, and lacking any feedback. In many applications one can't tell if it is a clickable control or just a piece of text. Calling that 'Modern'? Please bring back the ancient user interface.

Apple vs Samsung - is it a case of trying to patent a door knob?

I have been following this Apple vs Samsung patent violation case with total amazement. I am not a patent lawyer but a software developer and I own a Samsung Note as an act of defiant allowing me to flash such a device in Apple Store just to annoy them showing off the cool features not found in Apple devices.

I fully agree with this assessment that Apple should lose on appeal. To the US Apple fanbois, this may be a shock but if you step across the Pacific Ocean, such expectation is not wishful thinking but already a reality. In Japan, the court threw the case out and in Korea their court has found Samsung did not copy. In Australia Apple lost on trying to ban Galaxy Tab 10.1. S3 are selling like hot cakes.

I am a late comer to using the so called smart phone but not a stranger to this kind of mobile devices judging from the collection of PDA of different vintage in my drawers.

Recently when I was holidaying in HK, I did an unscientific survey of what kind of smart phones are used. What's better place than in the HK MTR to make my observation. To my astonishment very few brought out any iPhone! The number of non-Apple devices easily out number Apple device at least 2:1. This was before the verdict of the Apple vs Samsung case. There are so many people using Note, particularly for watching videos. iPhone's screen is a midget by comparison.

The result of this survey is not too far off the mark from market report on the smart phone market in China. The Android phones market in that part of the world is being placed as commanding 60% of the market.

From my observation Apple must be very desperate in clinging to this 'Pinch to Zoom' which is like patenting the door knob action. I wonder if anyone has patented on that.

This gesture is not so unique to Apple. The Fujitsu Windows 7 tablet I was testing has already have gesture like swipe, pinch, stylus operation, mouse and keyboard operations.

I grow up with PC from the CPM/DOS day through the day when Apple Vs Microsoft, which thankfully failed to stop the march of Windows GUI allowing the whole family of GUI operating systems to flourish. Apple has been litigious since those days. A journey through decades of evolution of GUI operating systems, from highly proprietary to open source, clearly shows Apple's claim that patents are essential artefacts to encourage development is false and just delusional.

From what this layman's eye, Apple is more interested in using litigation to stop competition and an attempt to monopolize the smart phone market and their latest antics supports such a claim. As a technical people, I have found their product only technically on par with others and in some situations worse. Perhaps Apple's Ads has some truth in it.

If anyone can't buy Samsung of the model of your choice in US, there is the Internet coming to your aid. While Apple may win the court battle but it will lose the war. Why?

Scarcity is what makes an item more valuable and desirable, not just smart phone. There is no bragging right for whipping out a common toast-thick iPhone comparing to Apple-induced-banned slick and sexy wafer-thin S3 or even my Note. US has a good history of prohibition failure.

If the market for Samsung in US is blocked by whatever means, the mobility of today's population and the Internet will provide a teaser to entice people to seek out those hard to get items to show off. I don't think Google will be too willing to block search result for 'buying Samsung S3 in US'. You can also go to Alibaba or to create business opportunity for a reverse Shipito, which has defeated those US online merchants using geo-blocking technique to protect their distribution channels.

Anyone doubting that should consider this real-life situation created entirely by Apple's marketing machine. When Apple iPhone 4s was released, Apple thought it could whipped up more hype by staging their release world wide. Hence they deliberately delayed the release in HK, a place where people love to be holding hard to get gadgets, and not even announcing the release date to create more mystery and hype.

With the advent of the Internet, people in HK jumped on the Internet and ordered iPhone 4s from Australia, a place not contaminated by artificial whipped up super-hyped marketing technique, delivered to local address and then couriered to HK. iPhone 4s was so abundant in Australia when it was released that anyone could walk in and picked them up. I personally know several people shipped iPhine 4s and the DHL was doing a roaring trade. People are now gearing up to take order for iPhone 5 should Apple uses the same marketing hype again.

The comical part was that these devices came from China and was then ship back over the border to HK, China's SAR.

Witnessing the failure of this kind of strategy, which attempted to create scarcity, Apple quickly announced the release date and the price and desirability of iPhone 4s in that place vaporised as quickly as a puff of smoke.

The reverse applied to Australia. When Apple managed to temporarily secure a ban on the sales of Samsung Tab 10.1, the interest on this device shot up and people simply went online to HK or elsewhere to import them. This only hurt those local companies selling both Samsung and Apple devices. Samsung Tab 10.1 was not renounced as the most brilliant tablet but with of the help from Apple, its desirability shot to the top of the bunch and now is so well known that is synonymous with iPad. This must have saved Samsung lots of advertising money.

The same will applies to S3 and Note and other great devices yet to come. There will be good business opportunity for shipping to US Samsung S3, Note, Tablet and others devices that Apple wanted to ban. The victory, if any, would be hollow and pure academic.

That is the reality and it is better for Apple to learn to live with others saving lots of legal expenses. In so doing will earn admiration for its prowess for marketing a device in fiercely competitive environment rather than to beating other into submission through legal muscles on something as silly as trying to patent a door knob. At the moment, it has earned the dubious title as most litigious and angry company.

Door knobs are door knobs, you can't and shouldn't be allowed to patent that. All the best to Samsung and thanks for such a great device as the Note!

Apple's way to fix iOS security vulnerability

Keep quiet and Shoot the messenger and this is a classic Security by Obscurity.

Charlie Miller recently found a security vulnerability in iOS and shows it on YouTube. This has embarrassed Apple.

I am wondering how many 'silent messengers' out there going about merrily exploiting holes without telling Apple. After this episode why would researcher bother to tell Apple, the ungrateful lot.

Apple users, welcome to the real world!

If you have not be told Apple has virus, you should read this excellent piece of report on "Mac Defender" malware. As a realist, I have always laughed when Apple users naively believing the sales hype that it does not virus!

I have been following this Mac Defender for a long time, way before the popular media outlets picked up the story. When I first heard of this, I realized that apple users' age of innocence had just been shattered. My warning to my friends and view on the vulnerability of these unrealistically complacent apple users would be like pack of drunken sheep to the wolf. Surprisingly this same sentiment is echoed by Molly Wood in CNet. As a developer, software bounds to have vulnerability as it is crafted by human. Besides, Apple OS is just a Unix and Unix/Linux is always known to be malware/virus.

I believe it will become a lot worse before it gets some form of relief because these attackers have sharpened its modi operandi in the Windows world and that Windows users are conditioned to become more alert about Virus/Trojan/Malware. To these attackers, Apple users are trusting lot!

I am not surprised to learn of the recommended "unhelpful" customer service directive of Apple as reported. Molly has outlined several notable exemplars of Apple's unhelpfulness. The "silence-then-solution pattern" will definitely put their users at great risk through Apple's generosity of giving attackers a wide windows of attack opportunity. Does Apple care? I doubt it. The old "Poison DNS attack" and Apple's slowness in addressing this is just another shiny example of a company cares more about a facade than what's behind and its users well beings.

Joke of the century - Steve Job calling Apple iPad/iPhone open system

Steve Jobs must be using a different dictionary than mine and may be high on illicit substance when he said:
Apple has many proprietary products too. Though the operating system for the iPhone, iPod and iPad is proprietary, we strongly believe that all standards pertaining to the web should be open. Rather than use Flash, Apple has adopted HTML5, CSS and JavaScript – all open standards.

While the web part may be so only in a very limited sense. It still does not work with 80% of the web that other browsers can competently handle. It is like saying my car's ride is so good only one perfectly laid road surface but any pot-holes or expansion joints will throw the car off course.

What he did not say is that it is not open to industry adopted defacto "standards" (Steve you quoted the word open and I quoted the word standard, fair swap!), of which Adobe Flash is one, even though it API and standards belonging to Adobe.

If Apple, in particular, is so open as Steve Jobs, why is there a dictatorial control over what development languages one can use?

The whole issue is not whether Adobe Flash is proprietary or not. It is just the culture of Apple's insatiable thirst to retain control over its products - Google Voice Native removal - and it will not allow others invention to outshine his.

The so called "open" system supports Object-C, which does not have any formal written standard unlike ANSI-C or ANSI-C++. Even C# is an ISO & ECMA standard language and hence if Steve is genuine about pursuing only standard or open specification, he should endorse .Net but it is in the banned list.

I can't understand why Microsoft has been charged for anti-competitive when it only have Internet Explorer pre-installed while allowing all other browsers under the sun, including that from Apple, can installed without need for approval and yet Apple is free to impose all the kind of undocumented approval rules that in its tight-fist control of its product.

If it is good for the gander, it is good for goose! So just can't wait to see the US Department of Justice, FTC and EU coming down hard of this villain. It is long overdue.

Is this a joke - Apple iPhone & iPad's battery replacement policy

Is Apple battery replacement policy is joke?

When you send your iPad off to Apple, you aren't just getting your same ol' iPad back in the mail after one week or thereabouts. Opting for the company's battery replacement service will basically put you on the list for a refurbished iPad--although the exterior case of the device will be brand-new, the underlying product will be one that's gone through Apple's fix-it procedures in some capacity. Naturally, any data you've kept on your old iPad device will go the way of the dinosaur: You'll want to back up all your settings and information prior to asking Apple for a new battery.

I have changed my Fujitsu Tablet PC's battery 3 times (hey, that is a real tablet while iPad is only a touch sensitive device, just like a checkout counter and stop calling it a tablet because you cannot scribble ink on iPad). And each time, not a single bit of data is lost and it take a minute to replace a battery - not days and complete reload of data.

My questions in relation to this crazy scheme are:
1) How clean does Apple clean the memory & disk drive in this device to prevent leakage of one's data to another owner?
2) How perfect is their back up and restore program in restoring the device that comes back to its pre-service state?
3) How does one reconcile the different serial number or mobile phone's identification number as I am sure they will be different. For example if insurance company will use those number in their policy.
4) Will the device that comes back have different revision of the ROM or chip set? Will you be getting an older version from a newer one that went in?

iPad design principle is a diametrically opposite to the Apple Computer's founding one

This article by Johnathan Zittrain provides a timely warning of the danger of allowing Apple to exert such a tight control on its recently released products, namely iPhone and iPad. He provides a historical account of how Apple Computer was established based on a computer, Apple II, renowned for its ability to be reconfigured almost infinitely with third parties parts and then contrasting its recent diametrically opposite corporate view - Apple controlling everything.

He reminds us

If Apple is the gatekeeper to a device’s uses, the governments of the world need knock on the door of only one office in Cupertino, California – Apple’s headquarters – to demand changes to code or content . Users no longer own or control the apps they run – they merely rent them minute by minute.
[...]
Mr Jobs ushered in the personal computer era and now he is trying to usher it out. We should focus on preserving our freedoms, even as the devices we acquire become more attractive and easier to use.

This is really funny - various use of iPad

This report is really funny citing the lack of originality of the word iPad,

Fujitsu Ltd. said its US subsidiary in 2002 launched the "iPad", a sleek handheld multimedia device with a 3.5-inch screen, used by retail store clerks to keep inventory data, scan barcodes and manage business operations.
[...]
Germany's Siemens uses the trademark "iPad" for small engines and motors.

The Swiss-based microchip maker STMicroelectronics has reportedly also registered "IPAD", short for "Integrated Passive and Active Devices."

In Canada, the Ontario-based company Coconut Grove Pads Inc. has since 2007 made a line of bra inserts and shoulder pads called the "iPad", according to an online report by the Globe and Mail daily.

A Japanese company that makes a product of the same name -- pronounced "ai pad" when transcribed from the Japanese -- is Awaji-Tec, a manufacturer of adult nappies with a high-tech twist.

The company says its nappies feature an electronic device that can send a signal to a remote caregiver when it needs to be changed.
[...]
Meanwhile in China, a company has used a different name -- the "P88" -- for an iPad look-alike, with a slightly larger screen, faster processor and larger memory but battery life of only 1.5 hours compared to the iPad's 10 hours.

The following comment really hurts:

But the makers of the P88, Shenzhen Great Loong Brother Industrial Co., said Apple appeared to be the copycats. 

 "We don't understand. Why did they make the same thing as us?" Huang Xiaofang, an executive at the company, told AFP. "We launched it earlier."

Well done!

iPad is not the thinnest...

iPad (or would it be iBad) is not the thinnest device on the market - a piece of paper is. Some may argue this is a stupid comparison but when a device that cannot show 70%-75% of the Internet graphic contents using Adobe flash, it is as functional to my piece of blank paper for showing the Internet contents.

Hence my rather sarcastic comparison is therefore not without merit and foundation.

Poor Apple also being caught out of false advertising displaying a web page containing flash content that can only be visualized by iPad owners with tonnes of imagination or boxes of crayons. The ability of flash to show graphic contents has proven too great a temptation for Apple to resist.

Something that every non-iPad or iPod owners could see and enjoy on his or her computers or smart phones is only a distance longing for iPad or iPod owners. But then again there are people who love to be controlled and dictated by Apple and will not mine throwing money at Jobs' feet for the contempt he dishes out to his customers.

Arrogance to the (Apple) core

This report on the release of Apple's iPhone shows Apple's arrogance to the core. I wouldn't be bothered - it is just a phone and my $50 makes as good phone call as something that holds the owner hostage.

Is it a second coming for Apple?

Recently Apple announced that it is building up its capability to build its own chip. Is its Apple's second coming or another case of Deja Vue.

Jim Carlton in his book has documented Apple's first foolish attempt between 1986 and 1989 that ended up flushing down the drain $20 million as follows:

...an Advanced Technology Group engineer named Sam Holland, who in 1986 convinced Gassee that Apple should design its own microprocessor chips.
[...]
Believing that Gassee and the engineers knew best, Sculley gave Aquarius his unequivocal support, to the extend that he even bought the engineers a $15 million Cray supercomputer they could use to perform their design work on.
[...]
The underlying motivation behind the Aquarius project was Apple's fear that the Motorola line of microprocessors that it was dependent on would soon run out of steam and be surpassed by the rival line from Intel.
[...]
Holland proposed that Apple design not only a new chip but one that would incorporate four microprocessors onto a single piece of silicon.
[...]
The only problem was that this had never been attempted before in a computer as small as a desktop.
[...]
"Aquarius was an example of the willingness of the top management of Apple to embark on grand projects that skilled technical management would have known was unfeasible," Alcorn [Al Alcorn was an Apple Fellow] says.

The italics emphasis is mine.

The project was shut down after a chip expert called Hugh Martin was recruited to help with the Aquarius project and this exchange between him and Sculley led to the cancellation of this bold & foolish attempt:

"He said, 'What do you think about Aquarius?", Martin recalls. "I said, John, that's ridiculous. Apple has no fab or chip experience. How do you compete with Intel and Motorola?"

Within 6 month after that conversation, the project was canceled.

Let's hope Apple management can still remember this secret project and learn from the history. Now Motorola is effectively out of the contention and Martin's question to Apple in 1989 was as appropriate to Apple as it is now, except that you can substitute Motorola with AMD.

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"Apple - the inside story of intrigue, egomania, and business blunders" by Jim Carlton, 1997, Time Business a division of Random House. Page 86-90