Apple, the computer giant whose sleek products have become a mainstay of modern life, is dealing with a public relations disaster and the threat of calls for a boycott of its iPhones and iPad.

via Apple hit by boycott call over worker abuses in China | Technology | The Observer.

Two Important things to note about this 'bogus-ness':

A) Foxconn make lots and lots of consumer electronics for practically every company on this earth. Xbox or PS3 yup that's them.

B) Apple, has been extraordinarily transparent about its manufacturing record. But, rules and expectations do not translate from one country to another.

"If you add up all the workers who have died to build your iPhone or iPad, the number is shockingly high,"  - Peter Cohan : Forbes

Finally, if your going to write sound-bites, at least have the decency to give the number or cite the source.

In an interesting twist, Computer World is reporting that a federal judge ruled last week that the Mac clone maker Psystar can continue its countersuit against computer maker and Mac OS developer Apple Corporation. Neowin

So what is Apple's next move, well thats quite simple. If you can't beat them fairly beat them unfairly. I can see Apple taking some of that Cash on Hand, and buying Psystar outright and effectively putting them out of business.

I personally think that Apple will enact such a policy across all stores soon, they want to stay profitable after all and time is money. The time spent dealing with questions and people who a clearly not there to buy only to check their gmail account has to stop. Apple has a massive retail presence based on quality of staff, if they are to keep the quality of staff high and thus maintain this appearance through the oncoming storm, they have to draw the line at some point.

Via TinyComb TechCrunch

Firstly, take a look at the iPhone. Its a fantastically designed device, and the attention to detail is insane - that's not to say the Android platform isn't. But it is a sensible justification that the platform needs to slightly closed to allow a continuity of quality to be maintained. Secondly, the iTunes to iPhone facility has yet to face any real competition, its far from perfect but there is a seamless connection from buying to using. You click buy and the app or music is downloaded and synced to your phone, without having to drag and drop, move or do anything manually. However there is growing concern that the closed nature of the platform will be its undoing see Pull My Finger [1]

Lets be fair, the Android platform does has some major advantages. Anything, anyone and everything can be developed for it, its open. The Android developers needn't be the best usability experts, they just wait for the experts to develop there own slick UI for the system - but here in lies a pitfall, how open is open. For instance T-Mobile have already said that the G1 shouldn't be used as at tethered device [2], and there are also limits to how much you can actually do, before it starts to impact on stability of the system, something vitally important if it is to really go head to head with the iPhone.

I am all for the open platform, but the average Joe consumer it makes no difference, really super cool device (iPhone) or clunky lucking no the less cool device (T-Mobile G1) 

So open shouldn't really be open?

I think the main problem with an open platform is you end up with far too much choice, which is fine for a geek. The average consumer wants simple, so I would hope that there are some very clear limits placed on developing for the Android, i.e. you can use this much and no more, you can't access the ... etc this means that stability can be maintained. 

Its the problem Microsoft has always had, you can't be all things to all people and you can't ensure everything works all of the time, which in-part open source solves the problem. But also pretty soon you can end up with the same phone running radically different programs and processes. Whilst some people may favor this model, it isn't good business. Especially when going after the Goliath that the iPhone has become.

The Android Platform and the G1 have promise but I don't think this iteration of the idea will make much of a dent on the iPhone at least not with the core consumer, but I can see the early adopters of the world moving of to Android.

As a developer I would develop for both, as I consumer I would have the iPhone, as a Geek I would have the Android. So I will end up with both in my pocket.

Written whilst listening to TWiT 162

One important thing to note was Steve Job's committed to pricing the new 8gb iPhone at no more that $199US in all 70 countries the iPhone 3g will be sold in by the end of the year. I hope this is the signal of a much bigger push by Apple to price equivalently in all countries. That said they create products people will gladly pay for in some cases even twice such as myself who will be upgrading come July 11th once again.

Surprisingly the announcement of OS X 10.6 dubbed Snow Leopard was pushed from the forefront of the announcement, giving credence to the fact it will not be a stability release just a fit and polish release to keep ahead of the competition. Also .mac will be no longer and be replaced by mobile me, which has to be an improvement of the aging .mac name and technology.

It was a bit of a let down in the fact that Steve had very little stage time, some reported as usually steve looked ill.

Shock Horror - There was no one more thing.

Macworld is reporting that Apple will not attend the Apple Expo in France this year. 

Apple: We are attending fewer trade shows each year

My question is, does anybody really think Apple need to attend every expo. They generate more than enough publicity for any company without saying anything.

Unconfirmed List for next week WWDC

• iPhone 2 & All the trimmings
• New macs of any description
• Mac OS X 10.6 - Snow Leopard

In the UK we have become used getting ripped off around every corner, it stinks but we are British so we put up with it. My problem is that some of the films now available particularly Al Gores documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" £10.99 At this point the noveltywore off, I can have this shipped to me from amazon £6.22 in less than two days.

I aren't apposed to paying £6.99 for a film, but £10.99 for a film that you can buy in the shops for less than £7 I think its pushing it. Us Brits whilst being hard done by after getting the long of the stick for so many years we have all become cynics, and easily see where profiteering is taking place. We saw it with the iPhone, which didn't do anywhere near as well as planned (see here) We also see it with practically every computer or gadget, when you get nearly 2$US to £1GBP and the prices of things are the same in dollars as pounds you know there is something wrong.

Unless iTunes get more content up in the store and stop stupid pricing, they may just take off. Who am I kidding it will take off whatever apple do, its what their good at. I would like to think that Apple at least get some semblance of order in pricing and price match with the High Street.

My first exposure to a computer was a windows 3.1 machine in 1995, it was god awful but I was only five and young kids and technology don't really get on. It was a good few years before I got a computer of my own, I ended up with a Pentium 1 MX running Windows 95, which didn't last long. I couldn't play any games on it, and it was stable as a long pole with a plate on it. So inevetably it was upgraded to a machine running Windows 98 Pentium 2, with a decent graphics card and MPEG decoder card.

Its probably at that point that the bug really caught me, from then on in I had a slew of applications and experiments going on the poor computer, which I still have under my desk. Three computers later and I made the big switch to Mac, something which I haven't regretted, and still manage to keep up with windows excluding Vista which is almost as bad as 3.1. I also managed to pick up Ruby on Rails and a bit of PHP along the way, and ashamed as I am to say it Visual Basic.

People always ask me how I know how computers work. The simple answer is I have been tinkering with them for far too long. Every computer I have owned has been broken replaced upgraded and attacked by me, leading me to come across practically every common error you can get. Its sad to say but I can usually diagnose a hardware fault before the BIOS has finished its self test at boot up, and a software problem by hitting less then 10 commands.

The trend over the last few years is people are using technology every waking moment, but very few know how the stuff works. I love knowing how it works, and couldn't really care less about using it. I will strip things down take them to bits, rebuild them, and then maybe use them. Because of this I have a collection of gadgets and gizmos that few other people my age can boast. It also means, that college work can sometimes come a distant second to a new gadget or blog post.

I don't procrastinate as such, I just love technology to distraction. Wait a minute that is technically procrastinating. I don't know what career I may choose, convergent technologies mean that practically any field is open to me.

Best bit is I know there will never be a boring job, technology is getting more and more exciting the closer we get to the point on the curve we drop off.  

Live Mesh puts you at the center of your digital world, seamlessly connecting you to the people, devices, programs, and information you care about - available wherever you happen to be. www.mesh.com

Microsoft being its usual self has joined the web 2.0 party, and looks as if the Yahoo! bid was a hint at a much larger plan.

So what exactly is the significance of Mesh and the whole Microsoft online play? Its validated a couple of ideas cloud computing is definitely going to have a massive impact the way in which we interact with both mobile devices and laptops/desktops, and also Microsoft has seen a little sense and is bending to the will of user. 

Office Online?

An obvious application that Microsoft will put into mesh is Office, quite frankly the current online offering is underwhelming and Google Docs beats it, but in mesh with a cross-platform version of office that follows you I would be willing to pay for that.

Did I here you say Cross-Platform?

Along with the announcement of Mesh some other intersting things came out of the tour, support for Macs! Is this a much bigger plan to get out of the Operating System business or transition to providing a thinned out operating system that can access mesh (They may even use an Open Source kernel) 

I think Microsoft has got themselves some new friends and I will be sure to check out Mesh in more detail very soon. Its going to interesting if they do it right...

Get a grip O2, even AT&T can offer Data plans for outside the US to iPhone customers.