Apple seems to be taking good steps to help improve working conditions for workers in China. This is something I can really get behind.

I think their change of stance could well be one of the biggest Apple stories of 2012. Let’s see what 2013 brings.

Chris Zeigler of The Verge writes about nonsensical smartphone pricing, specifically touching on carriers as being the cause of these problems. I’d take it a step further: the problems are subsidies:

Seven months is not a reasonable life cycle for any durable product. You wouldn't buy a new TV, game console, Blu-ray player, refrigerator, or car every seven months. In fact, if a manufacturer discontinued and replaced your TV after seven months, you'd be pissed. But it's like an addiction: carriers and OEMs need the high they get from the fleeting sales bump after the release of an incrementally new model, a bump that quickly flatlines. Hilarious price adjustments ensue; a $199.99 phone falls to $149.99, $99.99, $49.99, and eventually free over the course of a single year.

Treating mobile devices like portable computers rather than “phones” cancels out a lot of the complexity surrounding their pricing. Computers are rarely subsidised — and we’re still happy to spend thousands up front for a new machine every few years.

The entire premise of my piece “The Cheapest Way To Buy An iPhone In The UK” is that buying a mobile phone outright — and unlocked — is more cost effective than taking a subsidised price from a carrier and paying through the nose monthly for the data plan:

If you do the maths, over 12 months I pay £620 for my phone and data plan, whereas a similar 12 month contract on Vodafone would cost £771.

This is still true today, but I think more people are realising it.

If a customer approached HTC directly and asked which phone they should buy, it’d likely be the most current flagship model. The same would go for Apple or Samsung — even if cheaper or older devices like the iPhone 4 are available. Current flagship models will have a longer lifespan and more features than older or cheaper devices.

Carriers are where the problems start: subsidising devices differently skews the value proposition. Carriers offer the same service to customers whether they buy a cheap device or an expensive device. Phone manufacturers will generally receive the same revenue whether the devices are bought directly or through a carrier.

I still feel that treating carriers like “dumb pipes” is the easiest way to visualise where money goes when you buy a new phone. Carriers will get their cash on a recurring monthly schedule, whereas hardware manufacturers will get their revenue in a single upfront purchase.

Skewing these business models will generally only increase complexity. I’d advise against it where possible: carrier lock-in, locked devices or extremely high monthly tariffs are more hassle than they’re worth.

As Jason Kottke quips, The Onion is often the most emotionally honest news source. Turns out they can be even more than that.

I wrote an article for The Industry explaining that it’s sometimes all okay when a small company is acquired by a larger one. Adobe has a good track record with acquisitions.

“80 years after the end of prohibition, prohibition is finally coming to an end.”

The iPad outclasses heavy and cumbersome flight manuals in pretty much every measurable characteristic I can think of. I bet those pilots think Christmas has come early.

It seems to be the week for iPad pilot news — Federico Viticci has a great article over at Macstories, interviewing Erik Hess, a F-5N Tiger II pilot. Spoiler alert: he uses an iPad whilst flying. Great read and fascinating story.

British Airways aren’t the only airline rolling out iPads to their staff: Qatar are getting in on some action, too.

Oh, just in case anyone was wondering where most of Samsung’s Galaxy Notes have gone to, look no further than American Airlines. They’ve bought 17,000 of the damn things. Seems to sum up everything I’ve heard about AA.

The Ars Technica review of the new 27” iMac is here. The team over at Ars ordered a fully maxed out model — fastest CPU and GPU available and the biggest 768GB SSD. The only spec which wasn’t fully upgraded was the RAM, because it’s possible (and cheaper) to customise aftermarket. The machine they ordered is exactly what I’ve got my eye on.

My concern with these new iMacs has been noise: would the heat caused by the powerful components result in high fan noise during normal use? The answer appears to be no:

The 27-inch iMac looks sharp—metaphorically and physically—and it's very, very quiet. There's only a single fan inside, and the lack of a mechanical hard disk drive or any other moving parts makes for a near-silent desktop. The fan spun up a bit during benchmarking, but it didn't make very much noise—it was the loudest thing in the room, but my office is pretty quiet. During a multihour gaming session, the fan stayed spun up at a constant level, but the noise was still less than the previous-generation 27-inch iMac under load. As soon as the CPU and GPU dropped back to near-idle, the fan began to spin down, and the computer was near-silent again within about 30 seconds.

Older iMacs had three fans inside. These new iMacs have just one — and they’re dramatically thinner, meaning components are snugly fitted together. I was concerned these changed would combine to create a noisier machine.

Looks like I was wrong.

I’ve had some experience with older iMacs and have always been amazed at their almost silent operation. If the new 27” model is even quieter, I will be delighted.

Whilst I’m on the topic of holiday sales, another great one has just been announced: The folks over at Realmac are discounting all their Mac apps and Clear for iPhone.

I just bought Analog. It’s a great photo editing app — I’ll be digging deeper into it over the holidays, so expect some sort of review in the coming weeks.

My iOS twitter clients of choice — Tweetbot for iPhone and Tweetbot for iPad — are currently on sale for a limited time. If you don’t already own them, you now have no excuse.

Consumer Reports:

A quick look at our newest computer Ratings tells an interesting story: Despite the release of the new Windows 8 OS, many Windows 7 computers are still available from a variety of retailers, and several top our Ratings. If you're shopping for a new computer right now, there are some good reasons to opt for Windows 7.

Clearly, Windows 8 isn’t to everyone’s liking. But what strikes me the most is that Microsoft is willing to allow retailers and hardware partners to ship Windows 7 even now. (Not to mention that Windows 7 computers still top the ratings.)

This kind of move feels antiquated in 2012. Struggles between hardware partners and Microsoft have been amplified by the Surface and I can’t see the tensions ending in a particularly great fashion for anyone — Microsoft, their partners or us users.

Great collection of movie screenshots collected over at reddit.

The three movies knit together to form a touching and beautiful trilogy. These images begin to show just how much thought was put into their creation.

Great news.​

I always refused to use the app, no matter how many of my friends were ​“reading” stories from it. The Guardian Facebook app seemed to only exist to spam my Timeline.

I’m glad it can no longer do that.