Good grief. Via The Medium is Not Enough, here’s Fox News’s take on the News International hacking scandal. In short: “They’ve done the right thing! Why do people keep banging away at this story?” Well, maybe that’s because News International was so powerful it had an entire government scared stiff and also practically decided who was elected. And, frankly, that Fox News piece pretty much showcases what happens when a media organisation has too much power. Impartiality? Facts? Fuck that—much more fun to pander to your parent company’s CEO’s wishes!

Ed Sutherland for Cult of Mac:

As the iPhone and iPad take on many of its features, iPod sales are expected to drop another 7.2 percent during the June quarter just ended.

Although Apple still controls more than 70 percent of the iPod player market, many features once exclusive to the MP3 player can be found in the iPhone and iPad. It’s unknown how long the venerable iPod will survive as many Apple customers turn to other devices for their music.

It’s clear iPods aren’t a ‘default’ device these days, but there’s still a huge market for them. Not everyone wants an iPhone, nor can everyone afford one. The same goes for the iPad, which is also significantly less pocketable than Apple’s smaller devices. Some people want a portable web-enabled unit that can play games and shoot video.

Frankly, if Apple made the iPod’s camera halfway decent and added 3G, I’ll bet it would become massively popular as an alternative to a smartphone. As it is, the device is still great for kids, for gamers, for people who want a lightweight device for shooting video, and for many other users besides.

I’m not sure what’s more sad about Steve Silberman’s An Eye-Opening Adventure in Socialized Medicine, the fact that someone from a wealthy, democratic country—the USA—was totally shocked about being treated, essentially for free, in London when he came down with a bad case of conjunctivitis, or that the NHS as we know it is still under threat from aggressive Conservative-led policy.

Silberman’s story highlights a poor aspect of US healthcare and the best of British. Having spent a large number of dollars battling with his US provider (“The Kaiser rep simply repeated her question in a more brittle tone of voice and added, ‘Just answer yes or no.'”), he finally got ‘permission’ to phone a London number for emergency care.

Amazingly, a human being picked up the phone right away — an affable guy with a disarmingly chummy accent and an empathic manner. Yes, yes, of course I should see a doctor right away. Where should they send him?

What? This guy was offering to dispatch someone to examine my eyes immediately in my apartment in the middle of the night?

He then ends up discovering, having heard about the evils of British healthcare, that there weren’t in fact thousands of people fighting for attention in the waiting room, that the staff were generally courteous and efficient, and, eventually, that the entire event cost him under a tenner for the prescription. The consultation was, of course, free.

In the comments, there are notes from people that Silberman only didn’t get charged because it’s too much hassle for the NHS to bother for such a small incident and consultation, but this nonetheless highlights two important things. First, the NHS was willing to spend some resources on a tourist, without any questions over insurance; secondly, that this is the default level of service you can enjoy with the evils of ‘socialised’ healthcare—and it costs a fraction of US healthcare insurance, along with being available to all.

There’s also a second point made, in that the NHS isn’t ‘free’ but ‘free at the point of entry’. But this is still a safety net that surely beats the US model, where you often aren’t even covered if you travel out of state. (Imagine telling a Londoner they’re not covered in Wales… they’d just look at you as though you were bonkers.) It’s strange that in a country that has ‘socialised’ aspects (police forces, benefits, various industries), health is such a sticking point. Why would it be a terrible thing for the USA to set up its own NHS? It’s not like you’d be forced to use it—after all, the UK has additional paid-for tiers—but at least then everyone would be covered and not petrified about losing their healthcare if they should lose their job. And the argument against—Why should I have to subsidise someone else’s healthcare?—makes no sense, given that this is precisely what you’re doing with insurance-based systems anyway. Insurance costs are always based in part around the people who are not insured, which drives premiums up.

The NHS isn’t perfect and I’m sure there are plenty of things that could be done to tighten things up. Yes, waiting lists are sometimes long and there are inconsistencies throughout the service. But the day the NHS is morphed into any kind of privatised service will be very sad indeed.

TechCrunch reporting:

A Japanese company called TechFirm [JP] has just a released a very special (and free) Twitter client for the iPad in the App Store [iTunes, bilingual English and Japanese]: “Breath Bird” lets people who can’t use their fingers and have problems speaking post to Twitter by breathing into the iPad’s mic.

The keyboard has a letter grid that highlights each row in turn. Mic input then confirms a row and starts the highlight moving horizontally. A second input then confirms an individual character or command (such as ‘Tweet’ and ‘Delete’). Innovative and clever use of tech.

As MacStories and others have reported, Apple last night adjusted a bunch of App Store prices. Some countries saw price-drops, but others—such as the UK—saw price-rises. Except they sort of didn’t. I’ll explain.

In the UK, the average change in prices has been, according to Tap! magazine, about 17.5%, which some people are complaining is well over the rate of inflation. The thing is, the App Store prices haven’t really changed at all, because they’re all (very lazily) pegged to the US App Store. If you go there, you’ll see that an app that cost 99 cents yesterday still costs 99 cents today. But in the UK, the lowest tier of 59p is now 69p.

So what happened? Apple simply rebalanced its currency conversion across the App Store, for the first time, and, if you check out the value of Sterling over the past five years (Yahoo! Finance), it’s easy to see why. When the App Store was launched, and during the time leading up to it, the exchange rate was almost $2 = £1. Apple therefore did its usual thing of dropping the rate a bit as a cushion and launched the store. And then Sterling tanked. By January 2009, it hit a low of $1.37, and although the currency has recovered a little since then, it’s spent most of its time hovering between $1.50 and $1.60.

This means that, while Brits won’t be happy about the ‘price rise’, we need to understand that App Store prices have been cheap, relatively speaking, since the App Store was launched. This is even more obvious when you take into account that UK prices include taxes, whereas US ones don’t. Some might call that poetic justice, given the ambitious pricing of TV shows and movies on the UK store. Regardless, the new tiers are likely here to stay for some time, unless the UK economy somehow heats up in a big way. Also, it’s worth noting, in bold, in case you otherwise wouldn’t notice, that iOS apps and games are generally insanely cheap and so a smallish price change doesn’t really matter. If you’ve spent 500 quid on a phone but now won’t buy Super-Duper New Game because it’s just ‘shot up’ in price from £1.79 to £1.99, I really don’t want to talk to you any more.