Airtel Introduces ‘Internet TV’ — An Android Powered, 4K Ready Hybrid DTH Box for your TV

Airtel Internet TV

Bharti Airtel today introduced ‘Internet TV‘ — a hybrid DTH set-top box for TVs. Touted as “India’s first”, the Internet TV box is powered by Google’s Android TV and comes with a host of interesting features targeted towards avid viewers who stream a lot of online content.

Airtel’s Internet TV is a Hybrid STB, bringing you the best of both DTH and the Internet. It brings you 500+ SD & HD channels from Airtel’s digital TV service, as well as virtually any app downloadable from Google Play. You can download and install apps, games, including apps from online streaming services such as Netflix, Eros Now, HOOQ, etc. You also get access to Airtel’s own Wynk services.

Airtel Internet TV

The Internet TV hardware isn’t shy on specs or ports, featuring a 2GB RAM and 2GHz ARM processor, 8GB of internal memory (upgradeable to 128GB), 4K 60fps resolution, Dolby ATMOS, 10/100 ethernet port, built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and also comes with companion “gamepad” apps for iOS and Android.

Airtel is also offering a complimentary bonus to Airtel Broadband customers under its myHome offer. Depending on your plan, you either get 10GB or 25GB of free data every month.

A subscription to Internet TV is currently priced at ₹4999 for 3 months or ₹7999 for 12 months, the latter being a limited time offer. You can head to Amazon India to place your order.

Update May 1st, 2017: Airtel has now clarified that you do need an active DTH connection in order to continue using the non-DTH features of the device.

I was looking to order a couple of these boxes for my house to replace TataSky, but clearly that doesn’t seem like a good idea yet.

April 12, 2017 ✚ Permalink

On Vivek Wadhwa’s Factor Daily piece titled “Why Apple is destined to fail in India”

apple-vivek-wadhwa-factor-daily-piece-lol

Earlier today, Factor Daily published this piece titled ‘Why Apple is destined to fail in India‘ written by Vivek Wadhwa. A similarly-worded article from the author also appeared on The Washington Post and VentureBeat a day earlier. I subscribed to Factor Daily via RSS a while ago, primarily for the people behind the site who have delivered some great content in the past. I, however, was definitely not ready for this hilariously bullshit stream of content heading my way.

Now, usually when I come across a title as bold as this one about Apple, and they’re dime a dozen these days, I usually either skip it completely or read it and then skip reacting to it. But this piece by Vivek Wadhwa has such ingenious crap filled inside, I couldn’t help fire up Ulysses. Vivek’s piece essentially says that Apple is destined to fail in India because the company fails to understand the Indian market and that “it is repeating the mistakes it made in China”. However, a lot of points that Vivek raises are just not true, plain wrong, or simply laughable.

[With inputs and corrections from Rohan “RN” Naravane, who was just as baffled upon reading the piece.]

(more…)

March 17, 2017 ✚ Permalink

Tim Cook on India during Apple’s Q1 2017 Earnings Call

Apple had their quarterly earnings call yesterday where they announced record first quarter results. The company posted all-time record quarterly revenue of $78.4 billion (compared to $75.9 billion in Q1 2016) and all-time record quarterly earnings per diluted share of $3.36 (compared to $3.28 in Q1 2016).

iPhone and Mac sales and revenue are up, whereas iPad sales and revenue is down compared to the year-ago quarter. Revenue from Apple’s Services business and from Other Products (includes Apple Watch and Apple TV) are also up.

During the earnings call, Brian White from Drexel asked,

I didn’t hear much mentioned about India. How did India perform with the iPhone, and how should we think about it for 2017, especially with the 4G network going up?

Tim answered,

That’s a really good question. Despite the de-monetization move in India that created lots of economic pressure there last quarter, despite that, we had all-time record revenue results. And so we were very happy about that. The de-monetization impact has not worked its way through yet; it’s still definitely having some overhang, but I think in the longer term, it’s a great move. I feel really good about how we’re doing there. We are in discussions on a number of things, including retail stores and fully intend to invest significantly in the country and believe it’s a great place to be.

[Via iMore]

February 1, 2017 ✚ Permalink

Apple Increases Pricing of Apps on the App Store in India

iOS App Store

Apple has today sent out an email to iOS developers notifying them of upcoming changes to the pricing on the App Store. According to the email, the pricing of apps and in-app purchases (IAPs) will increase in India, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.

Apple mentions that this price change is due to change in tax laws in the India, Romania and Russia, but it doesn’t mention why the pricing is changing in the UK. It’s likely that Apple is merely adjusting the pricing to be in line with the falling value of the Pound Sterling against the US Dollar.

If you’re in India, here’s what the pricing change means and how it’ll affect you.

(more…)

January 17, 2017 ✚ Permalink

1,200 Wi-Fi Hotspots to be Launched in Mumbai Soon

Mumbai — the financial capital of the country will pretty soon go live with 1200 Wi-Fi Hotspots, according to the Hindustan Times.

The project envisages providing wireless internet access across the city through a network of 6,000 MTNL hotspots at 1,200 locations across the city. It will offer speeds of up to 20Mbps (megabits per second), equivalent to 2.5MB/s (megabytes per second).

Under the scheme, the first 1GB of data or the first 30 minutes of use – whichever comes first – will be free. After that, you will be charged at competitive rates.

The municipal elections are set for next month, so I’m hoping to see this go live some time next week.

January 7, 2017 ✚ Permalink

Apple Plans to Make iPhones in Bengaluru in India

Shilpa Phadnis, reporting for the TNN:

Apple plans to make iPhones for the Indian market in Bengaluru. Wistron, a Taiwanese OEM maker for Apple, is setting up a facility in Peenya, the city’s industrial hub, to manufacture the iPhones. The facility will start production from next April, according to industry sources.

I really hope this see-saw of news ends soon.

December 30, 2016 ✚ Permalink

[Updated] Apple Announces a New MacBook Pro Lineup with Touch Bar, Touch ID and USB Type-C Ports (India Pricing)

Apple MacBook Pro 2016

Apple today announced an all new MacBook Pro Lineup in an event at its campus in Cupertino. Poised as the “thinnest and lightest MacBook Pro ever“, the highlight of the new MacBook Pro is the new multitouch Retina Display that replaces the row of Function keys above the keyboard. Called a Touch Bar, this new interface displays app-specific buttons and options that the user can interact with — allowing app developers to offer custom features via this additional display. Apple demoed apps like the new Final Cut Pro 10.3, Adobe Photoshop, Algoriddim’s djay Pro and said that apps like Microsoft Office, Skype, Sketch, etc. will be adding support for the Touch ID very soon.

Along with the Touch Bar, Apple has also introduced a Touch ID into the new MacBook Pro. Featuring the 2nd generation sensor from the iPhone 6s and iPhone 7, the new Touch ID allows users to log into their Macs or make payments via Apple Pay with just a simple touch. Additionally, different user accounts on the Mac can be tied to users’ own fingerprints — a feature I’m personally desperately waiting for on the iPads.

The new MacBook Pro all features a stunning new display that Apple says is the “brightest and most colorful Retina display yet“. The new display boasts 500 nits of brightness making it 67 percent brighter than its predecessors and also has 67 percent more contrast. Additionally, the display also features the ability to display a wider color gamut and consumes 30% less power compared to previous generations.

The MacBook Pro lineup also features a much larger Force Touch trackpad, coming in a twice the size of its predecessors. There are four Thunderbolt 3 ports using USB Type-C connectors and each of these connectors can be used for charging, video or data transfers.

Other features added to the MacBook Pro lineup include a new keyboard with second-generation butterfly mechanism and louder speakers with improved bass and twice the dynamic range.

MacBook Pro Specifications and India Pricing:

The new MacBook Pro lineup now consists of three different models with multiple versions:

  1. 13-inch MacBook Pro
  2. 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and Touch ID
  3. 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and Touch ID

13-inch MacBook Pro

The 13-inch MacBook Pro is meant as a minor upgrade to the current generation 13-inch MacBook Air. Although Apple has discontinued the 11-inch MacBook Air model, the 13-inch model stays.

This new 13-inch MacBook Pro features the all-new design and sports a 2GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz), 8GB of RAM and 256GB of flash storage.

India Pricing: ₹1,29,900

13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and Touch ID

This all new 13-inch MacBook Pro sports a 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz), 8GB RAM and 256GB or 512GB of flash Storage. You also get Apple’s breakthrough new interface in the form of the Touch Bar, the all new Touch ID and four Thunderbolt 3 ports with USB Type-C connectors.

India Pricing: ₹1,55,900 (256GB model) and ₹1,72,900 (512GB model)

Exact pricing for the 512GB model will be available closer to availability.

15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and Touch ID

The new 15-inch MacBook Pro comes in two models for India — a base model with 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz), 16GB of RAM and 256GB of flash Storage and a higher model with 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz), 16GB of RAM and 512GB of flash storage.

The Base model features Radeon Pro 450 Graphics with 2GB of GDDR5 memory while the higher model features Radeon Pro 455 Graphics with 2GB of GDDR5 memory. Both models feature automatic switching between the GPU and onboard Intel HD Graphics 530.

India Pricing: ₹2,05,900 (256GB model) and ₹2,41,900 (512GB model)

Exact pricing for the 512GB model will be available closer to availability.

The new lineup is up for pre-order today in the US and start shipping in 2-3 weeks. The availability in India will probably be somewhere in January 2017.

Update – October 28th, 2016, 12:11PM: Apple India has just sent out another email to media outlets, changing the availability to “Coming Soon” instead of the previously mentioned availability of 2-3 weeks. I suspect the new lineup will be available in India starting not before January 2017.

October 28, 2016 ✚ Permalink

MediaNama: How Recurring Payments are Finally Working in India

MediaNama’s Shashidhar KJ published an article earlier today on the site titled, “How recurring payments are finally working in India”. You’d think the article would shed some light on how this was being made possible, but instead, we only get this:

While performing a recurring billing transaction, the customer has to give a consent before making the payment that they authorize the merchant to charge the card as per the subscription plan. The first transaction that is processed folllows two-factor authentication. The 1st transactions is processed with a 2FA

That’s right, the last two sentences mean the same thing.

Moving on, we get this:

CCAvenue will not store the 3D secure password for future recurring payments, and for subsequent payments, the merchant (Business Standard in this case) will send a request to CCAvenue, which will pass the request to the bank in a batch or API, for processing in the back-end.

followed by:

These payments are processed through standing instructions left with the bank. We were unable to find an RBI circular clarifying this.We have written to CCAvenue and the RBI to clarify this and will update once we hear from them.

So how are recurring payments finally working in India?

— They are processed without 2FA, except for the first one (DUH!)
— The bank processes the transactions after a request from the merchant via the payment gateway. (DUH!)
— MediaNama couldn’t find an RBI circular clarifying this.

OK then…

October 11, 2016 ✚ Permalink