India 13 • Nuclear Bits

Tim Cook to Visit India this Week

Himank Sharma and Rupam Jain, reporting for Reuters:

Apple Inc Chief Executive Tim Cook will visit India this week and meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the second leg of his Asian tour, two sources familiar with the matter said, as the company seeks to revive sluggish iPhone sales.

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Apart from meeting Modi, Cook will also hold meetings with employees and partners, the source said, adding he would fly to India on Tuesday.

Apple has been inching closer towards opening its own retail store in India and the timing of Cook’s visit around recent developments reaffirms that.

On the other hand, Foxconn — the Taiwanese electronics giant and Apple’s supplier was poised to make a $5 Billion investment and setup a manufacturing factory in Maharashtra under Modi’s Make in India program.

May 16, 2016 ✚ Permalink

IRCTC Website Hacked, Data of around 1 Crore Customers at Risk

The Times of India is reporting that website of the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has been hacked and data belonging to around 1 Crore customers is feared to have been stolen by the hackers.

An IRCTC source said, “The data is a valuable asset and can be sold to corporations who may use it for targeting potential consumers.” IRCTC officials say the Maharashtra government has been alerted. The state’s additional chief secretary (home), KP Bakshi, confirmed to TOI that the state police had alerted the railways, but refused to give any more details.

A subsidiary of the Indian Railways, IRCTC is the largest e-ticketing portal in the country and holds the record for nearly 13,40,000 tickets booked in a day in April 2015. It’s revenue from ticketing sales was over $3 Billion in 2015.

May 5, 2016 ✚ Permalink

Safari Search Suggestions Now Available in India

It looks like Apple has just flipped the switch that enables Safari Search Suggestions for iOS users in India. Up until now, this feature which was introduced by Apple with iOS 8 and shows you smart suggestions based on what you’ve typed in the search bar, was only available in a select few countries. Now, when you type in some search terms, Safari automatically looks them up and presents you with relevant content. This way, you completely bypass Google search results and can jump directly to where you wanted to go. Of course, you can still completely ignore this and still do a Google search using Safari.

Here’s what the smart suggestions work and look like in Safari on iOS.

Click to enlarge

Some suggestions can be expanded into a detailed view and have the “>” symbol on the right. These, when tapped, display additional information like so:

In case you aren’t seeing this, make sure you have enabled them under Settings > Safari > Safari Suggestions

[h/t @jayeshb for pointing this out]

April 29, 2016 ✚ Permalink

Govt. May Relax 30% Sourcing Norms for Apple in India

If you’ve been waiting to see official Apple Stores in India, your wait might’ve gotten even shorter. The Indian government might consider relaxing the 30% local sourcing norms for Apple, after the company gave a presentation before a committee headed by industrial policy and promotion secretary Ramesh Abhishek.

According to the Economic Times, the presentation did prove fruitful:

“The committee has found that the company’s products are cutting edge technology and state-of-the-art. It has recommended to exempt them from the local sourcing norms,” sources said.

April 28, 2016 ✚ Permalink

Airtel Seeks TRAI Nod Before Deal with Video Content Provider

Trying to avoid any controversy on net neutrality, Bharti Airtel on Monday has written to the telecom regulator seeking its permission for a deal the company is mulling with a “big global content provider” for video content.

Airtel might just be at it again, but are playing it cautious this time.

April 25, 2016 ✚ Permalink

Hotstar Introduces Premium Subscription; HBO Original Shows Available for Streaming

hotstar-premium

Hotstar — Star India’s video streaming service that debuted in early 2015 has now introduced paid subscriptions on the service for watching “Premium” content. Called Hotstar Premium and available for ₹199 per month, it gets you access to a host of new “premium” movies and TV shows, including a bunch of HBO Originals such as Game of Thrones, Silicon Valley, Veep & True Detective as well as movies such as X-Men: Days of the Future Past and Kingsman: The Secret Service.

The subscription gives you access to not just the premium content available today, but also the new content that Hotstar will add in the future. You can access this either via the website or via the Android and iOS app. Non-Premium content on Hotstar will continue to be available for Free. The Premium service is only available in India right now and you can only sign up using your Credit Card. There’s a 30-Day trial to get your started, and the company puts a ₹5 authorization charge to verify your card details, which it says will be refunded to you. Hotstar does not currently offer support for Chromecast or AirPlay, so you can’t actually watch any content on your big screen TV. Video quality is decent and you can manually select up to 720p.

Let’s face it, the only real reason you’d consider signing up for Hotstar Premium is because you get access to Game of Thrones and other HBO shows. Not only can you start watching the episode as soon as it airs in the US, but you also get to watch is completely uncensored. That’s right, you get to watch Game of Thrones exactly how David Benioff & D. B. Weiss want you to watch it. Most other content is either already available on other streaming services or is old enough that you’ve seen it already.

I just finished watching the latest episodes of the Game of Thrones and Silicon Valley on the service and am fairly content with the experience. Am I going to continue my subscription beyond the trial? I’m not sure yet.

April 25, 2016 ✚ Permalink

Apple Gets Closer to Opening Its Own Stores in India

If you’ve been waiting for Apple to open their own stores in India, your wait might have just gotten shorter, according to The Times of India:

On Tuesday, the iPhone and iPad maker made a presentation before a committee headed by industrial policy and promotion secretary Ramesh Abhishek where it made a case for use of the special provision. Sources told TOI that Apple was a fit case for relaxing the norms. “Their products certainly meet the requirement for waiving the local sourcing clause,” said a source, adding that a final decision will be announced in a few days.

There have been reports that the Indian government was considering relaxing Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) since November last year, which were quickly followed by the government’s official announcement later that week. Following that, Apple had submitted their request for approval in January this year, but had to re-submit because “certain gaps [were] found in the initial proposal”.

After Tuesday’s presentation, I don’t think an announcement is all that far away.

April 23, 2016 ✚ Permalink

On the 9.7-inch iPad Pro’s Wider Color Gamut

The Iconfactory’s Craig Hockenberry has an insightful take on the 9.7-inch iPad Pro’s wider color gamut and DCI-P3 standard, seen also in the latest 5K iMacs.

After using this iPad for a couple of weeks, I’ve realized it’s like the advances of Retina in an important way: I never want to use a lesser display again. And as with higher density, I think it’s obvious that Apple will eventually update all its products to use this improved screen technology. I can’t wait!

We’re quickly reaching a point where more pixels don’t make better photos. Think about how much Apple likes to tout the camera and how better saturation improves photos. These new displays are the first step in a process were wider gamuts become a part of the entire iOS photography workflow. The number of places where your code assumes everything is sRGB will be both surprising and painful.

I haven’t been able to decide if I should be shelling out INR 49,900 on a new iPad, especially considering I’m still using the iPad Mini 2 (without Touch ID) and so far, it seems like Apple’s winning.

April 22, 2016 ✚ Permalink