India 4 • Nuclear Bits

Apple Adjusts App Store Pricing in India; Apps Get Pricier Due to Addition of 2% Equalisation Levy

Apple today informed its developers about upcoming tax and price changes to the App Store Pricing for apps and in-app purchases in a few different countries.

When taxes or foreign exchange rates change, we sometimes need to update prices on the App Store. In the next few days, prices of apps and in-app purchases (excluding auto-renewable subscriptions) on the App Store will increase in Brazil, Colombia, India, Indonesia, Russia, and South Africa. These increases also reflect the following tax changes:

The company has adjusted the pricing of apps on the iOS and Mac App Stores for India by adding a 2% Equalization Levy that was implemented from 1st April, 2020 . This is in addition to the 18% GST already implemented. The last major change to app pricing in India came in January 2018, where the prices of apps were reduced by ₹1.

After the addition of the 2% Equalization Levy, the App Store pricing for India has resulted in pricing of apps going up by at least ₹10.

App Store Pricing Change in India in October 2020 — *App Store India Pricing* October 2020

While this pricing change for apps is not applicable to existing auto-renewing subscriptions, Apple does indicate that developers can increase the prices for new subscribers.

Remember, just because the prices have gone up and you’re paying more for apps, it does not mean that the app developer ends up getting more of your money. As Apple says in the announcement.

Once these changes go into effect, the Pricing and Availability section of My Apps will be updated, and your proceeds will be adjusted accordingly and calculated based on the tax-exclusive price.
Apple (Emphasis mine)

October 27, 2020 ✚ Permalink

New iCloud Storage Pricing for India (Updated)

Update: 12th August, 2020 with new iCloud Storage Pricing for India in 2020.

At it’s annual September event, Apple announced updated pricing and revised tiers for storage on iCloud. Although the Free Tier remains at 5GB, the paid tiers have been revised from 20GB, 200GB, 500GB and 1TB to only three — 50GB, 200GB and 1TB, costing $0.99, $2.99 and $9.99 respectively.

This new pricing is now active and here’s the iCloud Storage pricing for India.

iCloud Storage Pricing for India in 2020

Due to the addition of 18% GST and fluctuations in the US dollar value, Apple has adjusted the pricing of iCloud Storage in India.

50GB of iCloud storage costs ₹75 per month in India, followed by 200GB at ₹219 per month. Apple has upgraded the 1TB storage tier to 2TB, which comes in at ₹749 per month. So for a small bump in the price, you get double the iCloud storage.

The old article from 2015 is below:

As you can see, the 20GB paid tier has been revised to 50GB now and the pricing has been updated to INR 65 for 5GB, INR 190 for 200GB and INR 650 for 1TB of storage.

August 12, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Ipsita Dasgupta Hired to Lead Apple India's Streaming Services

Writankar Mukherjee, writing for ETtech:

Apple has roped in Ipsita Dasgupta as India country manager for its streaming services like Apple TV+, Apple Music and the App Store.

Dasgupta has joined the iPhone maker from Hotstar where she was president of strategy and new ventures.

She has succeeded Khushboo Ponwar who had last year moved on as head of business development for Apple in India, Middle East, Turkey and Africa. Dasgupta, who is an MBA from Harvard, took charge this month.

Apple needs to focus heavily on some good content in the coming months if it’s serious about Apple TV+ here in India. But I also hope that there’s a good developer evangelism plan for the apps coming out of India. There’s no dearth of shitty apps here with suboptimal experiences.

June 3, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Telegram Instructured to Provide Info on Users Pirating E-Papers

Aroon Deep, writing for MediaNama:

In a case filed by Jagran Prakashan group, the Delhi High Court ordered messaging service Telegram to remove several channels distributing the Dainik Jagran newspaper’s PDF versions. The order also instructs Telegram to reveal the identity of the individual(s) distributing the paper illegally.

Telegram has far bigger issues than users sharing just e-papers, and I just hope the Indian government doesn’t choose the WeTransfer route to handle this.

June 1, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Mumbai, Engulfed by Coronavirus

Jeffrey Gettleman, writing for The New York Times:

As the coronavirus gnaws its way across India, Mumbai has suffered the worst. This city of 20 million is now responsible for 20 percent of India’s coronavirus infections and nearly 25 percent of the deaths.
Hospitals are overflowing with the sick. Police officers are exhausted enforcing a stay-at-home curfew. Doctors say the biggest enemy is Mumbai’s density.
Particularly in the city’s vast slum districts, social distancing is impossible. People live eight to a room across miles and miles of informal settlements made of concrete blocks and topped with sheets of rusted iron. As the temperatures climb toward 100 degrees Fahrenheit, many can’t stand to be cooped up anymore and spill into the streets.

I have lived in Mumbai all my life and the city is currently in a terribly sorry state. These heart-wrenching photos by documentary photographer Atul Loke paint a solid picture of the hardships that many people have to face in the city.

Check out some more photos on Atul’s Instagram profile.

May 29, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Spotify Signs with Saregama for India

Vikas SN, reporting for ET Tech:

As per the deal, Spotify will get access to more than 100,000 music tracks across various genres like Film, Carnatic, Hindustani classical and devotional music in over 25 languages. This includes songs from artists like Lata Mangeshkar, R.D. Burman, Mohammed Rafi, Talat Mahmood, Manna Dey, Kalyanji-Anandji, and Hemant Kumar among others.

Saregama’s “Carvaan” is one of the best collection of songs on this planet, and I’m glad some (most?) of that is coming to Spotify.

May 11, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Apple Updates the 13-inch MacBook Pro, Kills the Butterfly Keyboard for Good

Apple today announced the release of an updated lineup of its 13-inch MacBook Pro that introduces the new Magic Keyboard, doubles the storage, and adds faster RAM and newer CPUs in the top-end models.

The biggest change, of course, is the replacement of the terrible Butterfly keyboard with the newer and better Magic Keyboard. The 13-inch MacBook Pro was the only notebook in Apple’s current lineup that featured the sucky keys, so good riddance.

The new lineup also offers Intel’s 10th-generation CPUs and 16GB of faster 3733MHz LPDDR4X memory, but only on the topend model that features the 2.0GHz Core i5 processor. While the lower model does get the option to upgrade to 16GB of RAM, you’re limited to the much slower 2133MHz LPDDR3 RAM only.

Effectively, the base model of the “new” 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro that will go on sale in India late next month will come with:

Magic Keyboard
1.4GHz quad‑core 8th‑generation Intel Core i5
8GB of 2133MHz LPDDR3 RAM
256GB SSD
Intel Iris Plus Graphics 645
Two Thunderbolt 3 (USB‑C) ports

and cost a whopping INR 1,22,900 or $1625.

If you have to actually take advantage of the newer processor & RAM, you have to get the topend model with:

2.0GHz quad‑core 10th‑generation Intel Core i5
16GB of 3733MHz LPDDR4X RAM
512GB SSD
Intel Iris Plus Graphics
Four Thunderbolt 2 (USB-C) ports

and costs INR 1,74,900 or $2315.

If you need 1TB of SSD storage, i.e. +512GB in the above config, you have to shell out INR 20,000 extra, taking the total to INR 1,94,900.

The 16-inch MacBook Pro starts at INR 1,99,900.

May 4, 2020 ✚ Permalink

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