Last week, I had the pleasure of making another appearance on Orbital — the Gadgets 360 podcast hosted by my friend Pranay Parab. Come hear us discuss Apple’s October 2020 event announcing the new iPhone 12 lineup and the HomePod mini, along with the preposterous pricing in India.
We recorded this while my both my primary and backup ISPs were down, and I literally had to go the extra mile to make sure the recording reaches him, so I’m glad it turned out this well.
Folks, it has finally happened. It’s here! I can’t believe it.
After several years of speculations and rumours, Apple has finally confirmed that the Apple Online Store is finally launching in India on September 23, 2020. I had leaked the upcoming release just a few days ago.
This isn’t a simple online store launch, they’re going all in:
The Apple Store online is the most convenient destination to shop for Apple products, with online Apple Specialists available to help with anything from custom-configuring any Mac to setting up new devices. Customers can get advice, receive guidance, and learn about new products directly from Apple, both in English and Hindi.
With financing options and an available trade-in program, the Apple Store online offers a range of affordability options. Students can shop for a Mac or iPad with special pricing, and receive discounts on accessories and AppleCare+. In October, customers can expect free online Today at Apple sessions led by local Creative Pros, focused on photography and music. Just in time for the festive season, signature gift wrap and personalized engraving will be available for select products. Engraving of emoji or text in English, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Marathi, Tamil, and Telugu will be available for AirPods, and English engraving will be available for iPad and Apple Pencil.
Apple has been trying for years to get approval from the Indian Govt. to open a physical Apple store in India. Thankfully, the launch isn’t too far with the first Apple Store in the country opening in BKC in Mumbai.
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.
The company, which recently announced plans to invest $10 billion in India, said it had partnered with the government of the western state of Maharashtra that will see 23 million students and teachers access Google’s education offering at no charge.
I recently learned from my cousin sister living in the small village of Matheran that their tiny school was now conducting online classes via Google Meet and how she had to keep convincing her dad to add mobile data plans to their single smartphone in the house.
Google deserves all the shit it gets for their privacy-invasive practices, but no other technology company has come close to localization and grassroots efforts in India. Google’s products are universal.
Episode 05 of the Waditech Podcast is out today where the big topic is about TVs. We chat about the launch of 9 TVs on a single day by Thompson, Hisense’s long-anticipated entry into the Indian TV market and Ameya shares his thoughts on how to choose the right TV for your home.
Over the official Spark Email blog, I’ve just published this detailed guide to decluttering and organizing your Gmail inbox.
In this article, I’ll tell you the tips and tricks to organize your Gmail inbox and also explain some hidden or lesser-known features that help you organize your emails in Gmail. And for those of you who have thousands of unread emails in your Gmail inbox, I’ll help you bring some sanity to your inbox.
Gmail is arguably the most common email provider today and thus, it is very common to see Gmail inboxes that are just left unattended. I’ve outlined some pretty simple steps that can help you clean up your Gmail inbox in minutes.
We just released Episode 06 of the Wadicast and this is a fun one. We discuss the prevalent culture of fake WhatsApp messages & forwards in India, chat about the origins of our own surnames and some other interesting and funny Marathi surnames, and later everyone reminisces about the music they used to listen to back in the day.
We’re confident that you’ll thoroughly enjoy this one, and if you do, please consider subscribing to Wadicast.
