Twitter Expands Engineering Team in India

Manish Maheshwari, Managing Director of Twitter India and Nick Caldwell, VP of Twitter Engineering, writing on the Twitter Blog:

Expanding the team in India aligns with our overall belief that having more employees at Twitter, living and working in places that are representative of all perspectives and cultures, and sharing local context about these conversations will help us build a better service and company. By committing to hire and develop local engineering talent, we will play an important role in the company’s journey to become the world’s most diverse, inclusive, and accessible tech company. The engineering team in Bengaluru, which has expanded rapidly over the past two years, will continue to focus on building more daily utility for new and existing audiences, with capabilities ranging from product development, research and design as well as data science and machine learning.

April 20, 2021 ✚ Permalink

Vodafone India's BGP Hijack Takes Down Several Global Networks

Ax Sharma, writing for BleepingComputer:

A large BGP routing leak that occurred last night disrupted the connectivity for thousands of major networks and websites around the world.

Although the BGP routing leak occurred in Vodafone’s autonomous network (AS55410) based in India, it has impacted U.S. companies, including Google, according to sources.

You should also read Anurag Bhatia’s fantastic analysis here.

Time and again, these companies prove that initiatives like this one and this one need to be taken a lot more seriously for the Internet to become a better place.

April 19, 2021 ✚ Permalink

Apple Developer Program Enrollment Through Developer Now App Available in India

Apple today announced that it’s not possible to enroll into the Apple Developer Program through the Developer app on iPhone & iPad using local payment methods in Canada, France, India, Italy, Netherlands, Russia, and Spain.

Developers can start and finish their membership purchase with local payment methods on iPhone or iPad. And since membership is provided as an auto-renewable subscription, keeping it active is easy.

I still remember the days when you had to FAX a enrollment form to the US to enroll into the membership.

April 9, 2021 ✚ Permalink

Daft Punk 1993 - 2021

February 22, 2021 ✚ Permalink

Apple's Service Program for AirPods Pro

Apple has announced a Service Program for AirPods Pro that exhibit sound issues such as crackling/cracking sounds or similar issues.

My AirPods Pro, which I purchased in December 2019, developed this issue in early May and due to the ongoing pandemic and associated lockdowns, finding an appointment at an Apple Authorized Service Center was ridiculously difficult. Thankfully, I managed to get one in October 2020. Although both the AirPods Pro had the issue, Apple only replaced one of them and somehow “fixed” the other one.

Apple says that the program covers affected AirPods Pro for 2 years after the first retail sale of the unit, so I’m glad I can get them replaced again if the issue comes back. There have been far too many of these issues I’ve seen on Twitter, so I’m guessing it won’t be long before I have to run to the ASC again.

November 2, 2020 ✚ Permalink

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

Podcast Appearance: Orbital Podcast

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.

October 19, 2020 ✚ Permalink

Podcast Appearance: Orbital Podcast

Last week, I made an appearance on Orbital — the Gadgets 360 podcast and spoke to @prawnay about the announcements from Apple’s September 2020 event.

September 22, 2020 ✚ Permalink