OnePlus to Start Manufacturing Phones in India

OnePlus, the company behind the immensely popular phones OnePlus One and OnePlus 2, has announced that it will start manufacturing phones locally in India. The company will be using Foxconn’s Rising Stars Factory in Andhra Pradesh at Sri City: Integrated Business City by the end of 2015.

Foxconn, which will also start producing handsets for Micromax and Gionee, operates the 30,000 square feet facility in Andhra Pradesh with a cumulative peak capacity of producing up to 500,000 units per month and is poised to generate employment for over 1000 full time workers there.

Pete Lau, Founder & CEO of OnePlus, said:

Today is a big day for us. Producing smartphones in India is one of the most important decisions that we have made so far at OnePlus, and we are thankful to the Government of Andhra Pradesh and Foxconn for helping us make this happen. India being one of our biggest markets worldwide, we are committed to a long term sustainable growth path. This move will strengthen our presence and help us step up momentum in India.

The OnePlus One is currently on sale on Amazon India for INR 17,999 whereas the OnePlus 2 is still invite-only and costs INR 24,999.

October 15, 2015 ✚ Permalink

Evernote Crosses 5 Million Users in India

At the end of February 2013, we announced 1 million users in India and within just 2 and a half years, we’re excited to announce that we’ve crossed the 5M user mark.

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Our new users have increased by 3000% between Dec 2010 and Sept 2015. Evernote users in India are growing rapidly and we expect to meet our next 5 million users in record time as well.

October 2, 2015 ✚ Permalink

iPhone sales grow 93% in Q3 2015

Gulveen Aulakh writing for ETtech:

The Cupertino-based company’s sales of iPhones in India grew 93% in the third quarter albeit off a far lower base faster than 87% growth in Greater China markets, comprising China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. The company’s global phone sales rose 35% to 47.5 million units.
 
“(In) India we grew at 93% and this is on top of the Greater China numbers that grew 87% during the quarter against a market of 5%,” Apple’s chief executive officer and director Tim Cook said during an earnings call Wednesday morning. “So, we did exceptionally well I think in any way that you look at it,” he said.

and

iPhone sales growth in India were higher than 45% growth recorded in several countries, including Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and Turkey, Cook said, while sales more than doubled in Germany, Korea, Malaysia, and Vietnam.

The iPhone 5s was selling like hot cakes a few months ago when it was available on Flipkart, Amazon.in and Snapdeal for as low as ₹30,000. No wonder the numbers did so well.

July 24, 2015 ✚ Permalink

Buying Lokmanya The Film Legally vs. Pirating It

Ever since I’d seen its trailers, I was excited about watching the movie Lokmanya: Ek Yug Purush. It is a Marathi film that was released in the theaters on 2nd January, 2015 and its lead actor, Subodh Bhave, received widespread praise for his portrayal of Lokmanya Tilak. It was a pretty solid movie, but the thing that I was most excited about was the preparation and efforts that had gone into making it. It was exciting to see a Marathi film in this form. I went for its screening on the very first day and thoroughly enjoyed it. The make-up and the sets, along with the dialogues and the music were top notch. I was glad to see a Marathi film of this quality running housefull shows around the city.

I had decided to purchase a copy of the film whenever it was going to be released to the public. I wanted to own a high-quality version of the film and would gladly pay for a Blu-ray of it. Leading up to its release, I tried contacting its director, @omraut via Twitter, to ask him whether they’d be releasing Blu-ray version of the film (Marathi films usually get released on Blu-rays), but unfortunately received no response from him. I was hoping if not for a Blu-ray, we’d at least get the option of a legal, digital download in 1080p via iTunes or Google Play Movies.

Unfortunately, the film only got released on CD and DVD. Fine, I said, and went ahead and pre-ordered the DVD anyway via Amazon . While I waited for the delivery, a friend of mine told me that a 720p version of the film was already out on torrents and that he’d already downloaded it and watched it. Since I’d already pre-ordered the DVD, I told him I’d just wait for its delivery.

When the DVD got delivered, I was throughly disappointed. The DVD packaging was flimsy and terrible and when I tried to play the DVD, it just wouldn’t play. I tried to rip it using Handbrake, but that kept failing too. I looked up on Amazon and apparently I wasn’t the only one. Two others had complained that their DVDs too were corrupt and wouldn’t play at all.

Here I was, all excited about a movie I really liked, ready to pay good money to own a high-quality version for viewing at home but without any options to do so. The copy that I legally bought and paid for ended up not working at all. On the other hand, my friend who pirated a copy not only watched a much higher quality version than my DVD, he also got to watch it much before me. And of course, he would watch the entire film without trouble.

Oh well…

July 18, 2015 ✚ Permalink

Offscreen Magazine in India

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I have been a huge fan of Offscreen Magazine ever since they announced their 3rd Issue. The first two issues ran out of stock before I could order them, but I have purchased every single issue since the third one and love reading every bit of it. Offscreen is a fantastic magazine with some amazing content from talented individuals around the globe and it gives you great insight into the life and workings of people that you look up to. And all this is effectively put together by a single person — Kai Brach.

 

Every issue of Offscreen is available in limited quantities and there are no reprints. You can order it directly from the website, but there have been two major disadvantages attached to it:

  • The Shipping — Offscreen ships via Standard Post from Germany, so local shipping is handled by your country’s local post. So if you’re in India, your delivery entirely depends on India Post and how good their service is. Additionally, your shipment cannot be tracked, so you’re in the dark as to how long it’s going to take to reach you or if it even reaches you at all. In my experience, it takes about 5 weeks for a shipment to reach me.
  • The Payment — Offscreen uses PayPal for their payments, so your only option of payment is a Credit Card.

I’ve been speaking about this with Kai and my friends in India and I’ve always wanted to improve this. So I’m glad to tell you now that you can now purchase Offscreen Magazine locally India, directly from the Beautiful Pixels Store. Many thanks to Kai for his support.

Here’s what you get if you order the magazine from us:

  • Local Payment Options — You can pay using Net Banking, Debit Card or Credit Card.
  • Priority Shipping — You get shipping that can be tracked online & don’t have to rely on India Post to “do the needful”.

We currently have Issue #11 in stock and for sale on the website, but you can sign up if you’re interested in future or past issues. We have plans to bring many more such interesting magazines and products to India, so stay tuned.

If you want to purchase Offscreen Magazine #11, you can do that here.

July 4, 2015 ✚ Permalink

Bharti Airtel files FIR against former employee for stealing confidential data to aid Reliance Jio

Romit Guha, reporting for ETtech:

“(Yasir Majid) after having been relieved from the services of the company (Airtel), took up employment with M/s Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd…It thus became evident that the said Mr Yasir Majid downloaded, copied and extracted the aforementioned confidential financial data/information of the company for his own use and the use thereof by his current employer M/s Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd., who is a business competitor of the company,” said the first information report (FIR) filed by the police, a copy of which was viewed by ET.

and…

Data that were unauthorisedly transferred included details of locations of Airtel’s base stations used to transmit airwaves and plans for future installations of such equipment, “highly confidential” financial information about the company’s BTS wise activation gross revenue details for the Jammu & Kashmir service area and a power point presentation used at the zonal business manager’s meeting on February 15.

June 25, 2015 ✚ Permalink

Apple Announces New 15″ MacBook Pro with Force Touch and Cheaper 27″ iMac with Retina 5K Display

Apple today announced the availability of a new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Force Touch and a cheaper base model of the 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display.

The 15-inch MacBook Pro now features the same Force Touch trackpad that the company introduced in the new MacBook and also added to the 13″ MacBook Pro. Also new in the hardware is 2.5 times faster flash storage, faster discrete graphics and slightly better battery life. In India, this updated 15-inch MacBook Pro is available with a 2.2GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.4GHz), 16GB RAM, 256GB of flash storage, Iris Pro graphics and is available at Apple Authorized Resellers at INR 1,59,900. A second model with a faster 2.5GHz processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.7GHz), 512GB of flash storage and dedicated AMD Radeon R9 M370X graphics is available at INR 1,99,900.

Apple also introduced a cheaper and lower-spec’d 27-inch iMac with Retina 5K display. The new model with a 3.3GHz quad-core Intel Core i5 processor and 1TB 7200rpm hard drive is priced at INR 1,59,900 in India ($1999 in the U.S.) while the top-end model with 3.5GHz processor and 1TB Fusion Drive is priced at INR 1,79,900 in India. This model has undergone a price cut in the U.S, now available at $2299 instead of $2499. I have been eyeing the Retina 5K iMac for myself to upgrade my old 2011 iMac and was actually hoping Apple would release better hardware at the same price.

The company has also (surprisingly) released a iPhone Lightning Dock today, available for $39 in the U.S or INR 3,200 in India.

The Force Touch trackpad is now available in the new MacBook, 13″ MacBook Pro and the 15″ MacBook Pro. I am hoping Apple will also release a Magic Trackpad with Force Touch sometime soon.

May 19, 2015 ✚ Permalink

Airtel 4G Trials Launched in Mumbai

Airtel on Saturday officially rolled out 4G LTE trials in the Mumbai on Band 40, 2300MHz using the TD-LTE technology. The company has previously rolled out its 4G services in 23 other cities and over the weekend, it has also added Chennai, Hyderabad & Vishakhpatnam along with Mumbai to its list.

Existing and New Airtel customers with 4G compatible mobile handsets can upgrade their existing SIM cards to newer 4G U-SIMs for Free by visiting any nearest Airtel gallery or by ordering one from their website at http://airtel.in/4g. You can also check whether your handset & SIM are ready for the 4G network by visiting this page and entering your mobile number there.

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May 19, 2015 ✚ Permalink