My Journey Towards My First iPhone

It was exactly 10 years ago today, on June 29th, 2007, that the original iPhone went on sale. Although it was first introduced and demoed on stage by Steve Jobs back in January 2009, it didn’t actually go on sale till June that year. Today, irrespective of which mobile platform you primarily use, there’s no denying that the iPhone has completely revolutionized the mobile phone industry.

On its 10th anniversary, I decided to take a look back at some of my original tweets about the iPhone from 2007-2008.

I joined Twitter on 15th August, 2007, a couple of months after the iPhone went on sale in the US. Back then, I had just purchased a new Mac — the old white Mac mini, and was getting used to the joy and delight of using Max OS X Tiger. Coming from Windows, this was a fascinating new world for me, and I was hooked.

On the other hand, the iPhone didn’t catch my attention till the end of 2007. Sure, I had read about its launch and its featured, but back then, India as a country was nowhere on Apple’s radar and there was no chance that Apple would start selling the iPhone here (They didn’t).

My first tweet about the iPhone was congratulating someone on her purchase of an iPhone:

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June 29, 2017 ✚ Permalink

Matt Gemmell’s first look at iPad Pro 10.5-inch

Matt Gemmell has posted this lovely first look at his new iPad 10.5-inch gifted by his wife. There are some great photos of the device next to the old 9.7-inch iPad Pro, so you get a good sense of the changes in the dimensions on the new one.

June 14, 2017 ✚ Permalink

Airtel Introduces ‘Internet TV’ — An Android Powered, 4K Ready Hybrid DTH Box for your TV

Airtel Internet TV

Bharti Airtel today introduced ‘Internet TV‘ — a hybrid DTH set-top box for TVs. Touted as “India’s first”, the Internet TV box is powered by Google’s Android TV and comes with a host of interesting features targeted towards avid viewers who stream a lot of online content.

Airtel’s Internet TV is a Hybrid STB, bringing you the best of both DTH and the Internet. It brings you 500+ SD & HD channels from Airtel’s digital TV service, as well as virtually any app downloadable from Google Play. You can download and install apps, games, including apps from online streaming services such as Netflix, Eros Now, HOOQ, etc. You also get access to Airtel’s own Wynk services.

Airtel Internet TV

The Internet TV hardware isn’t shy on specs or ports, featuring a 2GB RAM and 2GHz ARM processor, 8GB of internal memory (upgradeable to 128GB), 4K 60fps resolution, Dolby ATMOS, 10/100 ethernet port, built-in Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and also comes with companion “gamepad” apps for iOS and Android.

Airtel is also offering a complimentary bonus to Airtel Broadband customers under its myHome offer. Depending on your plan, you either get 10GB or 25GB of free data every month.

A subscription to Internet TV is currently priced at ₹4999 for 3 months or ₹7999 for 12 months, the latter being a limited time offer. You can head to Amazon India to place your order.

Update May 1st, 2017: Airtel has now clarified that you do need an active DTH connection in order to continue using the non-DTH features of the device.

I was looking to order a couple of these boxes for my house to replace TataSky, but clearly that doesn’t seem like a good idea yet.

April 12, 2017 ✚ Permalink

On Vivek Wadhwa’s Factor Daily piece titled “Why Apple is destined to fail in India”

apple-vivek-wadhwa-factor-daily-piece-lol

Earlier today, Factor Daily published this piece titled ‘Why Apple is destined to fail in India‘ written by Vivek Wadhwa. A similarly-worded article from the author also appeared on The Washington Post and VentureBeat a day earlier. I subscribed to Factor Daily via RSS a while ago, primarily for the people behind the site who have delivered some great content in the past. I, however, was definitely not ready for this hilariously bullshit stream of content heading my way.

Now, usually when I come across a title as bold as this one about Apple, and they’re dime a dozen these days, I usually either skip it completely or read it and then skip reacting to it. But this piece by Vivek Wadhwa has such ingenious crap filled inside, I couldn’t help fire up Ulysses. Vivek’s piece essentially says that Apple is destined to fail in India because the company fails to understand the Indian market and that “it is repeating the mistakes it made in China”. However, a lot of points that Vivek raises are just not true, plain wrong, or simply laughable.

[With inputs and corrections from Rohan “RN” Naravane, who was just as baffled upon reading the piece.]

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March 17, 2017 ✚ Permalink

Apple’s Next iPhone Will Have a Curved Screen & USB-C: Report

The Wall Street Journal’s Takashi Mochizuki is reporting that Apple’s next iPhone, the 10th anniversary edition, will have a curved display manufactured by Samsung.

Apple had been studying flexible organic light-emitting diode or OLED screens similar to those used by rival Samsung Electronics Co. and had asked suppliers for prototypes, The Wall Street Journal reported in November.

People with direct knowledge of Apple’s production plans said the Cupertino, Calif., company has decided to go ahead with the technology, and it will release a phone model using the OLED screens this year.

The most striking paragraph from the article is this one:

They said Apple would introduce other updates including a USB-C port for the power cord and other peripheral devices instead of the company’s original Lightning connector. The models would also do away with a physical home button, they said. Those updates would give the iPhone features already available on other smartphones.

This is absolutely bonkers.

February 28, 2017 ✚ Permalink

Atlassian Buys Trello for $425 Million

Atlassian — the Sydney-based giant that owns products like JIRA, Confluence, HipChat, Bitbucket, SourceTree, etc. has today announced that it will be acquiring Trello — the beloved project management app. The deal is worth $425 Million according to Business Insider.

Mike Cannon-Brookes, Co-Founder and CEO of Atlassian, writes:

Trello’s pioneering use of an intuitive visual system has been embraced by all kinds of teams to do everything from managing marketing campaigns to tracking action items from team meetings. Organizations in nearly every country and as varied as the Red Cross and Google have adopted Trello to get work done.

We’re thrilled to welcome the talented Trello team to Atlassian and look forward to working with them to change the way teams work together. Deep investments in R&D have long been a cornerstone of Atlassian’s business and we will continue that tradition with Trello.

My immediate concern upon reading this was how would Trello change under the Atlassian culture. Mike clarifies:

If you currently use Trello as either a free or paid user, you can rest assured that we will continue to offer Trello as a standalone service. We’ll be working with their product team to help them accelerate development efforts.

Over on the Trello blog, Michael Pryor, the CEO of Trello writes:

We’re excited about partnering with Atlassian because we both share a philosophy of empowering teams everywhere to work in their own style. We envision a world where hundreds of millions of people collaborate in teams however they like, with their imaginations being the only constraint for what they can accomplish. As part of Atlassian, Trello will be able to leverage investments in R&D that will enhance the product in meaningful ways. Our team will be able to focus on improving the core experience of Trello for all users. We are certain that Atlassian understands the unique and novel reasons why Trello is so successful and well-loved.

Atlassian & Trello do sound like a great fit, but I’m still concerned.

January 9, 2017 ✚ Permalink

1,200 Wi-Fi Hotspots to be Launched in Mumbai Soon

Mumbai — the financial capital of the country will pretty soon go live with 1200 Wi-Fi Hotspots, according to the Hindustan Times.

The project envisages providing wireless internet access across the city through a network of 6,000 MTNL hotspots at 1,200 locations across the city. It will offer speeds of up to 20Mbps (megabits per second), equivalent to 2.5MB/s (megabytes per second).

Under the scheme, the first 1GB of data or the first 30 minutes of use – whichever comes first – will be free. After that, you will be charged at competitive rates.

The municipal elections are set for next month, so I’m hoping to see this go live some time next week.

January 7, 2017 ✚ Permalink

[Updated] Apple Announces a New MacBook Pro Lineup with Touch Bar, Touch ID and USB Type-C Ports (India Pricing)

Apple MacBook Pro 2016

Apple today announced an all new MacBook Pro Lineup in an event at its campus in Cupertino. Poised as the “thinnest and lightest MacBook Pro ever“, the highlight of the new MacBook Pro is the new multitouch Retina Display that replaces the row of Function keys above the keyboard. Called a Touch Bar, this new interface displays app-specific buttons and options that the user can interact with — allowing app developers to offer custom features via this additional display. Apple demoed apps like the new Final Cut Pro 10.3, Adobe Photoshop, Algoriddim’s djay Pro and said that apps like Microsoft Office, Skype, Sketch, etc. will be adding support for the Touch ID very soon.

Along with the Touch Bar, Apple has also introduced a Touch ID into the new MacBook Pro. Featuring the 2nd generation sensor from the iPhone 6s and iPhone 7, the new Touch ID allows users to log into their Macs or make payments via Apple Pay with just a simple touch. Additionally, different user accounts on the Mac can be tied to users’ own fingerprints — a feature I’m personally desperately waiting for on the iPads.

The new MacBook Pro all features a stunning new display that Apple says is the “brightest and most colorful Retina display yet“. The new display boasts 500 nits of brightness making it 67 percent brighter than its predecessors and also has 67 percent more contrast. Additionally, the display also features the ability to display a wider color gamut and consumes 30% less power compared to previous generations.

The MacBook Pro lineup also features a much larger Force Touch trackpad, coming in a twice the size of its predecessors. There are four Thunderbolt 3 ports using USB Type-C connectors and each of these connectors can be used for charging, video or data transfers.

Other features added to the MacBook Pro lineup include a new keyboard with second-generation butterfly mechanism and louder speakers with improved bass and twice the dynamic range.

MacBook Pro Specifications and India Pricing:

The new MacBook Pro lineup now consists of three different models with multiple versions:

  1. 13-inch MacBook Pro
  2. 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and Touch ID
  3. 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and Touch ID

13-inch MacBook Pro

The 13-inch MacBook Pro is meant as a minor upgrade to the current generation 13-inch MacBook Air. Although Apple has discontinued the 11-inch MacBook Air model, the 13-inch model stays.

This new 13-inch MacBook Pro features the all-new design and sports a 2GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.1GHz), 8GB of RAM and 256GB of flash storage.

India Pricing: ₹1,29,900

13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and Touch ID

This all new 13-inch MacBook Pro sports a 2.9GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.3GHz), 8GB RAM and 256GB or 512GB of flash Storage. You also get Apple’s breakthrough new interface in the form of the Touch Bar, the all new Touch ID and four Thunderbolt 3 ports with USB Type-C connectors.

India Pricing: ₹1,55,900 (256GB model) and ₹1,72,900 (512GB model)

Exact pricing for the 512GB model will be available closer to availability.

15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and Touch ID

The new 15-inch MacBook Pro comes in two models for India — a base model with 2.6GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.5GHz), 16GB of RAM and 256GB of flash Storage and a higher model with 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i7 processor (Turbo Boost up to 3.6GHz), 16GB of RAM and 512GB of flash storage.

The Base model features Radeon Pro 450 Graphics with 2GB of GDDR5 memory while the higher model features Radeon Pro 455 Graphics with 2GB of GDDR5 memory. Both models feature automatic switching between the GPU and onboard Intel HD Graphics 530.

India Pricing: ₹2,05,900 (256GB model) and ₹2,41,900 (512GB model)

Exact pricing for the 512GB model will be available closer to availability.

The new lineup is up for pre-order today in the US and start shipping in 2-3 weeks. The availability in India will probably be somewhere in January 2017.

Update – October 28th, 2016, 12:11PM: Apple India has just sent out another email to media outlets, changing the availability to “Coming Soon” instead of the previously mentioned availability of 2-3 weeks. I suspect the new lineup will be available in India starting not before January 2017.

October 28, 2016 ✚ Permalink