I love receiving email. I created my first email account on Rediffmail about eight years ago. For about five years after that, email remained a novelty for me. I made ridiculous accounts with childish IDs and changed them as frequently as I did clothes. Instant messaging was the big deal at that time and, since I had been a student of an all boys schools all my life, getting to waste half an hour with a girl on IM used to be the high point of my day (yeah, lame, I know). Right from that time, all those years ago, I’ve had a deep seated love for those notifications that I had received a new email message.

It’s no surprise, therefore, that when I first read Joe Kissell’s suggestion over at Macworld that you should “empty your inbox”, I wasn’t exactly enthused by the idea of reading the entire article, which itself would only be the first one in a multi-part series. Despite my preconceived misgivings, however, I ploughed on and read the first article, and then the next one, and eventually the entire series. At the end of the day, Mr. Kissell had me convinced. Continue Reading »

There aren’t a lot of things out there that iPhone users wait for more anxiously than Apple’s free firmware updates. Unlike every single other company in the industry, Apple has taken it upon themselves to provide iPhone users with regular software updates that actually add valuable new features to these devices without costing them a dime (although iPod touch users do generally have to pay a price for them)!

All the iPhone and iPod touch users among our readership will be glad to know that, after a lot of leaks and rumourmongering, Apple has just made available the v2.2 firmware update for both these devices. The focus this time round has primarily been on enhancing Google Maps and adding podcasts to the “iTunes application” (that’s what Apple is calling it now because, with the addition of podcasts and the ability to download them over the cellular network, the original name ‘iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store’ would perhaps have been a misnomer). Continue Reading »

Over at livemint.com, Priyanka Mehra and Shauvik Ghosh have a story on how and why the iPhone failed to take off in India, and boy, a truer article I’ve never read! Apple either doesn’t understand the Indian market at all or just doesn’t care about it. They’ve never really paid any attention to their flailing Mac business out here or tried to make the iPod as much of a household name as it is in the USA. Now that it’s a mobile phone we’re talking about, they’re finding it difficult to gain a foothold in the country with the fastest growing cellphone industry in the world. And it serves them right.

Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love Apple’s products—everything from the hardware design to the tiniest level of software minutia to the integration between their various products is incredibly well thought out and implemented. However, when it comes to aggressively pricing and marketing their products, the only country they seem to give a damn about is the United States.

How else can one explain the lack of the Apple Online Store, the iTunes Store (one that actually sells music and movies like it’s supposed to), or even a single Apple Retail Store? How can one explain the huge disparity in the prices of all Apple products out here when compared to their USA counterparts? How can one explain the complete lack of any advertisement directly from Apple in any form in the second most populous country in the world?

Apple doesn’t care about the Indian market and it has now come to bite them in the, er, posterior end. At least this one time, I’m glad to see Apple not being a success and people not taking a liking to an Apple product. And the fact that it makes my iPhone unique is only a small part of that. What makes me glad, primarily, is the hope that they will perhaps start taking India a little more seriously now.

What Apple needs to do now is get off the proverbial high horse and face the music. They need to realise that when their CEO climbs up onstage at one of the most high profile technology events of the year and declares that the iPhone will be priced at $199 or less all over the world, their world map had better include India as well.

Furthermore, it’s high time Apple came to terms with the fact that you aren’t really in the cellphone business until you’ve managed to infiltrate the school and college campuses of India. And for that to happen, they need to add the capability to forward text messages pronto. We also need video recording, Bluetooth (that actually works), and copy-paste, but these can be dealt with later. But if you want your product to be in the hands of the millions of teenage prepaid SIM card users out here, it better be able to pass on that not-quite-so-funny joke they just received to everyone on their contact list.

Of course, it is entirely possible that Apple still plans to keep things the way they are currently and is happy with their slice of the Indian market pie, no matter how small it may be. If that is the case, well, it’s just more bad news for us Indians. But something tells me that’s not the case anymore. I do not think that a man like Steve Jobs and a company like Apple would be foolish enough to willingly allow Nokia easy access to the pockets of the millions of smartphone users out here. Sooner or later, Apple will get serious about India. It’s just a matter of time.

Watch this space for updates.

As awesome as the buttonless glass Multi-touch trackpads on the new MacBooks and MacBook Pros may be, they’re plagued by a serious drawback—they randomly ignore left clicks whenever it strikes their fancy. Apparently, it’s quite a widespread issue and a significant number of users have been complaining about it on Apple centric discussion forums everywhere.

One of the affected users, however, decided to go one step further and send an email directly to the captain of the ship, Steve Jobs, at his publicly known email address. As he details on his blog, he later got a call from an Apple representative who assured him that it was a known issue and that they were looking into it, although he couldn’t offer any temporary fix in the meanwhile.

The person in question (I really wish he’d taken the time to at least identify himself on his blog) then enquired about the looseness of the hinge on the new MacBook Pro, which causes the lid to fall shut when the notebook is raised from the rear end, and the Apple guy told him that this was how the hinge was designed this time round and that it wasn’t a flaw.

Moral of the story: If you’re having clicking issues with the trackpad on your new unibody MacBook or MacBook Pro, be patient because there might be a fix on the horizon. If, however, you just can’t get that darned lid to stay upright, a little scotch tape and a couple of small sticks just might get the job done.

[Via AppleInsider]

Unlike on Windows, the standard Mac keyboard does a lot more than just type your regular alphabets, numbers, and special characters. Hidden underneath those ordinarily labeled keys is an extraordinary powerhouse of special special symbols that one requires every now and then. Characters like ‘µ’ and ‘©’, which are so difficult to type on Windows, can easily be typed on Mac OS X, provided you know which keys to hit.

In the five years I suffered through Windows before switching to the Mac (and no, I’m not biased at all), I was never able to figure out how to type the ‘µ’ when writing ‘µTorrent’. Sure, all I needed to do was Google it up and the information would be there for me, but hey, Googling is so out of fashion anyway. Plus, it wasn’t very often that I needed to type special characters like that one and therefore I always shunted Windows’ inadequacy in this, yet another, field to the background. Continue Reading »

With all three MacBook lines—MacBook, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air—now sporting enclosures machined out of a single block of aluminium and black, backlit keyboards with chicklet style keys, it’s more difficult than ever to zero in on which particular model and configuration to go for. Further complicating matters are the new prices for all these notebooks which, to say the least, are freakin’ exhorbitant!

Worry not though, dear readers, because where there is a problem, there exists a solution, specially if it’s Smoking Apples we’re talking about. In this article, I’ve tried to highlight the key differences between the various configurations that these notebooks are available in (eight in total) and point out the positives and negatives of each one. At the end, I’ll leave you with two recommendations, one for the budget conscious buyer and another for those of you who want to go all out and have the cash to do so. Continue Reading »

Editor-in-Chief Aayush Arya and Lead Author Milind Alvares discuss various issues about the App Store, and MobileMe, opine on the “Brick” rumours, and dish out some recommendations about iPhone apps. There are also a couple of surprises for listeners.

 

 SmokeCast India #SCI300908: The App Store, MobileMe, and the “brick” [49:06m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Show Notes

These are the links to the applications we mention on the show. Clicking on any of them will open iTunes and take you to the appropriate page on the iTunes Store.

• AirSharing
• AOL Radio
• Asphalt 4: Elite Racing
• DataCase
• Evernote
• Instapaper Free
• Koi Pond
• NetNewsWire
• Palringo Instant Messenger
• Shazam
• SpeakEasy Voice Recorder
• Tap Tap Revenge
• Things
• Twitterrific
• WordBook - A Dictionary & Thesaurus of the English Language
• WeDict
• WordPress

Subscription Options

You can either use any of the links given above to play the podcast or download it to your computer. Or, better yet, you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes and whenever we release a new episode, it will be downloaded to your library automatically. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the RSS feed.

As amazing as the App Store is in most respects, there are certain things about it that are just plain annoying, either for developers or for users, and sometimes for both. One such thing used to be the provision for any iTunes member to be able to post a review for an application, regardless of whether they’d bought it or not.

Thanks to this feature, a lot of paid applications would end up with crappy ratings just because people thought that they were expensive. Visit any application priced about $5.99 and you’re likely to see several colourful reviews claiming that it’s far too expensive.

To put an end to this practice, Apple now expressly enforces that you must buy an application to earn the right of being able to review it. This is, of course, great for the application developers because this eliminates the possibility of their painstakingly developed application being relegated to the category of third grade products just because a bunch of kids decided to give it poor ratings due to it being out of their budget.

However, I think Apple’s solution is a little too simplistic and, like a few other aspects of the App Store, not fully thought through. Sure, this rule will stop the junk reviews from entering the store but, just like an overprotective spam filter, it will also keep out a lot of great reviews. That’s the reason why almost all online stores, including all the other areas of the iTunes Store, do allow people to comment on products without their having bought them (although there is a valid argument that none of them are exclusive vendors for that category of products).

There are many reasons why someone might have a valuable opinion about an application without ever having used it. I, for one, am quite grateful when I see reviews for applications that tell me that some other application is better than this one, which gives me the opportunity to compare the two and decide for myself. Similarly, it’s helpful to know that the company or developer behind the application I’m about to purchase has a poor track record, which may prevent me from spending my money on a product that has little prospect of ever being updated again.

A better idea, in my opinion, would be to only give credibility to reviews that are lengthier than a certain predetermined number of words (which would ensure that the “omg! $9.99!!! r u insane!!” reviews do not hold any weight) and/or have been marked by a lot of people as helpful.

Or, I don’t know, something else that works better. I’m just not sure that a blanket rejection of all non-customer reviews is such a great idea. However small it may be though, it’s definitely a step in the right direction and is, I hope, indicative of a greater, more subtle detail—maybe Apple is listening to us after all.

[Via TUAW]

First, it was NetShare, and then it was Podcaster. Now it’s MailWrangler by Angelo DiNardi (via Daring Fireball). The application, like MailPlane for Mac OS X, allows you to log into several Gmail accounts simultaneously and use Google’s iPhone optimised web interface to browse through your email. It’s basically a version of MobileSafari that can only open Gmail accounts. And, clearly, it’s of great use to anyone who has several Gmail accounts and needs the starring and conversation features of the web version. Furthermore, it sounds like the best way to let someone else check their Gmail account on your iPhone without messing with any of your own settings.

Angelo submitted his application for App Store approval, only to be met with a rude rejection letter six months after the event:

Your application duplicates the functionality of the built-in iPhone application Mail without providing sufficient differentiation or added functionality, which will lead to user confusion.

Huh? Really? The three applications (Mail, MailWrangler, and Safari) have three separate icons with three different names. Each application has a clearly different purpose—Mail is a POP3/IMAP client for accessing your email from any service provider, MailWrangler exists solely to open Gmail accounts, and Safari is an Internet browser that can be used to visit any website at all. And this is coming from the company that has sanctioned more than ten flashlight apps (iTunes link) and an innumerable quantity of to-do applications (iTunes link) for the iPhone.

It’s like saying that you cannot write a Baseball game for the device because an application already exists for tracking real world Baseball matches, and the coexistence of both on the same iPhone might confuse users. How stupid does Apple think its customers are anyway? I’m pretty sure that if someone is wise enough to be able to launch the App Store and download an application, they’re capable of processing the difference in functionalities of two applications. Read on for more… Continue Reading »