Apple introduced 250+ new features in Lion but only a few of them hogged the limelight during the launch. It’s always fun to explore a new OS and go out on mini-adventure trips hunting for new features buried somewhere deep inside the dungeons of System Preferences and other dark places. And while doing that, you have those ‘Eureka’ moments reassuring you of your time well spent. In this post we’ll be looking at some of the features that are targeted towards Indian users. A bunch of Indian regional languages have made their way into Input Sources, there is built in support for the Rupee symbol but the best of them all is the addition to two Indian voices to the Text to Speech engine. Let’s look at each one of them in detail and how you can enjoy them on your Lion installation.

Rupee Symbol gets Recognition

Support for the new Rupee symbol is now built right into Lion. The Rupee symbol that had been assigned the Unicode ‘U+20A8′, is now part of the Lion’s ‘Special Characters’ inventory. Inserting the symbol is easy as a pea. Bring up the ‘Special Characters’ dialog by using the Command-option-T keyboard shortcut. Navigate to ‘Currency Symbols’ on the left and the sixth character in there is the Rupee Sign. The official ‘₹’ symbol is part of InaiMathi font, used to type Devnagari language, now comes bundled with Lion. Locate the symbol by scrolling in the ‘Font Variation’ box located at the bottom-right part of the dialog box and double-click to insert it in your text editor. Adding the symbol to ‘Favorites’ hastens the process next time you want to insert it somewhere.

Four new Indian Regional Languages

Next up is addition of support for four new Indian regional languages. These include Bangla, Kannada, Malayalam and Telugu. Support for Devnagari, Gujarati, Gurmukhi and Tamil already existed in Snow Leopard. Seven out of these total eight languages come with QWERTY support. This essentially means that you can use your English keyboard to type in these languages and it works surprisingly well. To enable one of the regional languages, hop to ‘Languages & Text’ in the System Preferences app. Select the ‘Input Sources’ tab and tick the checkbox for the language you wish to use. Checking the ‘Show Input menu in menu bar’ box lists them in a dropdown from the menu bar, allowing you to select among the enabled languages. Alternatively, you can switch between different input sources with the help of customizable keyboard shortcuts.

Listen to your Text in Indian Voices

The best addition among them all is inclusion of two Indian voices in the Text to Speech engine. ‘Sangeeta’ is an Indian-English voice and ‘Lekha’ is a Hindi voice. Having an Indian-English voice is a refreshing change from the age-old voice of Alex that we have become acclimatized to over the years. It’s rather interesting to note that ‘Sangeeta’ is part of Nuance RealSpeak Solo Voices, which fuels the rumors about an impending Apple-Nuance deal. Introduction of Hindi in Text to Speech opens a whole new world of opportunity for educational institutions. It’s amazing to witness the clarity and accuracy of Lekha in pronouncing even the most difficult of Hindi words. Apple has done a fantastic job with both these voices. These voices however do not come bundled with the OS and need to be downloaded sperately. Head over to ‘Speech’ in System Preferences app and by using the customize option in the System Voice doprdown you can select either or both of ‘Sangeeta’ and ‘Lekha’ voices. Software Update will pop open asking if you want to download and install these voices that weigh around 300MB each. Once installed, you can listen to a piece of text in their voice by selecting the ‘Start Speaking’ option from the contextual menu.

It’s nice to see more regional languages getting supported which highlights the efforts that Apple has made to attract users from these communities. Hat tip to Preshit for discovering the Indian voices during one of his own mini-adventure trips. I would like to believe that Hindi is just the beginning and voice support for more regional languages is planned for the future. That sums up the new features introduced in Lion that Indian users would definitely welcome.

[Header Image by Jan Hecking on Flickr]

Every once in a while there is news that cracks you up. The latest addition to that category is a complaint filed to Competition Commission of India(CCI) against Apple India for allegedly limiting the availability of its products to a handful of service providers using its dominant market position. It is quite surprising to see the word dominant used in the complaint as Apple by no means is a dominant player in the Indian market. Macs and iPhones comprise of only a small percentage of the computers and phones sold in the Indian market. I have closely followed Apple operations in India over the last few years and there has been a steep rise in the number of retailers that offer Apple products. Though Apple is yet to start its flagship Apple Stores in India, leading outlets such as Reliance iStore, Croma and Vijay Sales have embraced Apple products and made sure they are available to a large percentage of Indian customers. These outlets are in addition to the signature stores that exclusively stock Apple products and are spread across major cities in India.

Another allegation made by the complainant is that Apple phones can only be serviced in Apple centers, which charge high rates for servicing the phone. iPhones all over the world are serviced by Apple centers as they have the technical expertise and are properly equipped to do the same. As far as out-of-warranty service charges are concerned, the rates in India are at par with what Apple charges in other countries. These rates maybe on the higher side but it makes little sense to crib over something that is a standard practice by the company across the globe.

I still can’t stop laughing over the accusation that the plaintiff has levied towards Apple for restricting third-party software access on its iOS devices to App Store only. Ever since Apple launched the App Store back in 2008, it has grown at a mind-boggling pace and now houses over 400,000 apps. The popular phrase “There’s an app for that” outlines the success App Store is today. It has totally changed the game with competitors rushing to launch their own versions of the App Store. It comes as a huge shock that someone believes there are better apps on offer at some of the other stores.

“At present, iPhone’s latest version is available in India through Aircel and Bharti Airtel, while the iPads are sold through Apple store only.”, alleges the complainant. I read that statement umpteen number of times to make some sense out of it, but failed. Both the iPhone and iPad in India are sold unlocked in India and hence purchase made from a retailer entitles you to use the device with any provider across the country. In fact, with the latest offerings of iPhone 4 in India, Bharti Airtel and Aircel have come up with attractive plans that reimburse some of the cost associated with the initial purchase. It’s funny how Apple decides to sell its latest offerings in India at competitive prices but still lands itself in legal soup to be investigated by Competition Commission of India.

Overall, the allegations that have been made against Apple India are absolutely ridiculous and it would be interesting to see how CCI approaches the matter when it takes it up for consideration by the end of this week. We at Smoking Apples will keep you abreast with any significant developments in the case.

[Header Image by Dennis Yang on Flickr]

[India] NDTV gets a slick iPad app →

I’m surprised that (a), an Indian news channel has their own iPad app, and (b), it actually looks pretty darn good. I reviewed the iPhone version a few months ago, and while it wasn’t the hallmark of good UI design, it wasn’t half that bad. The iPad version is similar in functionality, but features a striking dark user interface. In terms of the big picture, it’s still a little old school in the way it presents itself, and you can see awkward UI in many places, like the wonky scrolling in the sidebar, or the ugly headlines and stocks ticker at the top, but overall it’s still pleasant.

The biggest surprise feature, is that it comes with Live Streaming support for all of NDTV’s channels. Pay $0.99 a month via in-app purchase, and you can stream live video on your iPad. The two minute test stream worked fine. I’m guessing this app will be much loved by NRIs who want to keep in touch with their motherland. It’s free and still “ugly ad” supported.

We’ve just received the prices for the brand new iPod range Steve Jobs introduced at yesterday’s keynote. Nothing too shocking with these prices, although it’s highly recommended that you take these with a pinch of salt — they’re likely to change as we get close to the actual availability as the fine print says that VAT and other duties may vary.

iPod classic 160GB: Rs. 15,200
iPod touch 8GB: Rs. 15,400
iPod touch 32GB: Rs. 19,900
iPod touch 64GB: Rs. 25,900

iPod nano 8GB: Rs. 10,700
iPod nano 16GB: Rs. 12,700

iPod Shuffle: Rs. 3200

We don’t yet have the price for the Apple TV, but considering how useless the device pretty much is in India, I’m not too excited about knowing the price either.

//EDIT: Fixed typo.

It’s no secret that India hasn’t exactly warmed up to the iPhone. Delayed releases, high prices, poor after-sales support, and poor public perception of the platform has led to it having a tiny user base. A search for India in the App Store results in low quality crapps that try to sell you something you shouldn’t download for free. There are at least 20 of these 99¢ ‘joke’ and ‘fact’ apps on the store, none of which I assume are anything more than scraped content off the web. So imagine my surprise when NDTV, a major news network informed me they were doing a native iPhone app. Quite surprised, I was.

Designed and developed for NDTV by Robosoft Tech, the app takes its design cues from the previous Facebook for iPhone, or several of the news apps like USA Today. It’s got the familiar tab bar at the bottom, lists for articles, and easy to understand controls for articles and other media. They’ve even got an awkward scroll down to refresh, though not nearly as elegant as Tweetie, works just fine. Overall, it’s a design that’s neither pretty, nor ugly. I do believe they could have eased up on the chrome, but it’s well within acceptable terms.

I’ve been using the app these past few days, and while I don’t generally follow political or local news, I did find myself going through some slideshows of upcoming bollywood flicks, and saw my State mentioned in the national news for all the wrong reasons. The article view is typographically pleasing, where the landscape view removes all of the UI chrome, leaving you with just the content. The application is pretty deep. It’s got a bunch of news sections, favourites, weather, share with Facebook, Twitter, and Google. It even comes with an ‘iWitness’ feature which allows you to upload a photo along with a story for community news submission. It also comes with Push Notifications for what I assume is breaking news stories, as I’m yet to receive a notification from this app.

The one big issue with this app is the ugly ad banner. The ad wasn’t enabled during the beta, the contrast of which is striking. It’s safe to say the Indian corporations do not understand mobile devices, and in this instance have practically ruined the experience of their first step onto the next generation mobile platform. NDTV is a major news corporation, with a huge viewership, yet they’re up to petty business practices. Build your brand on this new mobile platform, get a headstart over the competition, make people want to launch your app as their one access to Indian news media, and then figure out your business model. Moreover, the advertisement is not even something worth looking at. Delivered by an Indian-International ad agency ‘inMobi’, the ad (as of this review) is a bright yellow animated banner for a very silly iPhone app, totally unrelated to the content. Let’s not forget that when you tap one of these ads, you’re chucked out of the app (without a warning). Thankfully it doesn’t show when viewing an article in landscape or during image slideshows. Maybe I’m being a little too harsh with my criticism, but I expected better from NDTV.

If you’re one to follow ‘regular’ news, NDTV has definitely made a strong point with this app. It’s feature rich, content heavy, and it’s a free download at the App Store. So if you can live with the ugly ad banner, you might just want to keep it on your home screen.

For the past month, Iʼve been giving Sygicʼs Mobile Maps India, one of only two GPS based navigation applications for India on the iPhone, a test drive. I live in Noida and have used it to navigate to addresses both in Noida and in New Delhi. I now present to you my observations about how well the application worked. If you do not live in India and donʼt plan to visit us anytime soon, please take the next right turn after 200 meters and youʼll find other stories on your left.

Being a resident of India, my brushes with GPS in the past have been fleeting and rare. I have never used any of the dedicated GPS devices sold by Indian manufacturers and the iPhone 3GS I recently bought is the first GPS capable device Iʼve ever owned. I did spend a month in San Francisco last year and toured the city in a Honda Accura that had a built-in GPS navigation system but I mostly just sat in the rear seat and enjoyed the city.

All said and done, I come with a blank slate and have very little to compare Mobile Maps India to. Thatʼs a good thing too because what matters here is how good the application itself is, not whether it is superior in comparison to other GPS applications and devices, most of which arenʼt available in India. With that out of the way, letʼs get on with the review.

First Impressions

Upon first launch, Mobile Maps India presents you with some configuration options. Among the various settings it asks you to configure, thereʼs the option to choose from a lengthy list of supported voices. You can choose to have the application speak to you in Chinese, Deutsch, Español, Français, Italiano or in plain old English (either American or British). In total, the application has options for 33 speakers (with some languages featuring both male and female voices).

When you tap on any of the options, it plays a sample to give a feel of what the voice is like. After not much deliberation, I chose to go with Simon from Britain instead of Lucien from the United States. It is strange, however, that in a GPS application targeted exclusively at the Indian market, there is no support for any of Indiaʼs hundreds of regional languages. At the very least, Iʼd expected Hindi to make an appearance.
The user interface is pretty and well laid out, with large icons that make their purpose abundantly clear. Past versions of Mobile Maps India had a clunky interface and clearly the folks at Sygic have put in a considerable amount of effort to fix that. For the most part, their efforts have borne fruit. I do have some issues with the usability of the custom keyboard design but itʼs something that you will be able to take in your stride.
Once itʼs set up, youʼre presented with a map with the status bar at the bottom reading, “Waiting for valid signal”. Since most people try out the application immediately after installing it on their iPhone, itʼs usually indoors when it is first launched. No surprises, therefore, that the application remains forever stuck at this screen and those customers feel cheated and leave negative reviews on the App Store.

Global Positioning System (GPS), unlike cellular signals, only works when the receiver has one of the several global positioning satellites that orbit the Earth in its direct line of sight. Therefore, it will never work while you are indoors. If you try to have the Maps application on the iPhone tell you your correct location, youʼll notice that it also gets it wrong (although it does give you an approximate location by using cell-tower triangulation).

For Mobile Maps India to work, you have to be outdoors. This does not mean, however, that the application wonʼt work while you are in a car or if the phone is in your pocket. Iʼve been using the application while in a car and while riding a bike for the past month and it has almost never had any trouble getting a GPS signal. I think the folks at Sygic might be better served if they included a little note about how the application needs to be outdoors next to the “waiting for valid signal” message to reduce confusion.

Digging Deeper

When I launched Mobile Maps India for the first time, I was prepared to be disappointed. I had convinced myself that even if the application failed to work, well, I would just warn the readers of Smoking Apples not to spend their money on it and no harm would be done. It is with much trepidation that I entered the address I wanted to get to in the application and hit the Route Me button.

But route me it did and it did get me to my destination with sterling efficiency. I am situated in the heart of Noida and the location I wanted to get to was on the outskirts of the city. It was a village area and MTNLʼs 3G network was spotty there but Mobile Maps India does not need any Internet access and is always raring to go as long as you have charge in your battery (more on that in a bit).

Over the course of the past three weeks, Iʼve navigated to several places both in New Delhi and Noida and Mobile Maps India has never failed me. You launch the application, tap on the map, hit the Navigate To button and then either enter the address you want to get to or select from the applicationʼs list of points of interest, which include ATMs, bus/metro/railway stations, cafés and restaurants, cinema halls, commercial buildings, hospitals, hotels, parking spots, petrol pumps and shopping centres, among other things.

Once you point it to the correct place, which in itself is a process that could be made a little more intelligent—why, for instance, do I always have to select a city?—the map starts speaking out instructions and showing you directions on the iPhoneʼs generous screen. It informs you about turns 200 meters in advance and tells you to follow straight roads at one kilometre intervals (provided the stretch is of over two kilometres). It also tells you to keep left or right before oncoming flyovers and which exit to take on roundabouts.

As accurate as the application tends to be, there are times when the road it wants you to take is closed or is one that you know from personal experience is longer than an alternative route. In such cases, you can simply head onto another street and Mobile Maps India recalculates the route according to your change of mind and starts directing you accordingly. This feature represents one of the most convincing arguments in favour of using GPS and works seamlessly in Mobile Maps India.

Although GPS applications are usually intended to be used in cars, Iʼm a humble student in a big city and the best I can afford is a modest motorcycle. I never had to look at its screen as it stayed in my shirt pocket and kept relaying instructions into my ear through the earphones (not that Iʼm advising the use of earphones while riding a motor vehicle) and I never had any trouble with it (besides the fact that my ears would be sore at the end of the ride and refused to speak to me for days after).

Mobile Maps India also has some really neat features that I want to quickly mention. It can warn you when certain points of interest fall on your way while you are headed to a particular destination. So, for example, if you are running low on fuel, you can quickly and non-disruptively configure Mobile Maps India to warn you when a petrol station is nearby and it will obediently do so. Itʼs a feature Iʼve come to love and is particularly useful for finding ATMs, tricky as it may be to locate those little cubicles of money.

It allows you to set a particular location as your home and mark other locations you frequent as favourites so that you can get to them quickly. It can warn you when there is a speed camera or police trap on your way but those features donʼt work in India (because other users have to mark those points manually and the total users of Mobile Maps India can probably be counted on my fingers). It allows you to add restaurants and other locations to the applicationʼs points of interest database. You can plan your route with multiple stop-points in advance and make sure you have it all figured out before leaving the house.

The Caveats

There are, however, two caveats with the application—one serious and the other not quite so much. The less serious one is that the application often tells you “after 200 meters, take a right; then immediately, take a left” on straight roads, after having told you just seconds ago to keep following that road for two kilometres. This particular instruction is bogus and I quickly learnt to ignore it. I hope this is fixed in an update. (I meant it when I said it wasnʼt a serious problem though; there is absolutely no way youʼll confuse it with an actual instruction, specially now that Iʼve made you aware of this bug.)

The more serious caveat is that the application never gets you to your destination. It gets you darned close to it, sure, but it almost never says, “Destination is on your left (or right).” Even when it does, itʼs usually wrong. The closest it ever got to being right with me is when it told me that the destination was on the right and it was on the left at that very spot. Generally, the application tends to lead you to the wrong street once you are close to your destination (i.e. within 500 meters of it) and itʼs really frustrating when you realise that. Even after having used it so many times, I still havenʼt gotten used to this and this is something I shouldnʼt have to get used to.

If you are going to be using this application in a car, just make sure you have an in-car charger for your iPhone and you should be fine. Itʼs also worth noting that GPS applications like Mobile Maps India are extremely processor- heavy and can heat up your iPhone real good. Make sure you donʼt leave it under direct sunlight while you drive. If youʼre using it while riding a bike, it might be a good idea to buy an external battery for your iPhone if youʼre going to be using the GPS features often.

The Smaller Cities

Unfortunately, I was unable to test the application in a smaller city in India. That New Delhi and its adjoining areas are well represented on the map is not exactly a surprise for a GPS application designed for India. The real test wouldʼve been if I couldʼve used it to find my way around my hometown Siliguri without getting lost. I did try to locate my own house in Siliguri on Mobile Maps India but that was an abject failure.

The problem with the smaller cities, and even with larger cities in this country, is that we do not have a precise addressing system like in the more developed nations. Mobile Maps India asks you to select a city, then a neighbourhood, a block and then enter a house number. In USA, every address has all of those attributes, but in India, most addresses donʼt. Even in the larger cities, where addressing is more well thought out, most people do not know their house numbers and such.

Therefore, itʼs hard to blame Sygic for not being up to par in the smaller cities in India. A GPS application needs proper addresses to work. Then again, if it doesnʼt work, it does not matter whose fault it is to the consumer, does it? Thatʼs why Iʼm leaving this as an open-ended review. I think this application is absolutely fantastic and, if you spent all that money on an iPhone 3G/3GS, absolutely worth the $80. However, thatʼs quite a bit of money and I donʼt want any of the readers here to go out and buy it, only to find out that it does not work well for their city.

So I am giving you the opportunity to ask me questions. Ask me anything about the application—general questions about how it works, questions about whether specific features youʼre interested in are there or not, or even whether a certain address or point of interest you will frequently need to navigate to is present or not—and I will do my best to answer it. Since the App Store does not allow you to test drive applications before you buy them, consider me your beta tester. Bring it on.

Rating: 8/10