Welcome, my dear friends, to Smoking Apples, the premier source of Apple news, views and reviews in the neighbourhood! As you should have by now guessed, we intend to cover all the interesting (and sometimes not so much) happenings revolving around our favourite fruity company. From the Mac to the iPod and the iPhone to the Apple TV, you’ll find it all here, information from a cacophony of sources that has been distilled into pure, readable form and lovingly handcrafted for you. (Wow, we could be artists!)
This site is run by a group of five talented youngsters located in various parts of India including Chennai, Goa, Mumbai and Siliguri (in West Bengal). Milind and I were the ones who originally came up with the idea of starting an Apple related website but one that was distinguished from the thousands of others in the same category by its characteristic Indian charm. However, the lazy procrastinating bums that we are, the idea never really took to flight. It took Ashwin’s determination, and his confidence and experience from already running a successful blog, to get us all into gear and register the domain name. Once the engines had been fired up, there was no stopping us.
Right now, we intend to have at least one new post for you to read every weekday and a bimonthly podcast that will be released on alternate Fridays, starting from the next one. Eventually, we hope to hire more authors and increase the frequency of our posts. Once the details are mapped out, we’ll have more information for you on this subject. Stay tuned.
In the spirit of launch day, we’re having a giveaway of sorts. We invite all of you to post a comment below and we’ll randomly select three people from the group and each of them will be entitled to a free T-shirt. There are no rules apart from the obvious one, that you cannot post more than one comment, and that you must be situated in India. Keep those in mind and post away.
And while you’re here, make sure you check out the posts we’ve already published in anticipation of your visit and subscribe to the blog if you like what you see.
Thank you!
{ 36 comments… read them below or add one }
First up, a huge congratulations & wishing you guys all the best.
Second, good to see Ashwin here.
Third, well if the T-shirt has an Apple logo on it. DON’T CONSIDER SENDING IT TO ME, that is if you don’t want to see it as a floor mop (Yeah, I will make a video of it and show you guys; I will also mail it to Goobi on his MobileMe-ss account).
Fourth, nice design, though a Apple logo-ish RSS icon would be nice.
hmm. finally an india specific Apple website. you have just started. many more miles to go. My best wishes. live up to the Apple standards
.
one more suggestion regarding UI. But in the header menu, differentiate between the page i am looking at and the other pages. Ex – if i am reading About me page, i now see that About , News and Iphone looks all similar. instead About page should be highlighted indicating that i am reading that page now.
and hope i win your t-shirt
Cheers,
Deepu.
So this was the big project you guys talking about then? Good, good. More happiness for the Macboys in India.
Subscribed.
Nice. All best, looking forward to the podcasts.
Looking good so far. All the best guys!
Have been following this site for quite some time now. Especially liked the MetaX software review. I’m using the app now and is awesome! Keep it guys.
Let’s make a dent in the universe!
Thanks a lot for the wishes and feedback.
Manan –
What do you mean by ‘good to see Ashwin here’? I’m always available at my blog.
Deepu –
Thanks for the feedback. We’ll look into it.
Hoping to win the T Shirt with this comment.
Holy smokes! Didn’t notice that there is no clause for “Staff of SA not allowed in the contest”. Gimme that T-shirt now!
@guys: Thanks for the comments. Sure hope to make you proud
@Ashwin, that’s the good part. Seeing you behind the scenes somewhere other than your blog.
Nice site guys. I love Apple and want to buy the iphone. Maybe your contest could give a free iphone instead of the tshirt?
If not I am happy to win the tshirt 
Yay! Here I come to get my free Tee
Oh I forgot to wish you guys good luck
OMIGOSH!
I can’t believe you’ll have been running this site for 3 months now & you’ll kept it so hush hush
Was trying to read it yesterday from my mobile, since the net was down at home, but i guess it ain’t quite optimized for mobile readers yet
[I mean, it was easy to read, but for some reason had to go from side to side to looks at the accompanying pics..]
Other that that I totally like the stuff here. Though some color couldn’t hurt could it.. I like pink!
[this comment will keep me in the running for the tee, right? =D]
It’s great to see this website up and going. Congrats to Preshit, Ashwin, Aayush and Milind.
I subscribed to this and I hope to see more of this place come. Good Luck!
Nice to see you boys doing some good work. Don’t know anyone other than Milind but if you guys are as crazy as he is this is going to be one heck of a blog! So far I see some quality posts. Keep em comin’
Too bad the tshirt contest is reserved only for Indian residents.
Nice to see that you guys have taken an initiative which is going to be of loads of help to Mac users.
Keep up the good work
Best of luck to you guys for taking this initiative to a higher level.
A couple of things
1) Can you please change ‘Subscribe’ at the bottom of the page to ‘Subscribe to Feeds’ or something, it’s a bit of a misnormer as it currently stands.
2) No captcha’s yet for spam prevention?
And I hope you keep it more focussed towards Indian content to differentiate it from the other sites.
Nice site. I guess I need to find a way to spend some more time on our studio mac now. Keep the articles and posts coming. I have some friends who surf mostly from their phones. I guess you would be optimizing it soon.
And is there a way I can tweak the probability of getting that T-shirt? Maybe I could write the code for the random user selector or something?
Always wanted to get a MAC but they are too expensive for me. I love the beautiful design. But no one can stop me from buying the iphone !!
Im in for the Tshirt rite?
well well well…finally a good Apple blog (+ its frm india )…i expect you guys to keep us updated about the iPhone india…lolz
now am sure am in for the T-shirt thingy…
Nice going. Finally we’re seeing more of Apple in India. Most people here put up blank faces when you mention the word Mac. iPod they readily nod their heads. Good to see this changing.
Congrats on your new site! And yep, I hate Apple too so keep me out of the t-shirt thingy.
Good luck.
PS: A better theme might help?
Congrats!
Indian boys getting their acts together is always a proud thing. One post a day is certainly not enough for a daily visitor. I should be able to spend at least 15 min if I hit this site. I would suggest to keep this more international. Headings are not getting highlighted enough.
Just a few tips
1) About should come at the right of all other pagelinks.
2) Increase the no. of comments shown in right sidebar, of course everyone like to see who commented recently and on which post.
3) A set of share it and bookmark icons at the end of post will be nice.
Btw T don’t need a T-shirt :p Nice minimalistic look.
Oh yeah one more thing, alternate the comment colors, so as to make it easy to read
Well done boss. feeling proud of you. This is not for a T-Shirt.
Getting interested in apple products.
And a Big CONGRATS To You.:)
First of all, Congratulations guys, and a Thanks, for an India specific Apple related website.
All the best for the future. I hope, Smoking Apples makes Apple at least a bit more impartial to India..
Congrats for this new venture! I never thought Apple products could generate so much interest in the price-conscious market that is India. But hell, maybe I was wrong! Cheers!
Hey,
Nice layout, though I hate the tags section. also your comments box should be a little better defined.
I WANT THE T-SHIRT!
Hey, this is the third time I’m visiting your blog. I’m really amazed by the quality of new articles you guys are putting out. And Nothing is repetitive. Keep up the good work. And I hope your t shirts come in ‘s’ size!
Thanks for all the nice words. We still are working to improve the theme and site. Please pour in our feedback, we’re listening.
By the way, winners will be given a Levis T Shirt maybe in his/her choice of size and colour.
I am very delighted to know that finally there came people who thinks that apple can be promoted in India too.
First of all I don’t the relation between news,iphone and about .”news” and “iphone” is fine.But is “iphone” so important for apple.I personally feel this is odd.
Hope you consider this.
Secondly the looks of the site is cool.Looks too good.:)
All the best.
Cheers smoke ‘em apples’ team
Considering that there are already hundreds of websites and blogs dedicated to just the iPhone, I don’t think we’ve given it any undue importance at all. A search for “iphone” reveals 221 million results on Google today. Apple sold a million units in just three days when the iPhone 3G was launched on 9 July 2008. Do you still think that the iPhone is not “so important for Apple”?
Trust me, it’s even more important than even the iPod has ever been.
Thanks for the comments though, all of you. Keep the encouraging words coming.
The “tag cloud” part looks awesome.
@Aayush Arya
I still think that ipod or mac is more important for apple.As per talking about google search results ipod and mac reveals around 365 and 553 million results respectively, huge if compared to that of 221m of iphone.
Talking about the sale I still feel that people ,at least in India, are more fond of ipods than anything else marketed by “apple”.
Mac, yes. iPod, No.
Macs have been around for 24 years and currently have six distinct models available. iPods have been around for seven years and currently have four distinct models available. That’s several years’ worth of Google search results versus two for the iPhone. You do the math.
Oh, really? Ask you friends in IEM, how many of them know that the iPod does not mean all music players and are only produced by one company, Apple. Now ask those same people which company makes the iPhone. You’ll find that most people who keep saying “iPod, iPod” actually think that any MP3 player is an iPod, just like most people think that any portable cassette player is a Walkman. The iPhone has made people sit up and take notice. They now know that this phone, the most hyped gadget ever in the world, is made by Apple.
Oh, believe you me, the iPhone is far too important for Apple right now. You have no idea! Steve Jobs literally bet the future of the company he so valiantly brought back from the dead on this one product.
Enjoy.
Hey, you’ve got a great website going there. Will love to write for you guys some day. Let us know the details about hiring new talent ASAP.