Apple TV now officially available in India for Rs. 7,900

Apple has officially launched the Apple TV in India for Rs. 7,900, almost a year after it was originally launched in the U.S. Apple has updated its India website accordingly and you can find the Apple TV listed under the iPod section of the site.

The Apple TV, for the uninitiated, is a media streamer that lets you stream and share content from your Apple devices and from iTunes to your HDTV. The device needs to be connected to your HDTV through HDMI, while it can pull content from other Apple devices over a wireless or a wired network. Apart from content you already own, you can also use the Apple TV to purchase content from the Indian iTunes store and view it on your TV.

Apple TV also provides access to a limited section of streaming content outside of the iTunes store but since most of the content is around Baseball and international finance, it's not really something that will become really popular. Apart from music and videos, you can also use the Apple TV to view photos from your iPhone or iPad or those hosted on iCloud, mirror content (like games) from your iPhone/iPod or iPad to your TV using AirPlay and watch videos from sites like YouTube and Vimeo.

While talking to ThinkDigit, an Apple India representative stated that the company was looking at partnering with Indian content providers to stream content using Apple TV, similar to the way American users can access video streaming services like Netflix and Hulu Plus on their TVs through the device. However, there were no specific details available right now.

There are already a bunch of HD media players available in the Indian market such as the WD Live HD, Asus O! Play Mini and the Amkette Flash TV HD. These media players let you stream content from external hard drives to your TV. However, the media player segment is yet to breakthrough in terms of mass adoption. It will be interesting to see whether Apple, with its new found interest in India, will be able to drive up sales of the Apple TV.


Source: http://www.thinkdigit.com/TVs/Apple-TV-now-officially-available-in-India_13534.html

New Apple patent lets iTunes users become ATMs

A new patent application by Apple, filed in 2011 and published yesterday, introduces a service that could let iTunes users take cash from other users. The service is referred to as an “ad-hoc cash-dispensing network” by Apple in the patent and was spotted by New Scientist.

The patent document explains how the service works: an iTunes user can log into an app and input the amount of cash he wants, and the app will use his location to see if there are other users around who have the cash. Once a user with cash is located and the cash is handed over, the amount is debited from the credit card of the person who requested the cash (since the credit card will be associated with his iTunes account) and credited to the card of the person giving out the cash.

An iTunes user will be incentivised to make himself available to give out cash since along with getting back the amount he gave out in cash, the user will also earn an extra amount as a service charge. Apple will also earn 10% of the transaction value, in every transaction.

The patent document further explains that users involved in this service will be rated by other users, and users with low ratings will be weeded out.


Source: http://www.thinkdigit.com/Mobiles-PDAs/New-Apple-patent-lets-iTunes-users-become_13311.html

Apple updates iTunes to 11.0.1, fixes iCloud and Airplay issues, and more

Apple has released an update for iTunes, version 11.0.1. The update brings with it a bunch of bug fixes as well as the ability for a user to displaying duplicate songs.

Apart from recognizing duplicate songs, the update fixes an issue where new purchases in iCloud may not appear in users library if iTunes Match is turned on. The update also makes iTunes more responsive when searching a large library. It also fixes a problem where the AirPlay button may not appear as expected and important stability and performance improvements

Recently, we reported that in iTunes 11 lacked the ability to search for duplicate songs, a feature that was present in the previous iteration of the app.

After a very long wait, the iTunes store is finally active in India where users can purchase music and movies. The iTunes store is littered with a plethora of Bollywood content. You can read our launch story of the iTunes store here. If you are wondering what the new store feels like, you can take a look at our first impressions of the iTunes store here. We’ve also listed five cool features of the of Apple’s latest media app, iTunes 11. You can take a look at these cool features here.

If you haven’t checked out iTunes 11, you can download it for Mac and Windows here.


Source: http://www.thinkdigit.com/Mobiles-PDAs/Apple-updates-iTunes-to-1101-fixes-iCloud_11771.html