The iPods announced by Apple on 9th September at their It’s Only Rock And Roll event will be available in India shortly. (Shortly being another 2-3 weeks; and definitely before Diwali – the holiday season in India). Here are the prices. As usual, we’ve put up a comparison with the US dollar prices which should help you decide whether to buy them in India or have that friend/cousin pick them up for you in the US:

[We use a pessimistic conversion rate of 1 USD = 50 INR ]

The numbers baffle us as always – especially the price of the 16 GB iPod nano – we don’t see how a price margin of 38.54% over the US price is justified. The things absence of credible competition in the market does!

However, the site also says -

The simplest workaround I’ve heard of for the DFU issue is to copy one or two of the 10.5.5 frameworks files over the newer ones.

But till a definite guide is not released by the iPhone Dev team, we suggest you update to the latest build only if you have to.

As you can probably make out from the scribble above, I was leaning towards an iPod nano. The 16 GB model has been rather late in India and at the time of my purchase wasn’t available in all colors. Of the colors that were available, I liked the Blue one but I was afraid that I’ll ultimately tire of it.

I eventually settled for black and haven’t regretted the decision yet! This is what the package comes with:

iPod nano, Quick Start guide, USB/chargin cable, white earphones dock adapter and yes two Apple logo stickers (not in the picture above).

The iPod nano rests inside the box, attached to two ends of a thin plastic strip. Taking the ‘bundle’ out and pressing the strip at the two ends causes the strip to bend and the iPod nano to come out. Not the most straight forward of packaging designs but the little graphic behind the plastic sheet does help.

Open an iPod nano from Deepak Gulati on Vimeo.

iPod nano is solidly built. The shiny stainless steel back from the previous generation is gone and has been replaced by the new curved aluminum and glass construction. This is a good thing as it is much less prone to picking fingerprints and scratches. The glass does pick fingerprints easily but they are equally easily wiped off with a lint-free cloth (I recommend 3M’s scratch free wipes which are now readily available in India).

Besides being unbelievably thin, the iPod nano is also incredibly light. At about 36 grams or so you hardly feel it even if it’s resting in your hand! You could dangle it off the other end of your headphone cable and it wouldn’t fall off.

I found the screen on the new iPod nano bright and crisp. The black border around the screen sure makes videos and pictures pop. The sound quality is satisfactory but the bundled white earbuds are a letdown. Also, although the scroll wheel is quite responsive, using it on a fully loaded 16 GB iPod nano with hundreds of albums in a little painful.

So far I’ve found the addition of accelerometer somewhat gimmicky. I hardly use Cover Flow and was glad that the new firmware (1.0.3) added an option to turn it off (Settings > General > Rotate > Cover Flow (set to Off)). The videos always play landscape anyway (irrespective of the orientation of the device). While ’shake to shuffle’ works fine, it is again one of those features that I find little reason to use. May be we’ll see some interesting games that exploit the accelerometer like games on iPod touch and iPhone do. I guess a year of iPod touch usage has spoiled me!

Overall I am quite happy with Apple’s latest iteration of iPod nano. It is no iPod touch, but then this time I was in the market for a portable music player and not a one-device-does-it-all; and Apple hasn’t let me down.

Related Post:
Pricing and availability of iPods in India

p.s. WPC has a website, which seems to be down at the moment (surprise!). Google’s cache reveals the following:

The WIRELESS PLANNING & COORDINATION (WPC) Wing of the Ministry of Communications, created in 1952, is the National Radio Regulatory Authority responsible for Frequency Spectrum Management, including licensing and caters for the needs of all wireless users (Government and Private) in the country. It exercises the statutory functions of the Central Government and issues licenses to establish, maintain and operate wireless stations. WPC is divided into major sections like Licensing and Regulation (LR), New Technology Group (NTG) and Standing Advisory Committee on Radio Frequency Allocation (SACFA). SACFA makes the recommendations on major frequency allocation issues, formulation of the frequency allocation plan, making recommendations on the various issues related to International Telecom Union (ITU), to sort out problems referred to the committee by various wireless users, Siting clearance of all wireless installations in the country etc.

Go figure!

Update: (Nov 9) Just got off the phone with iStore in Bangalore and they have the iPod touch available now in all 3 capacities. We’ve updated the iPod price list too.

Imagine in Bangalore is also offering discount on the 3rd gen iPod nanos (aka ‘Fatty’). The 4 GB ‘Fatty’ nano is priced at Rs. 5,995, while the 8GB one is now selling for Rs. 7,495.

I’ve added the new 4 GB iPod nano to our master iPod price list.

The 2nd generation iPod touch continues to be unavailable. Apparently the shipment of the iPod touch has already landed in India but some last moment price negotiations between Apple and their resellers are holding up their broad distribution.

Our information is true for Bangalore. While the situation should be indicative of other cities in India, you might just get lucky if you are in another city. Do let us know in the comments if you spot the iPod touch.

Personally, I am very disappointed at Apple. Even in a downbeat economy, the festival season in India is a good opportunity to sell a decent number of units. It is increasingly beginning to looks like Diwali will come and go and we’ll not see 4th generation 16 GB iPod nano in other colors. Apple will do well to at least get the 2nd generation iPod touch in the hands of their resellers soon.

p.s. Thanks to the decline in the Rupee’s value, the prices that we had reported earlier suddenly don’t look marked-up at all!

Update: The 16 GB nano is now available in Green, Blue and Purple (in addition to the previously mentioned Black and Silver). The 2nd gen iPod touch continues to elude most stores in Bangalore!

I have been playing this game for almost a month now (can’t say the same for some of the more expensive games I have bought (I am talking to you Super Monkey Ball) and I still go back to Blocked atleast once a day.

Blocked is a puzzle game where the objective is to slide a blue colored block out of the playing area. There are obstacles in the form of other gray colored blocks which you have to move around to get the blue block out. You simply use your fingers to slide the blocks around.

There are 100 levels categorised into Easy, Medium, Hard, Harder and Hardest. I have finished about 80 levels in a month’s time and might take another couple of weeks to finish the game. There is good replay value because you can always pick up an older level and start playing again. If you leave a game in between, it starts of from the point where you left so you can take your time finishing a level.

I have to mention that I was stuck on level 64 for a very long time (almost a week) and also asked a few friends if they could solve it but it turned out to be a really tough level. I finally gave up and googled for a solution but nothing came up. Finally I looked up the creator’s site and in the FAQ section I found this -

• Is it possible to beat every level?

Sure is! I did it again just last week!

• Even level 64?

If you must – The trick is to get the two vertical blocks above the blue block, as seen in this pic. If you can get to the layout below, you’re only a few moves away!

Drop us a line if you like more reviews/suggestions for iPhone/iPod touch applications. We would love to know the apps/games you have been using on your device!

As expected, the new iPods finally made their debut in India today. The 8 GB, 4th Gen iPod nano (aka ‘nanochromatic’) is available in all colors except Red – i.e. Silver, Black, Purple, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Pink and is priced at Rs. 8,300. Considering a conversion rate of 46.5 Indian Rupees to a US dollar, that is a premium of about Rs. 1,372 (20%) over the US price of $ 149 (Rs. 6,928)

As we had speculated, the 16 GB nano is not yet available in India and is expected by 2nd/3rd week of October. It’ll be priced at Rs. 10,800. This means we pay a premium of about Rs. 1,547 (17%) over the current US price of $ 199 (Rs. 9,253). I hope it hits before Diwali or Apple will miss a major opportunity to push some decent numbers.

The new iPod nanos look really svelte. If you don’t think you need one, go see one in person and your views might just change a little! Of all the colors, Blue, Orange and Green looked most beautiful, but I found Black (more like dark-slate-grey) the best. Color choice is a matter of personal taste, so I am sure some of you will like White, Purple and Pink too.

The 6th gen 120 GB iPod classic is available too. It retails for Rs. 14,300 – a markup of about Rs. 2,722 (24%) over the current US price of $ 249 (Rs. 11,578).

We didn’t find much about the 2nd gen iPod touch except the usual vague “expected by 2nd, 3rd week of October”. The details on pricing are sketchy at the moment, but given what we are seeing with the other iPods, expect a mark-up of 17-25% over the US price.

If I were to read into these margins, I think Apple expects maximum volumes on the 16 GB Nano. The iPod classic has only one thing going for it – storage – not something that I expect to appeal to many in India, and so it should be moving off the shelves rather slowly.

Finally a note on the iPods of older generation – they are very much around at most shops (both iStore and other retailers) and in good numbers too. They aren’t discounted deeply, but at least in case of the 3rd gen (aka ‘fatty’) 8 GB nano, the price has been slashed from Rs. 9,300 to Rs. 8,300 to match the pricing of 4th gen Nanos.

Update:(27 Oct): the 3rd gen iPod nanos are now deeply discounted.

In short:

^*Limited stock only.

Update: We still don’t know when the new iPod touch will come to India, though end Oct/first week of Nov seems likely.

Update (2 Nov): The news on iPod touch availability is not looking good. Looks like they’ve run into some kind of licensing/bureaucratic tangle.

Update (9 Nov): iPod touch is now available in stores.

Since the so called “limited edition” 4 GB 4th Gen Nanos made it to some countries in Europe and South East Asia, it’ll be interesting to see if they show up in India too. Also, given the shortage of the 16 GB Nanos in the US and elsewhere, we are not sure if we’ll be getting them in India this weekend. If we do, we are certain that our color choices are going to be limited to one or two.

But the most interesting aspect that we are curious about, is pricing. Usually iPods sell in India at a 25-30% premium over their US price – mostly due to custom duties. We don’t expect things to be any different this time. We’ll be reporting the prices soon provided the generation iPods indeed make an appearance this weekend.

You can click the Check for Updates link to have iTunes check for updates for any of your applications. You’ll be prompted to sign into the iTunes Store. In case an update is available, iTunes will take you to the an App Store page which will have just the updates specific to your apps listed:

From here you can either click Download All Updates or click the Get Updates button next to each app. I have a feeling that these are not “delta” updates i.e. you end up downloading the complete app (the newer version) all over again. In case of “heavy” games that could mean having to download anywhere between 20-50 MB.

The update process works from iPod Touch/iPhone as well. Just click on the Updates button in the App Store application, select the app you want to update, tap it to go to its detailed description and then click the Update button.

The Update button will turn into a green Install button, tapping on which will ask you for your iTunes Store credentials. After you sign-in, the updated version of the app will start downloading and will eventually replace the existing version on your iPod Touch/iPhone.

Kudos to Apple for having thought through the update/upgrade scenarios!