It’s only US and Canada that are getting the maps ads, as of now. This means Apple is confident that Apple Maps is good enough and is used widely in those places. Apple is once again trying to squeeze more money out of services as the days pass. The App Store ads and experience are on the same lines. [1]

In India, Apple Maps just shows whatever TomTom or MapmyIndia or another provider has, and data availability and quality are extremely poor. The maps app cannot even find addresses or show transit directions in major metropolitan cities.

Tim Cook famously said in May 2016, when inaugurating a new office in India, that Apple is investing in accelerating Maps development. [2] These ads seem to a result of this investment.

Tangentially, it’s now a decade and Apple has almost nothing to show in maps improvements in India. It’s the same bad experience as it was then.

[1]: https://blog.thinktapwork.com/post/812803664980967425/ios-ap...

[2]: https://www.apple.com/in/newsroom/2016/05/19Apple-Opens-Deve...

India does get information from the US and other countries about Indian residents having accounts (bank, brokerage, etc.) in other countries.

There are agreements across several countries that use CRS (Common Reporting Standard) to report such information to other countries for tax purposes. This is not India or US specific.

> So no one is going to take up a lot of yuan trade unless that changes or they are forced to.

Related on the “forced to”point, this is where Russia is stuck with its crude oil sales to India where the payments have been made to it in Indian Rupees. There’s almost nothing that Russia can do with the Indian Rupee. This is a huge and growing problem because India’s imports from Russia eclipse its exports to Russia by more than 10 times. [1]

[1]: https://www.financialexpress.com/india-news/india-russia-sum...

Pump prices of petrol and diesel in India are being kept the same by reducing taxes since there are some key state elections next month and the ruling party of the union government doesn’t want to hurt its chances.

Expect fuel prices in India to go up in May and the following months, even though procurement from Russia is increasing.

With a fertilizer shortage, the consequences of this war are making things tougher and tougher for common people everywhere.

India hasn’t had a very long authoritarian regime since its independence. Yet, corruption has existed at every touch point with the government and shows no signs of reduction. In India, getting a driver’s license or getting a passport (for which there’s a “police verification” step) or buying/selling real estate or filing a police complaint or getting some work done in a court of law or even getting the final rites of a deceased person (burial or cremation) done require bribes in most places.

Also, paying a bribe means standing in line with the rest of the people who paid bribes. Things don’t move fast just because money exchanged hands.

All this is to say that I don’t know what to make of your statement on authoritarian vs. democratic regimes (though you mentioned “western”). The main factor seems to be the culture and what others here have described as low trust vs high trust.

Transferring eSIM from one iPhone to another can be restricted by the carrier. Here in India, the second largest carrier (Airtel), does not support the native iOS eSIM transfer process. It’s a separate set of steps (the ones published on Airtel’s website won’t work, despite customer care claiming that it does). What works is almost like applying for a new or replacement eSIM.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus_(2019_film)

As someone in India, this statement is incorrect. There are no consumer receipts in India that show the import duties (which is what tariffs are) as an amount or as a percentage. There are plenty of goods sold in India that are imported, duty paid, and the costs are passed on to the consumers (with no explicit mention of that in the invoice or receipt).

You may be confusing these US tariffs with local taxes in India like GST. In the US, sales tax is shown in the consumer receipts (if or as applicable in the state, county, city, etc.).

In India and in the US, import duties are not shown in consumer receipts, except in the case where an individual is importing something and is liable to pay the duties and levies directly. Indians would probably revolt if they actually knew how much customs duty they’re paying for all the goods they buy individually.

These kind of scams have become a huge problem in India (look up “digital arrest” scams). People of all backgrounds and age groups have lost a lot of money (to put it in US dollar equivalent amounts, imagine a person losing few hundred thousand dollars to a couple of million dollars). There is nothing like “digital arrest” in Indian laws. The government has tried to warn people about this.

The larger problem seems to be a combination of factors across disinterested entities:

1. The police aren’t interested in solving these (there’s a separate division for cybercrime). Filing a formal report is usually thwarted and avoided by the police. Even if they show some interest, it always involves paying them fat sums of money. There’s no guarantee that they can recover the money.

2. The banks aren’t interested in solving this. It seems like specific bank branch managers are involved and just stand by allowing large transactions (like cash withdrawals) to just be approved without raising any questions or concerns. All the talk by banks about “risk management” (alongside compliance matters) goes out the window just for the victims of these scams.

3. With SMS OTPs being common and the scammers recruiting some locals to run SIM farms/phone farms, the telecom companies aren’t interested in solving issues within themselves either. Though there is a limit of nine phone numbers (total) per person in India, and though there is on paper a KYC process (including a live video) to get a phone number, the telecom companies have systems and employees who can provide numerous numbers based on stolen or fake IDs.

4. The government is a bystander and appears helpless. Instead of creating laws and enforcing existing laws, it focuses on some awareness that these scams are not genuine.

5. The Supreme Court finally ordered CBI (the Indian equivalent of FBI) to investigate these scams.

So there you have it: none of the entities involved has any interest or will to do something about the problem. There will always be excuses that the scammers are in another country.

Just today, there’s a news report in India where the major telecom companies have lobbied that the entire 6 GHz band be reserved for mobile services and that even part of it shouldn’t be left for unlicensed WiFi. [1]

The problem in India is that the penetration of wired broadband is very low, and the telcos don’t seem to be interested in expanding it as much as they are in grabbing more of wireless spectrum.

I don’t believe it’s a good move to reserve these exclusively for mobile services. We (in general) need more unlicensed spectrum for innovation. Let the companies figure out another way out.

I also know that these bands are already allowed for unlicensed WiFi use in the US.

[1]: https://telecom.economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/industry/j...

Agree on some security risks. But the cost of creating, printing or sharing a QR code is very low compared to NFC hardware cost and availability. I don’t know what you mean by slow, because it takes about 10 seconds to complete a transaction. QR codes are quite common in cities and towns in India because of this reason (and the other is that Apple, though a tiny player in the market, hasn’t opened up NFC completely for others to use). You can pay another person or a merchant by scanning a QR code on a cheap Android phone. You can pay for a metro or bus ticket by scanning a QR code. You’d likely see restaurants having a QR code for menus instead of paper menus, and many more.

As for ads on Apple Maps itself, it may generate some revenue in the US and a few other countries. Elsewhere (like in India and many other countries), Apple has practically neglected Apple Maps and it sucks terribly even in large cities. Google, with all its tracking and other issues (including map accuracy issues), keeps moving at breakneck speed on Google Maps.

Apple’s single minded focus on the US with severe lethargy in other countries is why in most countries where (some/many) people use Apple devices, they use Google’s services. Both Eddy Cue and Tim Cook are squarely to be blamed for this greed, laziness and lack of vision or strategy.

Amazon in India has been close to perfect on customer service. I have had issues, but it’s still easier to contact customer service on chat or have them call me (both modes have become a little more difficult to access with the stupid chat bot responding and not helping). Anytime there’s a defective item that needs to be returned for refund or replaced, it’s been very quick.

Lately though, I’ve made it a habit of shooting unboxing videos and photos of the delivered package so that I have clear evidence on any wrongdoing by anyone in Amazon. For larger appliances and such, I’d still prefer a local brick and mortar store.

On the other hand, Flipkart, which is Amazon’s primary competitor, has worse prices on many items of interest to me, does not really offer fast shipping like Amazon does, has only a phone number to contact customer service (and that’s pretty useless), doesn’t have a simple way to get returns or replacements done, has a really stupid and useless “SuperCoins” rewards scheme, and more. It’s a wonder that Walmart is still an investor and owner in Flipkart and hasn’t sold it off and salvaged itself.

I do believe that Amazon’s service in India has deteriorated over the last couple of years or so. Don’t know if management doesn’t care as much or what’s happening within.

Because they’re used to serving the interests of large companies (domestic and international) as well as bowing to any executive comments or opinions. Indian judges rule first with their own opinions and moral views, then maybe look at the law, and then maybe consider the constitution (in that order).

As the article notes, people will just use a VPN or Tor to access the sites. The courts in India do not understand technology (like in many other countries). They just acquiesce to the demands from large companies.

With the indirect pressure through US tariffs, I wouldn’t rule out the executive finding ways to not annoy the US even more through some means.

I have a longstanding pet peeve with it (the judiciary): the entire validity and legality of the Aadhaar biometric identity program has been in limbo, pending hearing by a constitutional bench (the conclusion of “Rojer Mathew v. South Indian Bank”). This bench hasn’t been constituted for several years. Chief Justice after Chief Justice in the Supreme Court has ignored it and let the executive bulldoze everyone to submit, get this “voluntary” (that’s the official definition) number and link it in more and more databases.

Long story short, depending on the Indian judiciary for justice on large enough matters that affect the entire country and its future is futile. If it’s a simpler matter affecting one or two companies or a political party, the justice will be swift.

This is something to learn the very first time when getting into a (new/unfamiliar) car before getting the vehicle moving.

Come to India and drive a few cars from different brands. [1] The rule is to drive on the left side of the road (so the driver is on the right side of the vehicle). But the sticks/levers to turn on the windshield wiper may be on the right side of the steering wheel or on the left side (and vice versa for the turn indicator sticks/levers), depending on the manufacturer. If you don’t check it in advance, you may end up wiping the windshield when you want to signal a turn or end up signaling a turn when you want to get water off the windshield.

[1]: Actually, it’s not recommended for foreigners to attempt to drive in India. The traffic is chaotic and one needs a different way of thinking to drive.

But I manage without WhatsApp (it’s also a privileged position to do so). Not having WhatsApp also helps avoid seeing all the junk and misinformation that people forward on it without any thought. There’s actually a name for this in India: “WhatsApp University”, which is a derogatory term for how people believe anything they read on WhatsApp and share it around without any analysis or thought or skepticism whatsoever.