Nothing New From Apple

Image via CrunchBase

Apple has nothing drastically new on offer this time around, surprisingly. In its press conference at San Francisco, Steve Jobs mentioned about the new reinvented Apple TV, the elusive product which has so far never really 'clicked'. They have a new lineup of contracts with television channels with high definition content.

The other major announcement was about the new iPod Touch range which has the same features as the new iPhone 4 (including the retina display, touch screen, face time capabilities etc) without having the 'phony' features of the phone. As the Jobs jokingly put it, the new iPod Touch is the iPhone 4 without the contract. He also announced the lauch of Ping, a new music social networking site.e

Other than that, there werent any other announcements. I wonder if Apple really has something on offer to surprise us any more. After all, havent we already seen the enough of the iPods and the odd set top boxes?

The Idiocy of Indian Television Programmes

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Indian Television. Not really a global phenomenon is it? After all in India, prime time programmes are primarily meant for aunties and grannies. The youth of this country has almost forever been starved of good, quality youth oriented programmes. Unless of course you consider 'programmes' like Roadies (MTV) to be proper programmes for the youth. As the clock strikes 7 (pm of course) thousands of women (my mum included) dedicate all their attention to the television sets, for 'saas-bahu' (mother-in-law vs wife) rivalry, family dramas (epitomised family dramas with joint families the size of elephant packs), evil aunties and well, more evil aunties. And what do we guys watch? Well, there's always THE NEWS, although listening to the same crap being repeated 24x7 does not really make for a pleasant experience. Then there's always the talent hunt shows where every female singer, prodded by her over zealous parents, wants to become a Lata Mangeshkar and where every male singer prodded again by over zealous parents and dreamy eyed girlfriend(s?) to become the next Mohammad Rafi. And then there are the business news channels, but from what I gather and from my personal experience as well, this is not everyone's cup of tea. So what else can we watch? Oh yeah, the 'tech' shows which is about as techy as a supermodel showing off her iPhone, where real techy things like open source, source code, etc. are forbidden words, and where the review of the latest mobile phone depends largely on how good its looks are compared to the other device they 'reviewed' the other day. Thats tech for you on tele. Okay so what the hell do we watch or can we watch? Nothing to be honest. No Indianised versions of western tv series (just copy a few shows if you cant come up with original ideas! Please!), no true Indian world class programmes, not even a proper comedy show!

Of course you might think that expecting a Top Gear or a Lost here in India would be a tall order but frankly, considering the amount of money spent on those zoom-in zoom-out types all 365 days, I think its very much possible. Why cant we have a Lost here? Why not a House? Why not? Honestly why not? Why does the youth of this country have to turn to the US/UK series to satisfy their hunger for top class watchable programmes? Like a lot of things I dont understand (fail to fathom), the reason of this lack of proper good, quality stuff on Indian stuff is beyond my comprehension.

Where is that charm of cricket commentary?

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Its cricket season again. This time its the Indian Premier League (IPL). But why am I not excited anymore? Why is cricket, to me at least, just another game these days?

Part of the blame goes to the herculean schedule of cricket. Every year we have more than a hundred one day matches, and even more T20 ones. Even test cricket, which is supposedly dying, isnt really that scarce in a calendar year. Overexposure of the game such as these, has always been blamed for the drop in popularity of the game.

However I think there's something else which is responsible for, what I'd call, loss of the charm of the gentleman's game. Its commentary.

Commentary is an integral part of the viewing experience. A good commentator can make a perfectly boring match tolerable. (Although the reverse is necessarily not true, as you now have the power to simply press the mute button on the remote.) Remember those days when people switched on their tele sets in the middle of the night to catch India's West Indies or Australian or South African tours? I distinctly remember those nights. I used to set my alarm at 4-4:30 in the morning to the extreme agony of mum and dad. The moment the alarm clock (yea, back in those days I didnt have a mobile phone of my own) sounded the arrival of the hour, I was awake, and with a steaming hot cup of coffee in my hand I used to tune in to ESPN/Star Sports. The oh so awesome voices of Harsha Bhogle, Sunny Gavaskar, Richie Benaud, Ian Bishop, Michael Holding and last but not the least Geoffrey Boycott boomed from the television set. It didnt matter which team was batting or fielding, it didnt matter what ground it was, hell it didnt even matter what form of the game it was! Those voices made cricket seem well and truly the gentleman's game.

Sigh! Gone are those days. I saw Harsha Bhogle on a programme on CNN IBN today, and frankly, when I heard him speak, all these memories started pouring in. I never realised how much I had missed that voice until I heard him speak.

I wish I could go back in time to that wonderful era. But again, maybe thats why memory is such a sweet thing.