Wanted: iTunes Store for India

Another example of Apple's apathy for the Indian market is the lack of an Indian version of the iTunes store. Yes, you can register into the iTunes India store for iPhone apps download but we cannot buy music or videos or anything else from the India store, at India pricing. Most Indians who are desperate enough end up using the US store accounts of friends and relatives. Another way of accessing the store is to create your own account with a dummy US address (or that of your office or friends) and using pre-paid iTunes vouchers (if you are principled enough not to touch your friends for a few bucks every month!).

But what upsets me a lot is to pay nearly Rs 50 (99c) per every song that I download from the store. I still end up purchasing many songs at that price (though entire album CDs are usually available for the same price) because of the huge convenience of being able to download and immediately play the song that you felt like hearing. For instance, one evening I was remembering my college days and was humming Purani Jeans and I just had to hear the song immediately; all I had to do was to go to the iTunes Store on my iPhone and get the song -- took me all of 2 minutes!

Some might also argue that there are dozens of sites that offer Indian music downloads for free, so why bother about paid options. It's true, I have used these sites several times, but the quality of music is just not the same, and most often I don't get the songs' meta-data which makes it very painful to sort them on the iPod. And, somehow, it just doesn't feel right to be listening pirated music -- if only a decent, legal alternative was available.

What I wish for: an Indian iTunes Store that would sell music for about Rs 8 per song (just about works right from a PPP perspective too), TV episodes & videos for about Rs 15 each and movies for about Rs 30 each.

Film stars giving fundas about piracy is not going to convince anyone. Ok, thank you, can the movie start, please? What we need is a commercial digital solution that takes on piracy. iTunes shook up the US entertainment industry business model; can it have a similar impact on India?

Apple, Care?