iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus in India, Another Amazon Sale, Android O for Nokia 8, and More: Your 360 Daily

The iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are now available in India, having been up for pre-orders since September 22. Apple has seen a lukewarm response to these launches globally, what with the iPhone X looming on the horizon, and it will be interesting to see whether this pattern is upheld in India. Jio has partnered with Apple to release the iPhone8 and iPhone 8 Plus with some really attractive discounts. If you're looking for a launch day deal on these smartphones, Reliance Jio's offers are definitely worth a look. 

Interestingly, Jio held an event for the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus' launch in Mumbai, where Apple CEO Tim Cook made an appearance via a video. His short message to Indians was full of the usual stuff, but it does highlight Apple's focus on growing its market share in India. The iPhone 8 price in India is Rs. 64,000 for 64GB and Rs. 77,000 for 256GB. iPhone 8 Plus 64GB and 256GB variants are priced at Rs. 73,000 and Rs. 86,000 respectively. All the pre-booking discounts on various ecommerce portals have now dried up.

iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus Review

Reliance Jio's cashback offer of Rs. 10,000 is still running, but it's valid only on Citi Credit and World debit cards, apart from a buyback guarantee of 70 percent. This means that Jio will provide buyers with 70 percent of the value of the smartphone if they return the smartphone within a year. Jio has also launched a new plan exclusively for iPhone models, which is valued at Rs. 799 with 90GB of data.

Here's everything else that made news in the world of technology.

Amazon Great Indian Festival sale to return
Amazon's apparently quite pleased with how its four-day Great Indian Festival Sale was received, and has announced that there's another one coming along shortly. This one is just two weeks before Diwali so you can probably expect the best discounts to be reserved for this. If you have a Citibank credit or debit card, Amazon will be offering an additional 10 percent cashback and those who pay via Amazon Pay balance will get 15 percent of the value back. 

Amazon has announced that it will be discounting products from Samsung, Sony, HP, LG, Nokia, and Apple. PlayStation 4 and iPhone are among the products it intends to discount and brands such as  OnePlus, Dell, Honor, and Vivo are also likely to see discounts. Smartphones and large appliances are the most popular products in these sales, so perhaps Amazon will offer excellent deals on these products.

Nokia 8 may get Android Oreo soon
Fast Android updates are something very few phones get and Nokia 8 may just be one of them. Of course, fast is a relative term but when you see that a year after launch Android Nougat still doesn't even have 20 percent of Android's market share, then Nokia 8's rumoured Oreo update seems very fast indeed. While announcing the Nokia 8 in Taiwan, an HMD Global manager reportedly revealed that the smartphone may receive the Android 8.0 Oreo update by end of October. 

Nokia devices of late have been receiving security updates on time so there's no reason why the company cannot provide OS updates fast too. At the Nokia 8 launch, HMD Global had promised an update to Android Oreo. If you didn't know about what's new in Android 8.0 Oreo, there are a lot of features such as picture in picture mode, notification channel feature, notification badges, Android instant apps, and much more.

ZTE may launch the world's first dual screen folding smartphone
Lots of companies have hinted that they may be launching foldable smartphones but so far there's been nothing much to show for these claims. ZTE is now rumoured to launch a smartphone called Axon M on October 17 and this could be the world's first true dual-screen foldable smartphone. We've seen a leaked live image of this product and that image shows a hinge-like setup that houses the secondary display. At the moment it is not clear how this smartphone would be different in terms of functionality but we'll keep you updated the moment there's more information.

Google Assistant now available on Android TV
Google has now brought its AI Assistant to Android TVs - something it had announced back at CES 2017. The Google Assistant feature will be available on Nvidia Shield TV owners first before rolling to Sony Bravia TVs in the coming months. With Google Assistant on Android TV, users can watch their favourite shows, and otherwise control the TV, with the help of voice commands.

First public betas for iOS 11.1, tvOS 11.1, macOS 10.13.1
Some of us like to stay on the bleeding edge of software updates, even if it risks breaking crucial features and providing less than optimal battery life. If you are among those people, you might want to know that Apple has made the first public betas for iOS 11.1, tvOS 11.1, and macOS 10.13.1 available for download. Notably, the first betas do not introduce any major user-facing features or even the support for Apple Pay Cash service, which was earlier expected to come with the update. The watchOS 4.1 beta introduces support for streaming from Apple Music, which now has over 30 million users, and a new Radio app.

GoPro HERO6 Black launched
GoPro has unveiled HERO6 Black, and the company calls it the most powerful GoPro yet. It comes with custom-designed GP1 processor and shoots videos in 4K60 and 1080p240 quality. Alongside, the company put its Fusion camera up for pre-orders, and added new features to its Karma drone. The GoPro HERO6 Black price in India is Rs. 45,000.

Elon Musk wants to launch launch Earth-to-Earth rockets for travel
There are technological breakthroughs and then there are clever uses of existing technology. Elon Musk's latest idea appears to be more of the latter. The innovator has unveiled ambitious plans to send cargo ships to Mars in five years and use rockets to carry people between Earth’s major cities in under 30 minutes. The founder of SpaceX said a planned interplanetary transport system codenamed BFR, which stands for Big Fucking Rocket. It would be downsized so it could carry out a range of tasks that would then pay for future Mars missions.

Google to launch an Echo Show rival?
Google is reportedly working on a rival to Amazon's Echo Show, the smart speaker that features the Alexa voice assistant and a touchscreen. A new report claims that the Google product will feature a 7-inch screen - just like the Echo Show - and it will be powered, obviously, by Google Assistant. The competition between Google and Amazon is heating up in this space and while that is good news for consumers, it also means that you'll have to bear with incidents such as Google pulling YouTube from some Amazon hardware. If this product turns into a reality, then you can expect it to be well integrated with other Google services such as Google Photos and YouTube.