Passengers of the Ahmedabad to Mumbai train getting to grips with the the highly intuitive and instantly gratifying photo browse on the iPod Touch/iPhone. For every product or service – what level of gratification is achieved in the first 5 seconds of use? What is the learning curve for more complex features? The only down side in this rosy situation – the interest in the product and the need to maintain a bright display soon killed the battery.

One of the questions we’ve been trying to get my head around this past week has been the extent that rural populations i.e. much of India, have an awareness of different types of technology and services. Without going into what we’ve learned fair to say it challenged our assumptions.

By the way, the gent in the top photo was using a stylus to navigate his own (smart) phone prior to handing him this piece of fruit.