It took me over two days to download iOS 6 for the iPhone and another two days to upgrade the new iPad over a pathetic BSNL broadband connection that refused to work higher than dialup speeds.

At the end of it I lost my 3G network on the tablet and lost my way in a maze of alleys in Calcutta because the iPhone’s map put my location in the middle of the Hooghly! Thankfully, I did not drown but by a single stroke Apple made my constant companion of the last few years less useful by robbing me of Google Maps.

The 3G problem with the iPad was easily solved by re-entering the Access Point Name (APN) in Settings — Cellular Data — APN Settings. Those on Vodafone need to put in ‘www’ and those on Airtel ‘airtelgprs.com’ (without the quotes). Apple’s map is incredible if you happen to live in one of the major cities in the US or Europe. The Flyover view of these cities is breathtaking, and you will never tire of showing off these to your less fortunate friends who are without an iPhone or iPad. But don’t let on that you cannot even find any driving directions or public transport on your Apple Maps that are readily available on any Android phone that costs a fifth of the iPhone.

The iOS 6 boasts of nearly 200 new features but unhappily the best of these do not work in India. A perennial grouse of iPhone users here has been that they cannot use Voicemail because Indian cellular networks fail to provide support for it. The list of unsupported Apple apps and features just got longer. The first thing I noticed was the new Do Not Disturb feature. It is supposed to mute all calls except those on your Favourite list. I happily thought that no one would now think me rude for not picking up the phone. Instead, I was in for a rude shock. I went to sleep with Do Not Disturb on but when a particularly enthusiastic friend called in the middle of the night, the phone rang as usual. The feature does not work in India.

Siri has been added to the iPad, but the voice recognition software still does not understand our English accent. Apple has put in support for Australian English but for them Indian English does not exist, or if it does, it is not important in their scheme of things. Siri now knows the latest sport scores, as long as they are rugby or baseball. You can ask Siri for a place to dine at and get a useful list of restaurants, sorted by rating, as long as you are outside India.

One of the best things to happen to iOS 6 is Passcode. It takes care of your boarding passes, movie or concert tickets. If you book tickests online, a pass is sent to your phone and you have to get it scanned at the gate to enter. Again, we do not know when or if this will ever happen here. And you thought the iTunes Music store was the only thing that did not work in India.

Among the stuff that you will find useful is Facetime which now works over 3G too. Earlier Apple’s video calling was available only if you were on WiFi. Safari comes with offline reading and iCloud tabs. It lets you open up in your iPad whatever browser tabs you left open on your Mac or iPhone.

An especially useful feature is the new way of taking calls. If you are in a meeting when a call comes in, you can flick the phone symbol upwards on the locked screen to reveal two new buttons: Remind Me Later and Reply With Message. The first button offers choices like “In 1 hour” or “When I get home” (a message will remind you to call back); the second offers text messages, like “I’ll call you later” or a custom message.

In Mail, you can designate the most important people in your life as VIPs so that you never miss emails from them. Finally, you can now attach photos to a mail message from the Mail app itself, instead of having to start in the Photos.

YouTube is missing too, but you can download that from the App Store. However, if Google Maps is very important to you, I would not recommend updating to iOS 6.

Send in your computer- related problems to askdoss@abpmail.com with bits&bytes in the subject line