The news of the miserable presence of Apple in India, particularly with respect to the iPad, was put to light in an article by The Economic Times. On Apple India's website, it still asks people to give their e-mail address so that they'd inform them about the iPad's release in the country. But as ET reporters discovered, iPads could be officially purchased in India provided that you buy them in bulk quantity. Another way to get hold of one is the grey market where the starting pricing is Rs. 32,000 for the base 16GB Wi-Fi model - a whole Rs. 10,000 higher than the $499 (Rs. 22,660) price you'd pay if you ask somebody to get it from U.S. The article also speaks of the almost non-existent presence of marketing of Apple products in a country that serves 650 million cellphone users and 80 million PC units.

While naysayers still try to find the real use of a tablet, we can't help but urge people to hold off their iPad purchase cravings till the next two months; given the sorry state of affairs. As most of us would be aware of this; Apple products have a yearly update cycle. There have been reports of Apple announcing the next iPad in February 2011. So, what do you stand to get in return of this wait?

1) A thinner design - While Apple is more or less fixated on 10-inches as the ideal screen size for a tablet, there is no question that the current thickness and its aluminum back would make it uncomfortable to hold and use one-handedly for a long time. There have been patent filings that suggest the 'Fruit' company is designing a thinner, lighter iPad 2.

2) Front-facing video-call camera - This is a no-brainer, as 2010 was the year that Apple tried to reinvent the dying interest of video-conferencing on the go. With a simplistic name called "FaceTime", they first put a front-facing camera in the iPhone 4, then the new iPod Touch. They also made a FaceTime app for Macs that would let you do make video-calls from a computer to an iPhone or an iPod Touch. So, the iPad 2 definitely ought to get the front cam.

3) Probably a better display - When Apple quadrupled the pixel count on the iPhone 4, giving it another idiot-proof naming convention called "Retina Display", you could vastly see the difference between the clarity when compared to the iPhone 3G or 3GS. There have been talks of a similar "Retina" display on the next iPad as well.

It is already a rip-off when you have to pay a considerable premium for buying Apple products here in India. It's been 11 months since the first iPad announcement, so it is too little too late for them to do an official launch any time now. So with the next iPad update around the corner, and the benefits that you'd receive for waiting, we'd say it would be smart to hold off your iPad purchase till next year, than jumping the gun now and crying later.