iPhone 3G in India >> Stupidity Glorified

iPhone3G in India

The much hyped iPhone finally reached the Indian Shores, but gives a bitter taste

It is that auspicious day of the year that everyone has been waiting for. Finally the iPhone is available in India. All Hail the Apple, Vodafone and Airtel people for finally getting this device in India.


I do not like the iPhone for personal reasons - the camera is not autofocus nor does it have flash. Another wonderfully insane thing about the iPhone is that you cannot record videos. The battery cannot be changed and lasts just about a day at the max. In case your battery does die, then bid your phone goodbye, take it to the service centre and if god is on your side, you would get it back within a week. Just in case you did not know, the glass LCD display, once broken would cost you a bomb to be replaced and again it’s up to the service center people's mercy to fix it within a week's span.

Moving on, the iPhone has OSX... I mean come on, it’s a full functioning Operating system, so why did Apple choose to not allow third party application support? It’s not like they made the perfect User Interface for the iPhone. I agree its great, extremely user friendly and is quite fast too, but does that mean that they would now allow people to develop interesting software and games for the iPhone? The copy/paste functionality is still a distant dream. No forwarding of SMS and the problem that you cannot delete a single SMS out of the conversation is something that just makes the iPhone more of a show off device.
Push Email has been integrated, but what’s the damn use if I just can’t search for a particular email or hell even filter them as per my requirement. Office documents can be previewed, but cannot be edited. Bluetooth can only be used for headset use and that too is not A2DP supported profile. To top it all, Safari browser does not support flash or java which means that even if you connect the phone via Wi-Fi to the internet, half of the websites would just not work... What the HELL!!

Then there is the whole point of transferring data using iTunes. It’s an Apple thing from the starting, you have to use iTunes to transfer music or videos to your iPod's and they continued this functionality to the iPhone also. I always hated the part that I cannot just copy/paste a song into my iPod, but the same clause came with the iPhone too. After all Apple is Apple....

What good about the iPhone then /?? What good... no what’s absolutely spell bounding is the lovely huge touch screen. The screen is simply great... its huge, it’s bright, you can watch videos full screen in 16: 9 ratio. Then there is the multi touch user interface which is simply next generation. The multi touch thing is a thing that still amazes me... i had seen the multi touch functionality long ago on youtube when it was dislpayed by the developers... that was around 3 years ago. Apple getting the technology and then incorporating in a phone is a thing that actually impresses me to a large extent.


Coming back to the India Launch of the iPhone, I would like all to please turn Apple, Airtel and Vodafone around and kick them for doing perhaps the most idiotic thing they could have ever done in respect to the iPhone.
The iPhone 8GB is priced at Rs31, 000 which is roughly around US$775. Now in a country where in 2007 Reuters reported that nearly 80% of India lives on half dollar a day ... an iPhone priced at 775 dollars would find few takers. Yet there are people who bought the phone at 12 in the night as soon as it was available. Some idiot even bought 6 of them together... he was carrying almost 2 lakhs in cash... WOW.... someone get the Tax department to check his earnings. People do tend to show off a lot and that is the reason that iPhone would sell in India, atleast in the starting months.

“In India the product doesn't come with contract whereas in the US the product comes with contract where the phone is first subsidized and over the contract period the money is recovered from the user. Companies here usually don't encourage hand in subsidy,” says Deputy Director, Telecom Practice, Frost & Sullivan, and South Asia & Middle East. Girish Trivedi.

Apparently what Mr. Trivedi does not realize is that after removing all the subsidies and adding the $145 separation fee, the cost of the iPhone just comes over $500 in US. So where does the pricing of $775 or Rs 31000 come in for India??

Personally I would have understood a price of Rs 25,000 for the iPhone. Even I would have not raised so many issues if it was at Rs 28,000. It is an innovative product and a complete entertainment device, no doubt... I am saying a price of Rs 28,000 as that can be put in by an enthusiast. For Rs 28,000 a Nokia N958GB with a better camera, better functionality, third party application support and way better battery life would be a better option. If you are into the whole touch screen scenario, then an HTC Touch diamond would be a perfect option too.
But an iPhone 3G at Rs 31,000 is just absurd. Other than the reason to flaunt, which frankly speaking lasts for just about a month or so, there is no bloody reason to get an iPhone for someone who actually wants a decent phone.
Teenagers, especially girls would have flogged to get the iPhone if it was priced right. The reason being that is that the phone is user friendly, its sleek, has a huge screen, is easy to use and has a tremendous show off value. But at 31k even the girls would have a tough time getting their dads to agree on buying an iPhone for them.

To make the matters worse, both Airtel and Vodafone would be selling the iPhone with SIM lock i.e your iPhone would only work with one specific SIM card. If you take a new number its all good, you would get a new SIM locked to the phone, if you are an existing subscriber and are buying the iPhone, the customer care person would replace your existing SIM with a new one that would be locked to the iPhone.
Basically what it means is that if tomorrow you try to switch another SIM card into the iPhone, it just wont operate. Even if the SIM card is of the same service provider, the iPhone would not accept it. This is just the case with Vodafone.
With Airtel it is still network locked, so you can use any SIM card of Airtel with the iPhone >>


In case you are wondering why isn’t this guy commenting anything about the whole 3G thing then I haven’t even gone over to the whole 3G things with the iPhone 3G cause the 3G service in India are still 6 months away at least as per me.. Even when they would arrive I am sure Vodafone and Airtel would offer the services at an extremely high price adding another feather in their being stupid hat.