The $1000 iPhone

After much fanfare, and internet leaked secrecy, the iPhone's India launch is scheduled. The 22nd August schedule was pretty clear - that word had to come from Apple; but the tight lipped secrecy that shrouded the price was indeed the royal piss-off.

After all the ado - here we have it - INR 31,000 for the 8GB iPhone and 37,000 for the 16GB variant. Yes, that is almost $800 and $950 respectively, which jauntily brings us to the topic of this post - the $1000 iPhone !

Lets just look at this for a moment - the product in hand.
IPhone 3G, the second generation iPhone from Apple thats touted to run on the much faster 3G network. " Twice the Speed and half the Price" - that was the USP that Apple ( and AT&T) used for the iPhone. Fast Forward to India-> The iPhone 3G is pretty much as good as the iPhone 2G because the 3G network is prety much non-existant in India. we are still debating on HOW to sell the spectrum, let alone actually sell it. These operators who do not have ANY 3G spectrum are selling a premium 3G phone to potential buyers dangling the 3G carrot ( which even they do not have). Am not so much suggesting that they are trying to sell a service that they do not have, but yeah... that close enough. To add insult to injury, this prohibitive price is for a phone that is carrier locked with a contract.
AT&T sells the iPhone for $200 to select customers and $500 to some others. Now this is a CONTRACT locked phone - you subscribe to a $30 voice plan with a $40 DataPlan - so you spend $70 on your subscription. What you get in return is unlimited Data transfer ( at 3G speeds) and access to all AT&T WiFi hotspots, excluding some free minutes or talktime and some various text messages etc. So, for a cheap iPhone, you get tied to a decent plan, which lets you use the phone reasonably. O2 (UK) also has pretty similar plans, some cheaper.
What do we get here in India ? The Service providers decide to mark up their price to $800 ( 4 TIMES ) and sell it. What about a plan? Since they cannot provide any 3G, what plan? What Data? the EDGE network, where available is horrendous , simply cannot do justice to any portable internet browsing device. But still, our operators decide to lock to phone to themselves, and to force a contract to poor customer ( who is never of any concern) to choose any of the available 2G plans to suffer with. Never mind that the customer( read LOSER) decides to pay close to $1000 for a phone (whose NON contract version is pegged at $600 by AT&T), he still has to shell out a few hundred rupees more to google, and some more few hundred if he intends to use half the features on the phone because half of them dont have an unlimited data plan !

Where does that leave us - the HTC Dream ( based on google's amazing Anderoid) or the Nokia N96 ( exhorbitantly priced but justified - a 5mp cam, stereo bluetooth etc etc) ? Or to get the very same iphone from my distant cousin in the US who'd gladly get me one and have it unloacked and jailbroken? There are options.

I, for one, was a self confessed Apple Fan boy who had refused to buy the phone because i wanted to buy it legally, with the waruntee etc. But if they ( Apple, Airtel and Vodaphone) do not want me to buy it from them, i am not left with much of a choice.