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.

iPhone 3G for the Second Time !

The second Generation iPhone, incidentally named - iPhone 3G ( for 3rd Generation services) sold over million phones in three days. wow, that was something.
Now for the Second wave - Singtel will launch the iPhone3G on 9th Aug in Singapore and Airtel confirmed that at the "stroke of midnight on 21st Aug" Airtel would be launching the same in India. Now that means a staggered approach - now very similar to the worldwide launch that they had on 11th July that chocked the apple servers globally.

Another intestering note on the same - where did the million iPhones go ?
From Dev's post - 600,000 in the United States. followed by 70,000 in Japan. Now, Japan is a country where people are used to having phones that are far more advanced than the iPhone, they use their phones on a regular basis to watch live TV, pay for various shopping bills and the likes - and there was much apprehension on how the iPhone would be selling into a market like that?

PS: Did you notice that the largest market bought 8 times more phones than the second largerst - that is over a 100,000 more than all the other countries put together!

PSS : The Second wave is on 22nd August GLOBALLY. Correcting my previous statement, this would mean another clog at Apple Servers, unless they have geared up themselves since July 13th !

Lessons learnt from the loo. LESSON 1

Lesson #1 : Never touch his iPhone !

John Doe walks into the loo, his swishy iPhone plastered to his ear, talkin his heart out. he swaggers down to the urinal, and pulls out his tool, wedging the phone between his ears and shoulders, head tilted at an acute( not a cute) 20 degrees. Now comes the best part, after he is done, he does the usual jiggle and wriggle before zipping up, and just as his phone is about to slip off, saves it by catching it and holding it firmly in his palms( with a sigh of relief ) - the very hands that he used for a very different purpose a few seconds back.
" Hang on a sec, i'l call u back", John Doe tucks his phone into the pocket and washes his hands religiouly, then dries it. careful not to dirty the phone, he wipes his hand before retiriving it from the pocket.
Now, tell me - how many of you have handled a nice fancy phone from your friend who uses his phone "way too frequently" ?