May 20, 2008

Iphone's coming to India!!!


I know its been forever since i posted. Its been a while since i posted on Tech news. So here we go.

THE IPHONE IS COMING TO INDIA!!

"Its already here", you say. You see it in every second Sardar's hand and every rich mohawk flaunting jock in delhi. Well now we are talking officially. That means an original Iphone which wont have to be unlocked to be used. One which basically comes without a warranty because it has been unlocked. There is a way around that though. This is ofcourse if you haven't "bricked"(rendered completely useless, a very expensive paperweight) your iphone. All you need to do is reset everything which means lock the phone and then get it fixed.

AAh.. i always seem to digress from the topic. So around 2 weeks ago, i received some bad news. That vodafone won the bid to sell the iphone in india. As we all know, Apple has been maintaining an exclusivity when it comes to providers. Only one provider per country kinda deals. I was kinda pissed because, i realised that i shall be forced to change numbers in order to buy an iphone. I know number portability is not going to kick in by the year end, so i was resigned to my fate. But then last week a rumour surfaced that Airtel will also be selling the iphone in india. My first reaction was how was that possible. Apple has been known for innovation and maintaining exclusivity to the core. Heck they took on the music industry when it came to revenue sharing over itunes.

But as it turns out, the rumours are true. In a chain deal with Singtel, apple seems to be moving out of the exclusivity deals and starting what is most likely going to be "PRICE WARS" in growth markets like india, phillipines and australia. Singtel has a stake in Bharti so through them they plan to sell the iphone in india. Of course this means that the iphone shall be competitively priced when released, which in turn is good news for guys like me. Gonna max out my credit card on the iphone.

Another piece of the puzzle is that fact that a 3G phone is also rumoured in the works. India rite now works on a 2.5G network. Which means that the speeds esp for data is quite pathetic. 3G offers a massive upgrade. The important point here is this. India should be upgrading to 3G by next year so should we hold on and wait for both the 3G iphone and 3G network?

Watch this space. Coz i am following this quite closely.

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