The pricing announced by the two mobile providers is: Rs. 31,000 for the model with 8 gigabytes of memory and Rs. 36,100 for the 16 GB model. This price is a bundle of their Internet-plus-cellular service with the handset. This might seem stiff compared to the current price of the 3G iPhone in the U.S. — $199 (about Rs. 8500). But that is the price charged by telecom provider AT&T, who adds different tariff slabs for the services. Since they tend to be much higher in the West compared to India, they heavily subsidise the phone and make their money by tying the customer to annual subscriptions. Read full story.
I got a call today from Airtel that I can be one of the first to have iPhone in India by paying 5K today and the remaining 31K on Friday. A total of 36K? Will I buy it. Sorry. Because its too costly and I am not even sure what all functions will work in India and have no assurance from either Airtel or Vodafone about the same. I think both these companies have taken a bold step by going for too much margin. The number of people who look for iPhone are going to be a disappointed lot as this is a huge price and was not expected. When any product is priced too high when the margin is known to the customer it might backfire. I think it would with iPhone in India. Lets see what people think.
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Some more issues with iPhone..
Friends .....those of you in India planning for iPhone... THINK TWICE BEFORE MAKING A DECISION... The short comings of iPhone are endless...
Few of them are as follows....
No video calling,
no AD2P on the Bluetooth,
CAN'T share ANY (mp3, images,videos....) files via bluetooth,
can't use as a wireless modem, (you pay ridiculous data charges to activate internet on your phone, but cannot connect it to your PC and browse when you are at home)
no copy and paste,(cannot copy a part of a.... say.... email & send it....have to type it out yourself)
no 3.2 or 5 megapixel camera,(the 2MP camera it carries is worst camera ever seen..... photos look like they have come out of a VGA camera)
no video recording with camera,
no front camera,
no flash.
no JAVA support
No physical keyboard (BELIEVE me! this alone is a dealbreaker...touch keyboard as good as it looks...once you use it then only you come to know about the importance of having a hard keypad)
No 3G network yet in India..so why pay for expensive 3G phone if you cant use its 3G services ... so, for India, iPhone 2.0 is no better than its first version
No removable battery. (You cannot change battery. Have to send it to apple outlet.. Come on now!!!!...This is not an iPod. Its a bloody phone. You cannot live without phone for 2-3 days)
No haptic feedback
cannot send MMS,
can't use as external storage device (16 GB of utter waste..next time you go to your friend's house & find some interestin
no FM radio,
can't use your mp3 files as ringtones,(This is heights man!!!)
cannot insert any other SIM card….
completely tied to iTunes... Connect to your friend's iTunes & you risk erasing everything on your phone.
Apple are trying to IMPOSE THEIR MODEL ON US riding on the hype iPhone has created in the US (yes it was a flop in Europe .thats why Apple never talks about its sales in Europe).
Dont fall for the subsidized price of iPhone... CHECKOUT THE DATA PLAN ATTACHED TO ITS SIM ..they will recover the cost through ridiculous data plans. Bill might come to around Rs 2500/month.(ATLEAST AMERICANS PAY THAT MUCH)
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