Not Another Mobile Phone Blog

The iPhone 3G was showcased yesterday by AirTel here in Bangalore at their HQ on Banerghatta Road and today the company is launc9ing it is six main cities, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai and Kolkata and this number is going to increase to 65 cities across India.
iPhone 3G has dampened the spirits of Indians because of the high cost attached to it. AirTel has said that they are not making any profits by selling the iPhone 3G, they are just selling the network services. The Indian pricing of the iPhone has been fixed by Apple and not the service provider, which I don’t believe. Anyways, but one thing is sure that the service providers will earn a lot of money from the data services they would be providing the iPhone users in India. As you all know that, both, AirTel and Vodafone opened up pre-registrations for the iPhone 3G. According to AirTel they have received more than 200,000 pre-bookings but even they are not sure how many of these people who have pre-booked the iPhone will actually buy one. Is AirTel also thinking that the pricing has let most of the prospective buyers down?? By the way 2G iPhone is already penetrated the Indian market by taking the grey market route and there are 30,000 unlocked 2G iPhones running on AirTel’s own network. Will this affect Apple and AirTel’s relationship in India? Will Apple ask AirTel to shut down these phones? These are some of the questions that keep haunting me.

As we all know that the iPhone price is out in India and it costs a bomb in India. Many people including me are not happy with the iPhone 3G pricing in India. Don’t believe me, just check the conversations of people on Twitter regarding iPhone 3G’s pricing. Apple are you reading this, don't you feel that you are making a mistake by doing this and companies like Nokia and Samsung would be ready to add insult to the injury.

Tim Cook, Apple COO has confirmed that there is no shortage of Apple’s new 3G iPhone and the company is all set to carry its second round of launches in 20 countries on August 22nd 2008. India is one of these 22 countries as iPhone will be coming to India in August and will be launched by Vodafone followed by AirTel. Both, AirTel and Vodafone have opened up pre-registrations for the new 3G iPhone and their plans have also been made official by many newspapers in India. When I called up Vodafone’s call center they just confirmed that the iPhone is coming sometime in August but they didn’t throw any light on the pricing and plans the company is planning to implement, same is the case with AirTel, so till there is more insider information on this we have to wait.

If you though that even this one was pimped up by Goldstriker International then you were wrong. This one is done by a company called Amosu and its will be called the Amosu Diamond. This iPhone is pimped so much that it has become the most expensive iPhone in the world. It has 1179 diamonds of 16.18 carats, which makes it worth $177K. On the top of this the phone is handcrafted to give you the exclusive look. The lower part of the rear lid Packaging has 660 diamonds on the substrate of the 18 - carat gold, the ends device has 458 diamonds and the Apple logo has 61 diamonds. If you are one of the owners of this diamond fest then you will have access to the international all-day VIP-service (VIP International Concierge Service) within one year. I am not sure about how many takers of this will be out there.