Archive for the ‘Review’ Category
My thoughts - Apple iPhone 3G in India
October 21st, 2008
I’ll be honest here - I’ve been a Nokia fan from the day I started using a cell phone.
Luckily, I was the first person in my family to own a cell phone - a Nokia 2100 (back then,owning just a cell phone was a big deal). Moved onto a Nokia 6600 (with a lot of support from Sameer) and then after drowning the phone in rain, I moved onto a Nokia E61 - the device which made me fell in love with QWERTY keyboards and big screens. People used to think I am carrying a scientific calculator around - but little they knew that I can type on my E61 faster than they can type on the computer keyboard - completely in love with it. Its going to be almost 2 years since I even thought of buying a new phone.
Interestingly, I had a chance to use iPhone (initial model, not 3G) - the onscreen keypad was a bit weird and awkward as it had no tactile feedback (except for the sound it made on each keypress) - as a result, I quickly brushed it off. The craze and hype also didn’t seemed any good to me as I knew that the iPhone (1st Gen) was just eye candy and gave me no good reason to make a switch.
Come iPhone 3G and the situation changed.
Actually, I was still keeping away from the hype - specially because Airtel and Vodafone launched iPhone 3G with roof-hitting prices - plus they have a deal stringed to the iPhone. But then, my E61 started looking a bit old, calls were dropping, battery was going dead etc.
**Actually there’s nothing wrong with the E61, just that I needs a new phone 
**
Reviewing, reviewing and reviewing. The only phones I could think after using the awesome qwerty pad in E61 were Nokia E71 and Nokia E90 - they have no real competitors in the business class category.
However, the iPhone 3G was also there in my subconscious mind. Though I was just simply rejecting the hype all along, I had actually not done an informed review of the phone myself. I act dumb at times 
Okay, so I set out to find what exactly is iPhone 3G. What I am going to describe here is just a summation of my thoughts on the device. Please feel free to use them as you like.
Cost
The device in India costs a whopping INR 31,000 and INR 36,100 for the 8GB and 16 GB models - devices from Airtel and Vodafone are competitively priced. For Airtel, the contract seems to be for a year. Though I could not determine the same for Vodafone data plan- but considering that the device is competitively priced, the data plan ought to be similar in conditions too.
For Airtel, the only data plan is pretty straight forward
However, the data plan for Vodafone is a bit more detailed. Best one I could figure out was to get a regular Vodafone connection and then buy their iPhone data plan. Click on the image below for more details
Now if a regular iPhone user (3G or EDGE) uses upto 2 MB data per day (push email, chat, browsing, downloads, etc) - total month usage would be 60 MB.
For Airtel
Per month usage = 60MB
Since per month allowed downloads are free upto 500 MB, there’s nothing extra to pay with Airtel Data plan. I’ll have to check with Airteloutlet if there’s any other not-mentioned cost in the data plan.
For Vodafone
Free as per month allowed data usage is 250 MB.
However, you still have to pay up INR 499 per month as usage cost so…
Yearly usage cost = INR 499 * 12 = INR 5988 ~= INR 6000
An extra cost of INR 6,000 is definitely a bummer for Vodafone. Since there is no way to get around this cost, the effective price of buying an iPhone 3G from them is INR 37,000 and INR 42,100 for 8 and 16 GB models.
Both the carriers actively state that their iPhones would not work with any other data plan and that unlocking the phone before a period of 12 months would render the warranty null and void. An interesting question that springs up - what happens after a year? Would the customer be free to use his iPhone with another carrier or other regular data plan from same carrier? I am going to find this out from their retail/customer service department.
Network in India
The data plans bring up an interesting question. Is India ready for 3G rollout?
This being a subjective discussion and out of scope for this article - I’ll stick to what’s available in realtime - here in India, EDGE networks are running just fine - I used to download at speeds ranging from 15-20′ish KBps in New Delhi. Though BSNL has started experimenting with EVDO cards in select cities, working at 2Mbps speeds, I still feel that its going to be atleast another 6 months before things take shape for a 3G rollout in India. That means, the iPhone would have to be used on existing EDGE networks - atleast for another 6 months.
Browsing
I could have NOT missed out the mention of Safari browser on iPhone. It just blows away any mindset you might have for any browser on any of the mobile devices. As I mentioned, I am using my Nokia E61 from past 2 years and love its browser - after using Safari, I cannot begin to imagine that how child’ish the Nokia browser looks in front of Safari on iPhone. Safari on iPhone renders the page *almost* in perfection. I am so damn thinking of performing an online transaction from ApnaBill.com using the iPhone - which I could have not even dreamt of doing on my E61. You have to - have to - use it to understand my point here.
Oomph Factor
Apple is known for its brand value. Be it an iPod, an iPhone or even a Mac. There are no two thoughts here that this factor cannot be ignored. You can either love Apple for the user experience they create, or just hate it. You cannot fall in between. For the iPhone, this goes a step further with the multi-touch sensitive screen.
Touch Screen vs Real Keyboard
After using the E61 QWERTY keyboard, nothing feels good - not even the iPhone’s onscreen keyboard. Onscreen keyboard’s tactile feedback just can never match that of a real keyboard. Further, if you have bigger fingers - typing is going to be a problem on iPhone. My finger tips are neither too slim nor too broad. However, even after a day’s heavy usage, I was only partially comfortable with the landscape keyboard that Safari pops up. This should be an option for all input expecting apps on iPhone. And since this is a software issue, this can certainly be addressed in a software update.
Landscape keyboard in iPhone
GPS
GPS’s are ubiquitous in today’s phones. Every Nokia/Samsung phone coming out these days has a GPS chip onboard. So does iPhone. With an ability to track current position - a whole new era of location aware services can come up. And this is not limited to just finding routes. The iPhone 3G has an A-GPS which (besides using regular satellites) can triangulate your position using the cell towers as well.
Applications
iPhone 1st generation came with a fixed set of apps and (please correct me if I am wrong) there was no way of installing new apps. However, with iPhone 3G (update 2.1) - the new shiny App Store is live. It has hundreds of apps (paid and free) which can be installed on the device. The reason Symbian smart phones became so popular was that there was a plethora of apps that could have been installed on them. This included native Symbian apps and the Java apps. iPhone however does not supports Java apps - meaning, only the apps made for (and using) iPhone SDK can be installed on the device. I do think that this is a disadvantage - as all the logic that was written for other Java mobile apps would have to be re-written. Apple has interesting ways of pushing people to use their SDK’s. However, the apps you install on your device need to be approved by Apple and this is where Jailbreaking comes in.
Jailbreak and Unlocking
Both of these terms are different and not to be confused. Jailbreaking is the ability to get access to your device in a way that helps you in installing new apps and accessing the file system. Unlocking however means that you are no longer restricted to your carrier. Please be informed that either of these activities can make your iPhone unstable and can render your warranty contract null and void. For more on the difference between the two terms, checkout this thread. Follow through to The Dev Team’s blog for more information. I am still continuing my research on Jailbreaking - so cannot comment more on this technically.
Missing Features
I have seen endless forwarded mails and videos, making mockery of the iPhone 3G about the most basic features it lacks. To list a few…
- Flash Support in camera
- Cut and Paste
- Video Recording
- iPhone as a Modem
- Password Manager
- MMS
- Forwarding SMS
As a regular user - I clearly understand the lack of video recording and missing flash on camera. I am more worried about the missing flash as its the only hardware component. Rest everything can be fixed in software updates. So those making fun of iPhone on these points - need to seriously reconsider their argument. Cut/Copy/Paste, video recording, Modem, MMS, forwarding messages - are all in _the_ software. Even 3rd party applications can fix this anyday. I have read that Apple denied entry to an app which fixed the copy/paste fixing problem. If this is even 10% true, you can be completely assured that Apple knows of this shortcoming and is onto fixing it.
Conclusion
Would I buy it?
- Hell ya! - It is definitely going to succeed my E61.
When?
- Not just now. I’ll probably wait for the year end 2008. Hopefully the prices would come down.
Acknowledgments
A big thanks to Ratish for lending his 1st gen iPhone for a full day. I couldn’t have started my research without his support.
Posted in Review, iPhone 3G | Comments (8)