10 Reasons Why NOT TO Buy Apple iPhone in India

Apple iPhone needs no special introduction anymore. There have been numerous articles and Millions of people who have been fanatic about iPhone - some rationally, some blindly. Here in this article, we are not going to talk about Apple iPhone or anything related to it in a global scale (there is hardly anything left to know about Apple iPhone), but a different aspect and from a specific zone. In India, much to the contrary to the rest of the world, Apple has presented iPhone with strange marketing strategies, extremely overpriced figures and features & technology which didn’t impress the population of  more than 1.2 Billion people. What are the main reasons for not buying the Apple iPhone in India? Let me put them up for you.

1. The Cost Factor: 4 Times More than the Original Price

When Apple iPhone was launched in the US for $199 with all the hypes and excitement, I couldn’t wait to buy one and waited like hell for it to come to India asap. The Indian Price would have been somewhere close to 9000 if converted from Dollars. What followed was a sure shock. The Apple iPhone was priced at 32,000 INR, almost 4 times more. I didn’t know why, nor was I interested. Rs 32K for even a piece of Apple iphone was just TOO MUCH. Period.

2. 3G! What is 3G?

I don’t blame Apple iPhone for this one. There is no point in accusing them for a service which is one of the most important aspects of Apple iPhone. 3G technology is surely the way to connect to future mobile technology and India doesn’t have it YET. Leave apart the other issues, but we Indians have always been very naive about adopting to technology which can be really fruitful for us to actually globalize resources and knowledge and 3G wasn’t of any exception. 3G gets further delayed according to a recent article and from an Indian point of view, there is no point in visiting Darjeeling when you can not see the sunrise from Kanchenjunga .

3. Support of Message Service

This has been discussed a zillion times and still for any discussion on iPhone, it will come again. The SMS service doesn’t have any forward option. I donno about others but people forward a huge number of SMSes to each other, esp Indians. Not to have it is to kill the sense. Period.

There isn’t any MMS feature. I mean com’on. You can not send an MMS to a friend in special occasions, a nice song or a wonderful video despite claiming to have most sophisticated phone of the world.

4. No A2DP Service

There is no intent to deglorify India when I say that India has one of the busiest traffics with overwhelming population in the world. These are facts. And if you are a busy mobile talker, then not having a stereo headset bluetooth service (A2DP) in busy streets is something which you will not want. To put it in another way, you will spend 30 odd thousand Rs on a phone and wish that you don’t need to search your pocket each time someone calls you up.

5. Camera? - Its just Poor

There is nothing Indian about it. Even though it came at the late stage of 2007, Apple iPhone could do with a bit more than 2 MP camera. The clarity is quite good, there is no doubt. But with 10K or more one can have a phone with at least 3MP camera. To add to it, there is no AutoFocus, flash (without a hack) or zooming options in the camera.

There is no frontal camera either for Apple iPhone. So any chance being a tech savvy professional who can have a video conferencing while at home or on road, is out of question.

6. No Copy and Paste

Half the world of information exchanged in internet or through other digital media are initiated from CTRL+C and CTRL+V. Yes, copy and paste. Unfortunately, you don’t have anything like this in Apple iPhone. Don’t ask me why didn’t they include the kohinoor when they were talking about diamonds (Lol, I know I am exaggerating) but still, it is something which I can not simply overlook.

7. GPS - How Effective is it in India?

Well, GPS navigation is another important feature of Apple iPhone. There have been a number of very useful apps to support that feature of iPhone. But, the GPS is simply not effective in India. Another point where Apple has nothing to care about but being an Indian, this point is totally relevant for us, no? GPS Maps will only show ur location and will not provide you turn by turn navgation to an area. To be very true, India has so many lanes and by-lanes and mazes and alleys that to acquire a precision in GPS is very hard. We don’t get it from Apple either. So bunk it.

8. Contact List Portability - Zero

You are a popular person or you love to make friends. You have lots and lots of numbers and multiple SIM cards too. One may wish to save contacts for different people to different SIM cards. Its understandable and is quite a sought after feature too. Nokia has it, Sony Ericsson has it, I mean everyone else has it but Apple. You can not just import contact list to SIM card from phone. No forwarding, no importing.

9. Stuck with a Single Service Provider

We live in democracy right? So why is this kind of ridiculous strategy adapted by Apple that whenever we need to buy an Apple iPhone, we will have to buy it as a joint package from Vodafone or Airtel. Why can’t I chose my own? Again, the data plans for Apple iPhone are too much for any user. A low cost plan with Rs 0.60/minute (which is still thrice more than the normally cheapest Vodafone call charge) will cost you 799Rs/ Month. Why will I need that expensive plan?

10. Comparison and VFM Analysis

Considering all the 9 points discussed above and the price which is so reasonable by all means, I don’t think I can call this one a value for money product in India. Can you? Again, I can get a good cellphone which may not look the way Apple does to be very honest but satisfies most of the features that Apple can not and some more. For an e.g. Nokia N81 is not much of a popular product from Nokia’s N-series gallery, but still works decently fine and has all the features which can make you feel like a happy owner of a good modern day mobile phone. The best part is, it will save more than Rs 10000 from your pocket.

Conclusion

Apple may be a great product, I don’t deny that by any means. But Apple iPhone has two things going against it at this moment in India particularly.

1. It has some notable features missing in itself which makes me least interested to buy it with a price which can bring me the best of mobile phones from other manufacturers.

2. India isn’t even ready to put some of Apple iPhone’s advanced features into effect such as 3G, GPS navigation and etc discussed above and that is not Apple’s mistake by any means.

So, taking all these into account, an once-so-excited soul about Apple iPhone heaves a sigh and signs off.