I have an iPhone - Thank you readers !
I was standing next in the queue -virtually- here in India, when the iPhone got launched in June. The iPhone availability in India is yet to be announced officially and most of us speculates it to be sometime in 2008. Not ready to wait till then, I have been looking at the imported iPhone marketplace in India. Ebay, Rediff, IndiaTimes and iPhoneNirvana were offering unlocked iPhones. I bought my iPhone from the iPhone Nirvana Online store. Since I did ‘pre-order’ with them, I got it at a considerably lesser price than the current market price. Mine is an unlocked(8GB) model, with quite a few interesting applications preloaded by the iPhone Nirvana team themselves. Thanks to them - the Ordering, Shipping and Delivery was a non issue in my transaction.
I could finance my purchase entirely through the revenue generated from this blog. A big thank you to everyone who stopped by my blog. I have an iPhone from yesterday evening :)
iPhone on Bangalore’s GSM networks
I tried with both a Hutch / Vodafone and an Airtel (Karnataka) SIM and found both to be working perfectly. I am getting all the five signal bars even in my low reception area. The call quality is good. EDGE Internet connectivity is nothing spectacular as both Airtel and Vodafone are yet to refine their EDGE bandwidth - as AT&T did in USA. EDGE works good for occasional email, Web browsing - but watching YouTube over EDGE is awful.
iPhone initial impressions
This is the sexiest phone I’ve ever used. It beats my earlier love O2 XDA II Mini by a millennium. The screen resolution is too good. Fonts, Colors and Icons blends so well with the overall feel of the phone like never before. With that extra pretty animations and multi-touch - this phone is picture perfect. Completely usable. There is no learning curve. I am not liking the virtual keypad as of now. As my big fat fingers always go wrong with that!. They should have included a screen calibrating sequence during the reset, which would help customize the ‘tapping coordinates’ for different people. I hope to improve the typing speed over time. Even learning the special Graphiti writing on my earlier Sony Clie PDA was a learning in itself.
Camera is useful only for brightly lit static objects. All the applications opens and switches instantly - unlike - the laggy Microsoft Windows Mobile. Phone features are good. Don’t forget to create a favorite list. Flipping through 400+ contacts to find one was no fun for me!. They should have included something like the ‘SmartDial’ in Windows Mobile.
Safari Internet browsing is excellent. Multi-touch is really useful. You can have up to 8 ‘tabs’ Safari. Connecting to the home WiFi network was simple enough and it saves the WEP passwords for later sessions. Watching Video over Wifi in iPhone is an experience in itself. The video is the best I have seen on any kind of device - perhaps Nokia N800 was closer.
Music sounded great. But, the supplied ear phones are a shame and never fits on anybodies ears. My expensive Creative canal-phones too is rendered useless with iPhone, as the audio-out port of it is slightly deep-set. Audio over the speakerphone is not good when compared to my Cingular 8125 or Nokia E61. This issue is patched in the firmware update 1.1.1. Unfortunately I cannot Update!. I will have to wait till the iPhone hackers finds a way to safely upgrade to 1.1.1.
Overall it looks like I am going to baby this phone for some more time, till a sleek Nokia N800++ with a Fluid UI, GSM chip , 5mpx Camera and a GPS is available! :) This is the only phone worth upgrading to especially if you cannot stand the utterly idiotic interface and extremely slow performance/crashes of your current phone. iPhone is a brand new phone experience.
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October 2nd, 2007 at 2:52 pm
well done. congrats, vinod!
October 2nd, 2007 at 5:06 pm
Are u kidding me.. it works with GSM connections here?
Are u sure its not locked?
October 3rd, 2007 at 12:16 am
@Balu: I am as serious as Mr.Jobsness!. I am using iPhone as my primary/one-and-only phone from yesterday. It has been unlocked more than a month ago and will work perfectly with ANY GSM network.
Looks like I need to post a video or something :)
October 3rd, 2007 at 4:01 am
I am really glad you got it!! :-).
BTW, does the updates for the device cause any issues?
October 3rd, 2007 at 2:22 pm
@Hrishi: I just cannot do the update to ver 1.1.1 as yet because it would brick my iPhone. Hackers are yet to find a way to patch the radio rom for 1.1.1.
October 8th, 2007 at 8:24 pm
Congrats on getting an iPhone. BTW how much did you pay for it?
October 13th, 2007 at 12:32 pm
Congrats Vinod
i think you are first blogger in India to get hold of an iphone..
October 14th, 2007 at 2:11 pm
from where did you procure the iphone, are you based in bangalore? what is your mail ID?
October 14th, 2007 at 7:56 pm
@Shashank: I’m sure, many more bloggers will be getting it soon!
@Raja: I’ve mentioned all in the post itself. I am in Bengaluru itself. You can mail me at vinodis at gmail dot com
October 28th, 2007 at 7:37 pm
Congrats, great that it’s working with networks here.
November 2nd, 2007 at 7:20 am
GREAT……..!!!
I intent to ask my frnd to get me one from usa.
if apple have updated the software, does it mean that there’s no point in getting one off the shelf from USA. bcos’ as of now there is no crack to the new release and undoubtedly, these have the updated release.
is it possible to uncrack here in bangalore??
i envy you!!!!!!!!!..
November 2nd, 2007 at 9:41 am
@Prashanth: I would definitely suggest getting one!. They can be easily Upgraded, Jailbreaked and Unlocked with minimal efforts. I have shared my experience in my latest post.
December 18th, 2007 at 11:55 pm
Hi Vinod,
Am really glad that you could take out the time to visit the blog.
The Airtel Live data transfer charges for Rajasthan circle are 15 paise for each 10KB.
January 29th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Hi Vinod
good to hear that you are able to use Iphone.. currently i am in usa and wish to buy a iphone but i am not sure if i would be able to get it unlocked and used for airtel postpaid usage .. i am also from bangalore.
If you can reply with your contact details to my personal id that would be of great help and can contact you directly.
regards
sameer
February 1st, 2008 at 12:06 am
Hi Sameer,
I would definitely advise you to be very cautious while buying iPhone from USA for the purpose of unlocking and usage in India. The issue is that the latest iPhones which you buy from the iStores will be having the firmware versions of either 1.1.2 or 1.1.3 - which are NOT yet software-unlockable. You can definitely hacktivate it by downgrading it to 1.0.2 and then progressively upgrading to 1.1.2 and unlock it using TurboSIM or any other TurboSIM clones. But usage of TurboSIM may be banned by the Govt. or your Telephone service provider.
February 12th, 2008 at 10:10 am
Good Morning Vinod,
Referring to the following, and as per your advise, my son got rectified his iphone through iworld. Many thanks for your guidance.
However, we request your suggestion on the following:
My son’s iphone version is 1.1.2. When we purchased, the seller installed a chip [turbo] to be inserted alongwith simcard. The chip/turbo is very delicate to handle. Is there any way to get rid of this chip, by installing any other software. Please let us know.
Secondly, when he is trying to connect for internet, instead of getting connected to Wifi [free of charge], it connects through Edge [chargeable]. How to configure iphone , so that automatically it should connect through Wifi, instead of edge.
Lastly, how to install google talk in iphone, to chat with friends.
Tks & Rgds.
February 12th, 2008 at 10:18 am
Good Morning!
You can definitely get rid of that TurboSIM. All the current iPhone firmware are currently unlockable through simple software. You can do this in a few minutes. Please refer to the guides available at http://www.iclarified.com/
Regarding switching off the EDGE, there is a program known as ‘NetServices’ which would give you an interface to switch off EDGE .
Let me know how it goes.
February 23rd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Can some one PLEASE tell me how to get my IPHONE connected to the internet in India.. I have an idea SIM - Do i need a SIM from reliance or something??? BTW - IDEA customer service is useless.
March 31st, 2008 at 5:35 pm
Hi friends,
I too got my iphone unlocked.
Its just great.
The best UI i have ever seen.
It is working perfectly fine with all the SIM cards.
dont go for turbo sim etc. They may damage your phone.
April 11th, 2008 at 10:42 pm
hi vinod,
I have an iphone of the firmware version 1.1.2. it has been unlocked using the turbosim method. I need instructions to activate airtel live on my phone. Also I want to know how to install games on the phone(as per my understanding it is by the installer application, but beyond that I don’t know anything). Kindly guide me.
Regards
Shreyas
July 15th, 2008 at 11:57 am
dear hubby i read your all details what you have written very good keep it up.take care bye.
July 15th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
Thanks Love!