Mobile Software Development Spectrum from Sachin Palewar on Vimeo.
A seminar by Sachin Palewar (www.palewar.com) on various mobile software platforms and development choices for them. This seminar was held in Raisoni Engineering College Nagpur in Sept 2009.
I use Vodafone India as my mobile service provider and I have pre-registered for iPhone on their website a while back. Airtel and Vodafone start selling iPhone in India on 22nd August which is just 2 days from now.
I today got a sms and an email from Vodafone that my wait is over and I can deposit advance to get iPhone within a few days. However I almost dropped my existing phone (Treo 680) after reading the price for the iPhone. They want to make me poorer by Rs. 31000 for 8GB model and want a whopping Rs. 36100 for 16GB model. Is this some kind of joke???
Well I think they have managed to do an unthinkable here. A lot of rumours were doing round till today about the would be price for iPhone in India. Some guessed it to be around Rs. 8000, as that's how much an iPhone with contract costs in US. Some guessed it to be around Rs. 25000, but nobody thought that they will be beating all the expectations and sell the iPhone at such high prices. Well good luck to Apple, Vodafone and Airtel, but I am not going to buy iPhone for that price.
I also doubt that Airtel and Vodafone are going to sell unlocked iPhone in India, if they are then its defeats the purpose of selling iPhones via an operator. And if its a locked model then why don't they just bundle the phone with some service contract and subcidise the phone? I think a bundled but cheaper iPhone will be a win-win situation for everybody inclusing consumers, operators and manufacturer.
May be they are just trying to cash in on the hype and once the dust settles down, they are either going to lower the prices substantially or start offering cheaper iPhone bundled with a data/service plan.
I have been on Vodafone for 6 yrs. now and intend to stay on for a few more years to come, but I guess Vodafone is not much interested in keeping its loyal customer base intact by offering them yearly service contracts bundled with a cheaper iPhone. All said and done my wait for iPhone is still not over :-(
28th June - Book iPhone
Update on 12th May: Airtel going to launch the iPhone as well.
Its official now. Vodafone India announced that its going to launch the much awaited iPhone in India later this year. Media speculates that it will be launched sometime in September this year. I am already on Vodafone so that's good I will not need to unlock iPhone to use on other carriers if I buy one.
This news is everywhere but I am taking CIOL's word on it being an official announcement by Vodafone. Unfortunately Vodafone has no press release on its website. Infact their latest press releases are dated February 2008. Considering that I have never received a response after leaving feedback on their website and that their website was hacked last year, it seems Vodafone does not take its website seriously.
Anyway coming back to iPhone, media is of the view that its going to be priced around Rs. 27,000 to Rs. 30,000 range so its not going to be easy on your pockets however die-hard fans will buy it anyway for any price I guess. 8GB version will be launched initially followed by 16 GB version in a few months.
Related post: iPhone is here...
Using fingers on touch screen of your mobile is always easier and convenient then using that dumb old stylus, but then with small elements present on those small screens you need stylus, don't you? Well Apple said you don't with the launch of iPhone. With the big icons and buttons it allowed users to do away with stylus and just use their fingers.
Well this proved to be quite a hit as every other mobile manufacturer started working to support that finger-friendly user interface on its mobile phones.
Windows Mobile does not yet support a finger-friendly user interface, although that may change with Windows Mobile 7, but till then you a few options to jazz up your windows mobile phone.
First there is Spb Mobile Shell which costs $30. It hass user friendly Today screen, big buttons and menus for common tasks so that you don't need to pull your stylus everytime.
Then there is HTC Touch with its TouchFlo system which not only gives you large buttons and a finger-friendly user interface. It also has those iPhone like animations and special effects where you can slide and scroll using your fingers. Its kinda a cool phone but then you can't just install TouchFlo on any other windows mobile phone. You need to buy one of various variants of HTC Touch phones which come with TouchFlo.
Finally there is Poinui Home which is again a software like Spb Mobile Shell so you can install 
on any windows mobile 5 or 6 phone. I will say it really scores quite high in coolness department. Its animations are smooth and slick you can use finger to scroll like in iPhone. The animation when it starts up or the animated opening of its various screens and even its about screen effect is really word class and on top of it all its FREE. Ya you heard me right :-)
It has a few negatives as well - many bloggers say that its uninstall does not work well. I have found its scrolling to be counter-intuitive as it scrolls left when I expect it to scroll right and vice-versa. Also sometime when I am just sliding my fingers it detects a tap and takes me inside the application or opens another screen so it does not work as smoothly as sliding on iPhone, but then I think it has to do with the TouchScreen hardware on windows mobile phones rather then their software. Nonetheless this product is making quite a splash. You can watch its very cool video at Gizmodo.
Just read Microsoft outlines what’s coming in Windows Mobile 7, 8 by ZDNet's Mary Jo Foley. So good news is that MS plans to catch up with iPhone in coolness department, bad news is that its supposedly going to happen only with Windows Mobile 8 and since it gives Apple enough time to take its iPhone to a different level by then, it will be interesting to watch what Windows Mobile 8 really offers.
As if selling everything from vegetables to petrol was not enough for this corporate giant, Reliance has now bagged marketing and distribution deal from Apple. Company will be opening Apple iStores branded Reliance Digital in various Indian cities and first 10 of them will be opened by year end itself. So whether you want to buy iMac or iPod you will need to buy it from a Reliance store. Also all you iPhone lovers get ready to queue outside a Reliance Digital store near you.
I think Apple is seriously making efforts to go mainstream now and look beyond their niche market. Partnering with Reliance definitely gives them advantage of scale and this may be a crucial factor in iPhone's success in India.
Update on 7th Many 08: Vodafone bringing iPhone to India in September 2008
On 5th September 2007 Apple reduced the price of iPhone 8GB model by $200 to $399 just 2 months after its much hyped launch. It has also dropped the 4GB model. Many early buyers are accusing Apple of unfair pricing and feel cheated. Apple is offering them $100 credit to pacify. Financial analysts didn't like the news as well and Apple stocks fell next day.
If you can't wait for iPhone to be available at a store near you, I will suggest you to buy HTC Touch, which many believe is an iPhone killer. And another news doing the round is that HTC may sue Apple for naming its latest iPod model as iPod Touch. iPod touch looks quite similar to iPhone and has most of the same features minus the Phone.
Also in past few months rumors about a phone from Google aka Gphone gained momentum and some believed that it can be launched any day. Rediff.com, the numero uno Indian portal even went ahead and claimed Gphone will be launched from India. Only if there would have been some truth in the rumors, Gphone would have been launched by this time and probably I would have started considering switching my Palm Treo 680. Google's head of research has denied Google's interest in any hardware development a few days back so probably this will end any speculation about a Gphone now.
Anyway I am sad but I am happy with google for making the world (read cyber-world) a better place to live in so even if they don't really launch the Gphone, I think they have done enough and continue doing some pretty innovative things in technology like DNA database, face and speech recognition, digitization of libraries etc. etc.
Update on 7th Many 08: Vodafone bringing iPhone to India in September 2008
Apple is going to introduce windows version of its popular browser - Safari. I can see a lot of excitement in store on browser front. Recently Firefox and Opera have been winning a lot of loyal users for themselves. I am sure some of Mac lovers but Windows users will be lapping up the Safari on their windows PCs.
While announcing about Safari for Windows - Steve Jobs made another important announcement that Apple will allow developers to develop applications for iPhone by way of tapping safari, which is a good news but what exactly it means is not yet clear to me.
If it just means that we will be able to only open some mobile web applications and won't be able to run any offline applications from third-party developers on iPhones, then I don't really see anything to be happy about.
Anyway lets wait and watch for next 16 days as iPhone is going to be launced on 29th and we may start getting some more info after that.
Cheers!
Apple decided to end the long running rumours when Steve Jobs in his keynote address at Macworld 2007 finally announced the much awaited iPhone (http://apple.com/iphone)
I watched the demos and keynote video on apple's site and I think it really has potential to be a revolutionary product.
Other highlights of the event were Apple rechristening itself as Apple Inc from earlier Apple Computers Inc and announcement of another interesting product called Apple TV (http://apple.com/appletv/)
Coming back to iPhone, its going to be available in 2 models:
1. 4GB model costing $499 with 2 yrs contract
2. 8GB model costing $599 with 2 yrs contract
Its going to be available on Cingular networks in USA starting June 2007, in Europe by the end of this year and in Asia in 2008.
Now talking about some unique features of the phone:
1. Simple design without keys and you don't need stylus to tap on the touch screen.
2. You can merge 2 simultaneous calls in a conferance with a few simple tapping on the screen
3. You can scroll without scroll bar
4. You can flip through pictures in your phone like you flip pages of a book
5. SMS, Text messages are displayed as chats in IMs
6. Sensor detects if you rotate the device and changes your portrait mode to landscape automatically
7. Light sensor adjusts brightness according to light around you
8. Proximity sensor detects when you move phone near your ears and switches off the display
9. You can zoom in and zoom out using a pinch motion on screen using your two fingers
10. It runs Mac OS X
There is lots to talk and know about iPhone, so I will suggest to watch Steve Job's keynote video for complete action. You can also read another blog for more details and pictures. iPhone announcement got a very encouraging reaction from stock markets as well, as apple's stocks soared on the bourses whereas stocks of other handset manufacturers like Nokia, Motorola and Samsung came down.
One thing which I don't like is that Apple does not offer an SDK for developers like us to develop applications for iPhone and I hope that changes soon in future. Read more - what's missing from iPhone.
Apple aims to have 1% market share of annual mobile sales(1 Billion) in 2008 and that's not a small expectation by any means so let's wait and watch if all the hype around the iPhone translates into real sales or not.
Update on 7th Many 08: Vodafone bringing iPhone to India in September 2008
