• Processor speed
• RAM
• All of iOS 5
• Voice Assistant(?)
• New form factor(?)

Cheaper iPhone 4S? Maybe. Why?

• Same new internals, old shell
• A slightly smaller screen doesn’t matter
• If it runs iOS 5 with all it’s features, why not?

I agree with Gruber that the “openness” argument with respect to the Apple iPad has about as much merit as it does applied to a modern motor vehicle. One is no longer able to pop the hood and tinker; there’s nothing left to tinker with. And automobiles are much more reliable, powerful, economical and efficient as a consequence.

I’ve spent the last ten years riding the only vehicle I own—a Yamaha RD350. It’s a two-stroke. It’s less efficient than most modern sedans. It smells and pollutes. It needs expert hands, love and care to fix (if you can find those hands). By necessity, I can tell what’s wrong with it by the way it moves and sounds. I can strip and rebuild it’s carburetors in 20 minutes. I could and have modified it to go faster, turn better and look the business. It’s “open” and it’s a giant pain in the ass.

I’ve used PCs for over 20 years. I’ve used DOS, OS/2, various versions and flavours of Windows, Linux and the BSDs. I can build a PC from scratch in 30 minutes, code if the situation is dire, remain on-call for tech support to friends and family and generally owe my gainful employment to the PC. Through the years my PCs have broken down, been upgraded, replaced, reformatted and tinkered with just for fun. My PCs are “open” and a giant pain in the ass.

These days, ET uses a MacBook, which she bought against my better judgement. My better judgement wasn’t. It has been a singularly prudent computer purchase. Three years, one dead hard disk and battery later, she still uses it every day. It’s rarely turned off or rebooted and has been around the country and halfway across the world with her more than once. Today, the home PC is in the best shape it’s ever been. Guess which one needs more tech support?

Nowadays, I commute on a tester Yamaha R15. It’s tiny, 4-stroke, fuel-injected, plastic, boy-racer red and has the old-school motorcycle cred of Lady Gaga. It’s also quick, reliable, safe, fun and frugal to the extent that I have money left over at the end of the month. I don’t want to give it back.

So I’m keeping my second iPhone and saving for the 3G iPad when it comes along. As applied to most people, complaints about it’s level of “openness” or lack thereof is just hypocrisy. We consume more than we create. Deal with it or learn to clean your own carbs.

You don’t have to have just one computer or just one motorcycle, but if I had to choose today, I’d probably choose to ride to work with a very tiny backpack for my lunch and iPad on a plastic rice-rocket.

The good news is that factory-unlocked iPhones are now going for what hacktivated ones used to. The premium is so minimal that there’s really no reason to save the cash and go through the cat-and-mouse routine with pwnage, hacktivation et al. I can confirm that the phones work as expected and will explicitly state that they are unlocked, once reset and connected to iTunes. Using a Vodafone SIM (an official iPhone 3G carrier), the phone also supports internet tethering out of the box. Baseband and firmware is the latest available.

Brilliant stuff. Ten points for Indian grey market enterprise.

Here’s hoping the next time round actually, finally allows background notifications.

In brief: I wouldn’t recommend an iPhone to anyone, anymore. It’s not worth the compromises, or the official price. It still makes some sense for me, since I mostly live on the Web and appreciate the touch interface. But 15 months and still no background data? Come. Fucking. On!

Update: Looks like a lot of you are having trouble with the lack of caller ID on the iPhone in India. If you’re jailbroken, try this link. It’s what I used. There’s also an Installer.app package that does the same thing, but I haven’t tested it.

There is some indication that first-gen iPhones should now be unlocked on Airtel and Vodafone. Can anyone confirm this?

The executive summary: 8GB for Rs 31,000 (about $730) and the 16GB will retail for Rs 36,000 to 37,000 (around $870). This is without factoring in the accompanying voice/data plans.

I don’t know how credible these numbers are, but I would not be surprised if they are accurate. Why?

• There are no subsidy models in India (or if there are, they don’t amount to much)
• There are no alternative revenue streams for mobile providers that could potentially offset a handset subsidy (VAS revenue-sharing is cream, not bread). Apple doesn’t give carriers a cut in the App Store/iTunes.
• High-end handsets launched by carriers have traditionally carried insane price tags.
• The most recent high-end launch by Airtel—the HTC Touch Diamond—retails for Rs 27,500.
• BlackBerry devices, despite requiring relatively expensive data plans, retail for a minimum of Rs 24,000.

From a brand/positioning standpoint, it would be unjust to price the iPhone 3G lower than the average BlackBerry or HTC handset. Vodafone and Airtel have painted themselves into a corner. I don’t anticipate big sales numbers—quite likely less than the erstwhile grey market for first-gen iPhones. My fervent prayer remains that I am all wrong about this, but I can’t think of another scenario, without forsaking logic.

Winner: Apple. Hustler: Carrier. Loser: User.

So why should one buy the iPhone 3G? The reasoning is pretty simple, really. If you could justify the original iPhone to yourself, there’s no way this one will be any different. It’s cheaper. Additionally, you get 3G and GPS, making for a nicely rounded-out feature set. I don’t think there are too many GPS-enabled phones out there for $199. The new firmware brings third-party apps to the party, which should be fun. Jobs was smart to feature lots of free stuff that will be available in the App Store.

MobileMe sounds very nice indeed, but my data is increasingly—or near-totally—on the Google cloud now, and I wouldn’t want to pay money to move out from a free, and perfectly workable suite of services. I’d like to believe that Google will put out a syncing app for their services as well, but it may be wishful thinking, given the evident conflict of interest.

While GPS and all the possibilities that follow are nice, they won’t really make a big difference for us in the 2.5th world, i.e, no routing in Google Maps.

So it boils down to price. For the amount you’d pay for a typical feature-phone, you’ll soon be able to buy an iPhone. I’m curious about how Apple will enforce a single global price, given that in markets like India, carrier subsidies are not as big as they are in the USA. Both Vodafone and Airtel have announced their intent to bring the device to India.

I couldn’t care less about Flash support, but GPS is going to be huge. Location-based coolness is the new cool. I just hope I can get a decent trade-in for old faithful.

Moving on.

iPhone status: 1.1.2, jailbroken, activated, using with X-Sim. Amazing what market demand and trader ingenuity can do for you in the motherland. X-Sims are flexible, reportedly work even with the 1.1.3 firmware, and are available over the counter for a minor premium. No fucking with the baseband while you wait for the rapid and dangerous revision cycle that is the 1.1.3 jailbreak effort. Stick with 1.1.2 till everyone else has bricked and recovered.