iPhone 2.0 unveiled

Vodafone to release iPhones in India

Vodafone has collaborated with Apple to sell the Apple iPhone in ten countries around the world including India. As per latest reports, Vodafone will begin selling the Apple iPhone as early as later this year.

There are news about Apple retail saying that the iPhone is expected to launch in India in the first week of September 2008. The report had said that initially only the 8GB version would be launched for somewhere around Rs 28,000 with the 16GB version expected to follow suit later.

There is also a market buzz that Bharti Airtel is also planning to launch these phones around Diwali this year. Bharti Airtel, is bringing the iPhone to India through an agreement with its affiliates Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel), Globe Telecom and Optus. Through this agreement, SingTel will debut the iPhone in Singapore, the Philippines and Australia later this year.

So with the launch of the 2.0 version on the iPhones, Indian users will not have to wait for too long to get their hands on the latest iPhones being sold officially, thus avoid facing the problems like the unlocked iPhone users.

Trend of hacked iPhone users

Even though iPhone has not been officially released in India, there are many people who have already bought the phones and using it. It is observed that 'unlocked' iPhones are being sold in Indian stores. But now the users fear that their iPhones can be locked. There has been cases in Bangkok, when iPhones were officially released that the unlocked iPhones were jammed.

This trend to buy these iPhones at any cost has happened, because there is a huge user base in India. Many people have bought these phones from the grey market. At present, an 8GB iPhone costs around 16,000 rupee (US$400) in the grey market. Some media reports have pegged the price of the iPhone at around US$590 (25,000 rupee) when it launches in India.

However, one thing is for sure that inspite of Vodafone and Bharti launching the phones in India, Apple stands to be the clear winner.

Latest features on iPhone 2.0

* The iPhone will add a contact search that allows users to enter a name and instantly find who they’re looking for. Full iWork document support lets users view Pages, Numbers, and Keynote documents.

* Apple will also offer full support for Microsoft Office documents, adding PowerPoint presentation viewing to the Word and Excel viewing already available. And turning the iPhone into landscape mode will convert the Calculator application into a scientific calculator.

* iPhone 2.0 also adds much sought-after bulk delete and move capabilities to its Mail application. Mail users will be able to save images from e-mails into their Photo Library.

* Apple will also add parental control features, letting parents turn off explicit content, as well as access to YouTube, the iTunes Store Wi-Fi Music Store, and the forthcoming App Store.

* the iPhone software development kit allows developers to build native applications for the phone.

* iPhone 2.0 also expands Asian language support, with the ability to draw characters with your finger.