Here in the UK, FR, DE, US, and etc. you buy the iPhone on contract to get it subsidized. It costs 700$ in the US unsubsidized which is approximately what it costs (34,000Rs) in India according to Vodafone. And if you're going to buy a phone you might as well get the carrier to cover part of the costs. Except for PAYG you'll still pay way too much on your plan.

Development is free. It only costs you when you go to submit it to the store. Not everyone likes a closed system but, not everyone likes to pay for something that could be done for free. But not everyone has the time to setup their own store. If you don't like the terms you are free to go to Blackberry app world (also costs money to join), or Fandango (if you thought 70/30 split was high they want 50/50).

If you are really determined not to pay the fee you can jailbreak install SSH and sftp your application onto the phone. There are myriad guides on the net explaining how to accomplish this.

"And if you're going to buy a phone you might as well get the carrier to cover part of the costs."

but that is the point. I don't want a phone locked to a particular carrier for predetermined period of time, thanks. I, and a vast majority of Indians, want the freedom to switch carriers and phones independently. That is something Indian consumers actively prefer.

The IPhone in India is still locked to a specific carrier. A vast majority of phones sold in India are not. And the IPhone was a big failure in India (except for very very small numbers of apple fanboy types) and continues to have a miniscule market share, not even 1% of the market. The overall numbers sold are in the low thousands, and this in a market which grows by millions in a year. Nokia rules here, followed by Samsung and Motorola.

Indian customers constantly shift plans, looking to optimize for their particular patterns of usage. They constantly change phpones, across brands. A phone locked to specific vendors or plans will never be a success here.

SMS is huge in India. Incoming SMS is free and outgoing sms costs about half a rupee - a tenth of a cent - per message. A non SMS friendly phone (the original IPhone had some defects wrt sms I don't know about the latest one) will never be a success here.

"If you are really determined not to pay the fee you can jailbreak install SSH and sftp your application onto the phone. "

I was talking of default and legal ways to use one's cellphone. Sure any hardware can be hacked, with enough effort. I shouldn't have to do that with something I paid serious money for.

"Development is free. It only costs you when you go to submit it to the store."

How is development "free"? Can i deploy an app I wrote on my Iphone (without selling to other people, just for my use) without paying Apple money? I think not. Hell, even Windows ME phones allows me to deploy any application I want on my device, for my own use.

" It costs 700$ in the US unsubsidized which is approximately what it costs (34,000Rs) in India according to Vodafone. "

The Iphone costs 34000 Rs in India and is locked to specific vendors. And a huge failure in India. For that money I can buy a very high end unlocked phone (HTC, Nokia, RIM - yes an unlocked blackberry - <any other vendor>). Indians in general don't warm to overpriced locked phones.

I agree with you on the locking and the price in India. I wasn't aware they made you pay full and the phone was still locked. But you can't compare every phone to smartphones. A lowly Nokia 1100 costs less than $30. But it's your basic mobile phone. You won't find people doing a lot of browsing from it.

But if you don't like the terms of deployment you are free to develop for other platforms. Usually, someone will come along and brag about how they won't develop their application for the iphone. But there are thousands of others that put up with it everyday. The fact is Apple took a page out of the microsoft playbook. They got the developers to invest early which brings users, which attracts more developers. Compared to the price to get a person with brains 99$ is just the price of doing business. Paying full price for an iPhone to test in is also the price of doing business.

But I've met a few Indian developers working on the iPhone. They need them to do their job so someone is buying them. Even if it is only a few Indian iphone developers.

What the $99/299 price is a small barrier to entry. It's like Apple is saying we want only serious developers submitting stuff to the Apple store. The world is full of good ideas but littered with half completed projects. This is one way of getting through the noise. And if $99 is too much for you then you weren't serious about it to begin with.

" But you can't compare every phone to smartphones. A lowly Nokia 1100 costs less than $30. But it's your basic mobile phone. You won't find people doing a lot of browsing from it."

Correct but the point is moot because the IPhone doesn't have even one percent of the smartphone market in India(mostly Nokia, with Blackberry second with assorted others third. IPhone is nowhere in sight. The IPhone was a collosal failure here and likely to stay that way.).

(EDIT: Some rough numbers: Total number of cellphones sold in India annually = About 130 million. Number of smartphones sold in India annually =6-8 million. Number of Iphones sold in India so far = about 9,000. The math is ... interesting)

"What the $99/299 price is a small barrier to entry. It's like Apple is saying we want only serious developers submitting stuff to the Apple store. The world is full of good ideas but littered with half completed projects. This is one way of getting through the noise. And if $99 is too much for you then you weren't serious about it to begin with."

This is different from what you said earlier. First, you said.

"Development is free. It only costs you when you go to submit it to the store."

As you rightly point out in your next post, this is simply not true. You have to pay at least 99$ to develop an app and deploy it on your Iphone to test it. (unless you are claiming that "deployment" on a phone to test it is somehow outside "development").

Now you are saying you have to pay Apple to prove your seriousness. This is a different proposition from ""Development is free".

$ 99/299 to develop for the IPhone can be interpreted in many ways but "free" is not a valid interpretation. Hence my response to your claim that IPhone dev is free.

" It's like Apple is saying we want only serious developers submitting stuff to the Apple store. "

No it is not. In that case Apple should charge 99$ the first time anyone tries to sell a product in the Apple Store. By charging the money to allow a developer to deploy an app on his own phone, Apple is saying developing for the IPhone is some kind of privilege one has to pay for.

I for one will never develop for the IPhone where I have to pay to develop for my own phone, but that is a purely personal decision and certainly not "bragging" as you claim. YMMV. And that is as it should be.

The one good thing in all this is that at least In China and India, IPhones won't be popular for a long long time. Small Mercies.

In the U.S. there is cell number portability. Also, sure you can jailbreak the phone but then that engenders a whole host of other potential problems to say nothing of the fact that that is untenable for most users.

"In the U.S. there is cell number portability."

That's good to know. Just curious, do people even try to buy unlocked phones in the USA?

A few do, but the vast majority do not; the cost differential is quite large. A unlocked phone will generally cost 2-3X what you would pay for a locked/subsidized phone, and since the cost to get service from any carrier is generally not going to cover the difference in price over the lifetime of the phone it is not a good option. One additional factor to consider with the US market is that we do not have a single cellphone standard; CDMA phone users can choose between Sprint or Verizon and GSM phone users can choose between AT&T or T-Mobile (there are minor prepaid players as well, but prepay and smartphones will not be a good mix until the providers figure out how to deal with the voice vs. data issue...)

It is possible at some cell phone stores to purchase an unlocked phone and renew a contract at the same time for a discount on the hardware. Discounts can range from $50-$200 depending on the phone and renewed plan.

Unlocked phones are available at many of the big electronics retailers (best buy, frys, etc) and there are myriad cell phone stores that specialize in unlocked/imported sets.