DO YOU REALLY NEED AN i Phone ??

“What ?? You had a budget of Rs. 40,000 and you still did not buy an i Phone ?? but why.. ??”.. asked a die-hard APPLE fan to someone who had purchased a SAMSUNG Galaxy S2 when I was standing at a mobile store looking for a cover for my cell phone the other day. The Customer, a man in his forties took a pause and replied back “Kyon, i Phone mein aisa kya khaas hai (What is so special about the i Phone ??). The Die hard Apple fan replied in a very high tone (As if Steve Jobs was his Mom and the other guy had just abused her in front of a million people),” It’s an i PHONE sir..Don’t you get it” (obviously without mentioning what all it could do in Rupees 44,000 which other phones in the market simply cannot), replied the die hard APPLE fan….

The above conversation makes me think over and over again there must have been something that late Steve Jobs did which led the entire planet to think that i Phone is the best smartphone ever. If you have to have a smart phone look no further than an i Phone, as if other phones are a piece of junk and wasting their time competing with APPLE.

Recently a story was doing rounds on the internet and leading newspapers of the world. It was about a guy from China who sold his Kidney to get money for an i Phone and an i Pad. The guy suffered complications after the procedure. The guy was simply riding on the Apple wave which has taken the world by storm, without being aware that there are devices in the market which are far better than an i Phone and you don’t even have to sell your Kidneys to buy them.

One thing that I really admired about late STEVE JOBS was his ability to innovate better than his competitors in the market and the way apple devices are so simple to use, that any one from a kid to a man in his nineties would take minutes to get used to. Even a child knows that APPLE is not just a fruit anymore. It is a multi-billion dollar enterprise. You don’t have to be a tech geek to use an i device. However, Apple does not make phones for all the budget segments as Apple’s competitors like Nokia, Samsung, Sony, Motorola do, and that’s where the game changes. You just have one i Phone and that’s it. Of course it comes in different memory options like 16GB or a 32GB and so on…

One would expect that after paying more than 40 grand (you could buy a decent laptop with that amount) you would get a device packed with all the features under the sun, however that is not the case.

Let’s have look at where the Apple’s latest TOY i PHONE 4S disappoints….

·      No FM Radio – As we all know that Radio was invented by Guglielmo Marconi from Italy in 1895. The year is 2012 and the million dollar question is that why has a simple FM radio not made it yet to the i Phone. You pay more than Rs. 40,000 and you don’t even get a simple FM radio in built.

·  No Bluetooth File transfers – Another major disappointment. Bluetooth technology is useful in a lot of things that it does like support for Bluetooth headset for receiving calls, Bluetooth stereo headphones for listening to your favorite tracks, can be used as a modem too, wireless printing, phonebook contacts transfer is also supported by Bluetooth. As all of you might be aware that earlier Bluetooth used to be available in limited cell phones. Those cell phones were in the above Rupees 15,000 segment, but now Bluetooth technology is available to masses. Even a handset of Rupees 2,000 supports Bluetooth and icing on cake is that it supports file transfers too. Apple has come out with more than 4 different versions of i Phone till date and each of them being an upgrade of the previous version, however due to some odd reason Bluetooth file transfer is still not available even in the latest i Phone 4S.

·  FACE TIME Video calling will work only on WiFi – Facetime, an application in i Phone allows video calling. Some seriously dumb guy from APPLE thought that entire world is on a leave, sitting at home and using WiFi and would never in their lifetime require 3G services or any other data services on move. So APPLE decided to limit FACETIME to 2 things

1.      FACETIME will only work with another i Phone for Video calling and not with any other cell phone.

2.      Secondly FACETIME will work only on WiFi and not on 3G or 4G network.

This totally limits the functionality of what would have been a truly amazing application and makes me wonder that if this Application was developed by a Blonde.

·       Poor Loudspeaker Performance – Apple may have the best music clarity using their i pod interface which we know is stuff of legends now, but when it come to loudspeaker performance apple does miserably as compared to its competitors, on top of that there are also no stereo speakers in Apple’s latest toy, which is extremely disappointing in a device which costs above 40 grand.

·       No Flash support in the web browser – Apple’s web browser SAFARI is one the best browsers in the market today. Web pages load very fast and the browsing is super smooth, but omission of flash support in the browser is like a dish without salt and pepper. Flash support makes the browsing experience more enjoyable.

·       Limited video codec Support – i Phone does not support Divx/Xvid video codecs. The videos have to be first converted and loaded in the phone through i tunes. The whole process is very tiring and time consuming. Lack of codec support makes I Phone a very limited video playing device.

The shortcomings that I have pointed out are those things which an end consumer would want to include in their checklist before finalizing any device in Rupees 40,000 bracket. I Phone is nothing but a toy for which you pay so much and get so less. If APPLE has to be a true leader and connect to the masses in the cell phone market they have to have an I Phone in Rupees 15,000 range along with a flagship model so that no one has to sell their kidneys. APPLE should include all the features in the I Phone so that the hype is truly justified. (Remember the guy who slept the whole night in front of a store in the U.S. so that he is the first in the queue to get an I Phone the next day)

Lastly if you really have a budget in excess of Rupees 40,000 and are still lusting for that i Phone then you might wanna consider these options too.

·         Samsung Galaxy S2  - Rs. 28,000 Approx

·         Samsung Galaxy S3  - Rs 38,000 Approx (To be launched in first week of June, 2012)

·         HTC One X  -  Rs. 37,000 Approx

·         Sony Xperia S  -  Rs 31,500 Approx

·         Nokia Lumia 900  - Rs 31,000 Approx (To be launched in first week of June, 2012)

·         Samsung Galaxy Note  (Rs 32,000 Approx)

Well that’s about it folks. I would conclude with one simple question yet again.

Do you really need an i Phone  ?????

 

Garry

 

 

 

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