Vodafone-iPhone: First Public Appearance & Some Bugs

In the morning today, I was extremely happy to see this ad on the front-page of Times of India. There so many people like me who are waiting for this beauty of a device. Many had already had unlocked device from USA. But I abstained from buying that time since 1. no money 2. it was better to wait and watch because I had heard so much negative things about iPhone from some of my friends staying in US. Their negative feelings about iPhone were strong enough to prevent me from making my pockets lighter.

Hmmm. But it is an Apple device. I would better use it first and then give it misgivings. Then it was declared that iPhone will come to India through Vodfone (which seemed natural choice against other Indian operators like Airtel/Idea). Now today Vodafone announced that it will bring iPhone 3G into India ‘soon’. (I did not get any reply even after sending sms twice to the short-code listed above).

Now it seems that I won’t be able to withstand this iPhone seduction when it does actually arrive at a Vodafone store in India. The price also looks great in US Dollars - $199 flat – meaning about 8-9000 INR. Other day, we had this great discussion about iPhone pricing in India. Where does Apple wants this product to position? INR 8000 is a middle class range since you commonly see a higher priced Nokia N73 on Indian streets. I thought that 12000-15000 INR is a better guess because it is high enough yet is not prohibitive.

And, I am ready to shell that much. (I was actually thinking between N95 – E51, had this ‘Apple 3G iPhone into India’ thing been not happened).

However, there are so many small (and hence more bugging) bugs in iPhone. About the iPhone 1, I heard from my friend that there is no number forwarding, sms forwarding, no contact search etc. This sucks man. Having been used to these features, not having them is extremely difficult. I don’t know whether these have been worked upon in new iPhone or not. They better be. Today I came across this article on Forbes.com which talks about ‘7 iPhone Disappointments’. The author has listed 7 things that are like the bugs which I talked about above. The biggest surprise in this list is absence of video recording. C’mmon Apple! Won’t a person who wants to click a snap with his cellphone, also want to shoot a clip? Offcourse, anybody would think that natural, but Apple thought otherwise. Another big thing is No Flash! Means so many feature rich website is out of bounds.

Let’s see. My decision is again on hold till iPhone hits the road in USA…

Funny Quotes about Rajanikanth

Today, I stumbled upon these extremely funny quotes about Rajanikant. On his blog,Mostly Harmless, this blogger has written this post in 2007...the quotes are too funny so with all credit to original blogger (if he is the one), I am reproducing entire post here. The original post is here.

For those aliens who really do not know Rajanikant - he is THE Tamil Superstar and a God for many a fans. After rocking Tamil film industry for years (and hitting rock-bottom at Bollywood), Rajani is now poised for an entry into politics.

Here is a trailer of Shivaji movie starring Rajanikanth -

Here goes the post -

* Outer space exists because it's afraid to be on the same planet with Rajnikant.
* Rajnikant counted to infinity - twice.
* When Rajnikant does a pushup, he isn't lifting himself up, he's pushing the Earth down.
* Rajnikant is so fast, he can run around the world and punch himself in the back of the head.
* Rajnikant doesn't wear a watch, HE decides what time it is.
* Rajnikant gave Mona Lisa that smile.
* Rajnikant can slam a revolving door.
* There are no races, only countries of people Rajnikant has beaten to different shades of black and blue.
* Rajnikant's house has no doors, only walls that he walks through.
* Rajnikant can divide by zero.
* When taking the GRE, write "Rajnikant" for every answer. You will score over 1600.
* Rajnikant grinds his coffee with his teeth and boils the water with his own rage.
* If you Google search "Rajnikant getting kicked" you will generate zero results.
* Rajnikant doesn't bowl strikes, he just knocks down one pin and the other nine faint.
* It takes Rajnikant 20 minutes to watch 60 Minutes.
* The Bermuda Triangle used to be the Bermuda Square, until Rajnikant kicked one of the corners off.
* There are no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq cause Rajnikant lives in Chennai.
* Rajnikant once ate an entire bottle of sleeping pills. They made him blink.