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Airtel to launch iPhone 4 in India by September or October

on July 19, 2010 – 5:47 pm29 Comments

Bharti Airtel is working with Apple to launch the iPhone 4 in India by September or October according to a statement by Airtel’s CEO during the CII industry event.

“We are working with Apple…hopefully (Bharti will launch) in the September, October timeframe,” Sanjay Kapoor  Chief Executive Officer – Bharti Airtel Ltd. (India & South Asia)

We also verified the same statement with Airtel and the statement is very true.

Vodafone had announced the it plans to bring the iPhone 4 to India soon but had not revealed the launch date or price.

Airtel is not revealing much either but they are hinting at atleast a September – October timeframe for the launch.

We had hinted that India might be one of the 88 countries where Apple plans to launch the iPhone 4 device by September and this might turn out to be true.

Get ready for using microSIM cards in India !

But the million dollar question is will our Indian operators subsidize the price of the iPhone like carriers in other markets ?

If you can’t wait for the India launch of the iPhone 4 , you can get the factory unlocked device from UK and Europe and cut your normal SIM into a microSIM and use the iPhone in India.

FoneArena was the first to get the iPhone 4 working on a BSNL 3G SIM Card and it worked beautifully well !

With 3G services expected to be rolled out by September in India , the timing of the iPhone 4 launch cannot get any better !

If you are looking to buy a new phone during Diwali , looks like you might have a lot of options this year !

via WSJ

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Varun Krish is a Mobile Technology Enthusiast and has been blogging about mobile phones since 2005. His current phones include the Nokia Lumia 800 and Apple iPhone 4S. You can follow him on Twitter @varunkrish and on Google+ You can also mail Varun Krish

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  • Nidz

    bet it won’t be out before next year .. and if comes out it will be d defected pieces..

  • zkstuns

    Folks,
    I have 2 iphone 3GS, if anyone’s interested, drop me a message at: zkstuns1@gmail.com

    iPhone 3GS 16GB Black with all accessories + Box: Rs 24K
    iPhone 3GS 32GB Black with all accessories + Box: Rs 27K

    Both are fully unlocked and in very good condition.

  • Parthi

    Dear friends aware of iphone4 it is having signl problem my uncle who is in u.s told me that its antenna is very bad…

  • Richu

    Hard to believe its to launch this year. Anyway it will be very expensive probably more than 40k.. :(

  • Michael

    That’s all good news but what about the reception issue with the iphone4. if they dont fix that; what is the use of buying it in the first place. Are they going to offer us also free bumpers?

    If the phone has a design flaw, why vodafone and airtel are eager to bring it!

  • http://www.brandwebdesigns.com/ BWD

    Its a great news for iphone lovers. Hope Airtel launches the iphone 4 soon..

  • andy

    all the defective piece will be sent to india. thats the deal they are making with airtel. both making money apple n airtel.
    agreed with nidz.. we cant get b4 next year.
    @zkstuns we can buy 3gs new handset from airtel gallary for the same price or 2k more. dont make people fool.

  • sarvesh

    i heard that there r some screen issues with iphone4 like some buttons getting pressed accidentally by cheek while taking call!

  • Jack

    Guyz…

    Since the iphone 4 unlocking is available now from ultrasnow, i am thinking of purchasing iphone4 online in US and unlocking it.

    Tell me how is this idea… Will i be successufull to unlock it to use in INDIA? Any one tried this..?

    • kiran

      @jack,,just be careful when u do this, since apple is a crazy company when it comes to updating, i am sure that using an unlock version would be easy to do in india, but updating wouldn be allowed for it, or else apple is smart, he would know everyone would just by from outside the country and use it, thats y carriers all over the world hav been selected on a contract basis and locked with them, to give limit access to airtel/vodafone to use outside the country for india only, bsnl may be next..
      apple having the largest application open source for users in the world , which is over like a one million apps to choose from,,if u use an unlocked version u will be deff restricted in using one of them and most important your free software timely updates will not be successful. i know my frnds their 3gs hav gotten stuck due to this, all they can use is basic features,,,

      • rahul

        my friend is gettin 16gb & 32gb iphone 4 which is factory unlocked..

        if u wish 2 buy the prices r as follows:

        16gb-38000
        32gb-43000

        if interested u cn contact me at
        gr8frndz4evr@yahoo.com

      • cbrcoder

        @kiran : You are stupid. Did you ever use a Jailbroken IOS device ? Keep your limited knowledge to youself. Unlocking is no different than jailbroken.

      • kiran

        ur nothin but a JACK OF AN ARSE…u dont deserve a sugg

  • VRM

    Guys,

    I dont think India will be launching Iphone soon. Other options are to buy the phone from other countries. UK, France, Canada offer Factory unlocked phones. Factory Unlocked Iphones are much more costlier than a Iphone without a contract in US. They are atleast $100 costlier. Getting an Iphone without a contract in US is $699 for 32GB and $599 for 16GB. However to use Iphone in India, u will have to Jailbreak and then Unlock, but firstly u need to activate the phone to be able to do this (activate the phone in Itunes to access homescreen). For this u need an authentic SIM (AT&T)or u need to have “PhoneBook Sim card” (available in Amazon) to activate the phone and then u can use your Wifi to Jailbreak and Unlock (Jailbreak and Unlock are 2 different concepts)the phone to be able to use it on India GSM sim cards.

    However pls note that the newer Iphone4 come with 4.0.2 / 4.1 IOS pre-installed. And there is “NO” Jailbreak and Unlock available for Iphone4 yet. iH8sn0w (developer of Sn0wbreeze) and Chronic Dev Team (SHAtter jailbreak) are working together to help us Jailbreak and Unlock Iphone4 soon.

    So guys if you are planning to buy New Iphone from US, just put your plans on hold and keep looking for updates on iH8sn0w and Chronic Dev Team’s developments.

  • Naveen

    Hi ,
    I want to know if i buy the phone at an apple store in hong kong , then I dont have to jailk break it correct as in hong kong there is no such thing as contract and all of them are factory unlocked phones.

    Thanks,

  • VRM

    Hi!,
    Jailbreak and unlock are 2 different concepts. Jailbreaking enables u to install thirdparty applications that are supported by the phone. However unlock enables u to use any gsm connection on the phone. To answer your question, jailbreaking or not depends on ur need. You will not be required to unlock since iphones in hongkong comes factory unlocked (never locked by apple to any service provider) but u “might” want to jailbreak to use thirdparty applications those that are not available in iTunes AppStore.

  • unhappyairtelcustomer

    I can confirm that a trimmed SIM card from airtel does not work in a legally (factory) unlocked iphone 4.

    Just saying.

    Why are Indian carriers so inept?

    • VRM

      Hi,

      Have you tried using a trimmed airtel sim card on a Factory Unlocked Iphone? Did you use any trimmers like Rebel Sim Cutter or just did manually?

      I know few ppl who use trimmed SIM cards on their Iphone and Ipad to make it work. Let me know how you are so sure that trimmed sim would not work on Factory Unlocked Iphone.

      How can a Factory Unlocked Phone’s SIM recognition capabilities be so different from Locked IPhones’?

  • Kunal

    HI

    Any updates on the release??? or shall i go for the grey market one???

  • Funguyin

    Hi Guys,

    I bought an iPhone 4 from USA (locked to AT&T) and was waiting till last week to jailbreak and unlock the phone. The Dev team resleased the appropriate JB and Unlock for my iPhone 4 iOS 4.1 Firmware 1.59.00 version.

    I unlocked the phone and cut my original Airtel SIM card in to Micro SIM size and the phone did not recognize the SIM card. I went in to Airtel store and asked if they carry Micro SIM, and to my surprise the guy told me that YES, and it is only valid for iPhone 4. I said I’ve iPhone 4 and he gave me a new Micro SIM free of cost and was activated with in 5 mintues.

    All is well and the phone works great. Sometimes, I see the below issue.

    When I go in to an elevator or a place where there are no signals, the phone says “No Service” which is acceptable, but after that if you come back to an area where there is network signals, the phone does not recognize that, we need to swith off and on the phone.

    While doing so, most of the times it comes up with network, but few times (1 out of 4 to 5 times), it says no service (even after restart). I do not know why that is happening.

    Another thing, that I want to share is: Activating GPRS settings on new iPhone4.

    I asked Airtel (121) to activate GPRS, they did and asked me to turn on 3G and Celluar data and Data roming options under Settings – General – Network.

    I did that, but no luck, GPRS was not working. The phone says, cannot connect to server / data network or so…

    Later I did some research and found that APN settings need to be changed, but could not find APN settings section on my jailbroken unlocked iPhone4.

    Then I used Apple’s iPhone configuration utility (V 3.1, i think) and created a profile with the Airtel GPRS settings and installed on my iPhone.

    After a restart of the phone, the internet via GPRS (Edge) was working for few minutes (was able to check mails, browse net, load Cydia etc), and it stopped all of a sudden.

    Since then I tried a lot of restarts, but no luck. Only the Mail works some time,but no other data features are working.

    Anyone has any idea why? Or anyone has an iPhone4 running on Airtel with GPRS activated and working?

    Please let me know.

    Thanks

  • SAM

    @Funguyin

    Hi ,

    First for how much did u get the iphone 4 from usa and is it 16 / 32 gb ?

    Secondly , you visited airtel customercare or airtel store , and where do you live ?

    Didn’t he asked for any charge for microsim or it is just free for everyone ??

    Reply plzzzz

    • Raja

      Hi,
      The best thing is to buy factory unlocked phone
      Which you can get from the grey market or
      Canada , Honk Kong, Singapore ,UK. These
      Phones will not get locked when you update
      Them or load any App.
      Factory unlocked16GB costs about Rs.38,000/-
      in the grey market.

  • Yuvraj

    Hi Funguyin,

    I also bought an iphone 4 16gb from usa. I jailbreaked it unlocked it from cydia using the ultrasn0w source. I have the same shit airtel gave me & what u have mentioned. I have found a link

    http://www.troublefixers.com/how-to-enable-gprsedgeapn-settings-in-jailbroken-iphone-3gs/

    This link is for iphone 3g users, but if u have already unlocked it, it might work for iphone 4.0.2 for airtel users. See if it works and please let me know at yuvraj.bararia@gmail.com

    Best Of Luck

  • Ankur

    Hi,

    Anyone having any idea of iphone 4 launch in India.

    I read at techtree.com website that a vodaphone insider told them that vodaphone India have already received Iphone 4 shipments and they will start distributing it to their stores.

    So any confirmation on this news?

  • wasim

    hi all we sell iphonen selling from dated launched in us we give warranty in all products we sell our outlet in in bandra mumbai all iphone are factory unlocked n sealed pack from apple

  • jatin

    hi,,,,,,,,,,,,
    i phone 4 price in india is Rs-40000
    and if you want it you can get it from karol bagh.new delhi
    ……………..

    …………….

    ……………

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