If there's one way to throw a wet blanket on an iPhone launch, it's by pricing the bad boy right out of reach for an overwhelming majority of the locale's denizens. That's pretty much what went down in India, where Vodafone and Airtel kicked off iPhone 3G sales at a numbing Rs 31,000 for the 8GB model -- something like $715 -- thanks in no small part to the fact that the phones are unsubsidized. Perhaps sensing a launch fervor yesterday that wasn't quite living up to expectations, Voda was quick to act by dropping prices by Rs 2,000 (about $46) across the board. Is it enough to ignite iPhone fever down there? The cut doesn't seem deep enough to make much of a difference at the register, but maybe -- just maybe -- Voda's marketing wizards know something we don't.

Hey, hackers! Now that we've got the attention of millions upon millions of incredibly talented individuals, here's your next challenge. India's Airtel -- which is offering Apple's iPhone 3G at a near-stratospheric price -- has claimed that "even the most deadly hackers on the planet won't be able to crack the codes that support the iPhone's Airtel applications with rival company SIMs." Just so you know, it appears that Airtel worked with Apple to develop "operator-specific iPhone applications," which is an interesting tidbit in and of itself. But let's focus on the task at hand here, and that's proving that making ridiculous claims about impenetrability always comes back to bite ya.

[Image courtesy of Zedomax, thanks Akshay]

Nokia's Indian outpost has announced that it'll be offering the hotly anticipated top-of-the-line N96 there starting next month, and in the meantime, about 2,000 stores across the country have been authorized to start accepting pre-orders. By and large, this N96 seems to be the same one everyone else will be getting -- but one India-exclusive feature will be Wave Secure, an S60 app designed to give owners some semblance of peace of mind by backing up their data to the cloud and enabling device tracking if their precious payload is lost or jacked. It's a hot phone, no question about it -- 16GB of onboard storage plus the capability for microSD expansion is nothing to sneeze at -- but without a 3G network to latch onto, seems like it could be a tough sell if the price isn't right.

[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]

Nothing like a major handset launch to kick off your Friday, and the last time we checked, the iPhone 3G was kind of a big deal. Congrats, Indian friends -- just keep an eye out for cracks, will ya?

Though we can't definitively say this will end up being the priciest iPhone 3G this side of eBay, there's a good chance it will be. Word has it that Vodafone will be offering up Apple's latest 8GB handset for a mind-boggling Rs 31,000 ($712), or Rs 36,100 ($830) for the 16 gigger. Why so serious high? Because neither Vodafone nor Airtel will subsidize the phone, and to add insult to injury, there's not even a 3G highway up and running in India. Grey market operators to capitalize in T-minus 3, 2, 1...

[Via Cellpassion]

Unlike the Bell X-1, the first aircraft to break the sound barrier, the Spice X-1 isn't going to break any speed records limping along with a quaint little GPRS chipset. After the initial bout of browsing withdrawal, though, the average user might be able to settle in, enjoy the phone's rather comprehensive gaming facilities, and forget about data connectivity altogether (that's not us, necessarily, but we imagine those people must exist somewhere). The phone ships with a dedicated gaming controller that can be snapped on and used when trying to blast your foes away on the standard numeric pad just isn't cutting it, and the touted surround sound and stereo Bluetooth should help give it some street cred, too. It can be had for 8,899 rupees (about $212), which isn't bad considering the feature set; just don't expect the bundled Opera Mobile to take you very far.

[Via Unwired View]

The inevitable march of 3G services across the globe just took another giant step forward, with India -- undeniably one of the world's largest mobile markets, and growing by the second -- committing to an auction for 3G spectrum in the next few months. The exact date hasn't been set, but participants can expect to shell out a bare minimum of 20 billion rupees (about $477 million) for the pleasure of partaking in a nationwide license. So yeah, sorry, HTC, looks like you're going to have to eventually come up with a better excuse to launch a 3G-free superphone in that part of the world, assuming these licenses materialize into actual networks down the road.

Indians are among the very first lucky denizens of the world to get a crack at Nokia's 6220 classic, one of the high-end handsets introduced at Mobile World Congress back in February. Though it doesn't get slapped with an Nseries label, it probably should on account of a 5 megapixel camera with xenon flash, AGPS, TV-out, and HSDPA, all underpinned by S60 -- so why isn't it an N something-or-other, then? Our only guess is that it takes a moderately different, more conservative styling direction than the modern Nseries line, because we'd argue the local asking price of 19,959 rupees (about $464) is more than enough to push it into "multimedia computer" category.

[Via Unwired View]

Although several Indian news outlets reported last week that RIM was preparing to let the Indian government monitor the domestic Blackberry network, it appears that the outcry has prompted the company to change course and announce that it's committed to "serving security-conscious businesses in the Indian market." That's a big reversal from the rumored plan, which would have allowed Indian security agencies access to the network in exchange for taking the blame for any leak of user data. Of course, not everything's quite settled yet: the Indian government is still demanding that RIM furnish "satisfactory answers" to its security questions, and RIM told the AFP that there are some other ways for "government to take care of security concerns" without elaborating further. Based on RIM's enterprise-heavy statements and refusal to comment on the consumer service, we'd guess that enterprise customers will probably get to keep their networks locked down, but that consumers shouldn't expect their messages to be secure. Not the best compromise, but we'll see how this all plays out.

HTC's leaving no stone unturned in making sure that its Touch Diamond reaches a global audience, and Bharti Airtel is all lined up to be the exclusive provider of the hottest thing going for Windows Mobile 6.1 (for the moment, anyway) in India. HTC chief Peter Chou himself was on hand for the announcement, saying that he'd like to sell 50,000 Touch Diamonds in India this year -- a reasonable goal, perhaps, though our excitement's tempered a bit by the fact that the local flavor of the device will apparently lack any sort of 3G radio. Pricing comes in at 27,500 rupees (about $642), so if you can bear the tortoise-like browsing on the road, this should end up being one of the best VGA values on the market.

[Via Cellpassion]

Well, it took longer than 15 days to reach a resolution, but apparently RIM is going to back down and allow the Indian government to monitor the Blackberry network in that country. What's worse, it appears that RIM was more interested in covering its own ass than protecting user data during the negotiations: the only concession the company received from the Indian government was a promise that it won't be held liable if there's a leak of users' personal information. Yeah, that ought to provide a sparkling incentive to keep things safe. There's no word on when monitoring might begin, but we've got a feeling privacy-loving Indians might suddenly be in the market for a new smartphone.

[Thanks, Rishab J.]

From the very low to the relatively high end, three new models LG's unleashed on its Indian customers this month run the full range of price points while still managing to pack in music playback across the board. Starting on the bottom, the KP110 is a member of LG's Bullet series (we're not seeing the resemblance to an actual munition, but whatevs) and is being targeted squarely at first-time phone buyers with a microSD slot and FM radio headlining the feature list. Next, the Dynamite KP320's actually a heck of a phone -- 3.2 autofocus megapixels worth, to be exact -- with TV out and A2DP to boot. Rounding out the launches in LG's global KF510 fashion slider with a 3 megapixel cam and a pair of color choices. Look for the three to run Rs. 2,899, 7,990, and 12,250 (about $69, $190, and $291) respectively.

[Via Unwired View]

At first glance this handset looks boring enough to make even a seasoned professional cry, but hold up just one hot second: it has at least one cool feature that we'd be willing to be a day's wage (not really) that your phone can't do. The Samsung Guru200 -- follow-on to the recently released Guru100 -- features FM radio recording, putting an extra twist on the regular FM radio that's virtually standard on every cellphone sold across India. Otherwise, yeah, it really is as boring as it looks, if you don't count a few software twists designed to cater to the Indian market. Look for it to launch for Rs. 2,999, which works out to about $71.

[Via Unwired View]

The last we'd heard, the Indian government had ruled out the threat of a Blackberry ban if RIM didn't allow it to snoop on messages, but it looks like some overzealous bureaucrat is getting his way after all: the Department of Telecom has issued a 15-day deadline for RIM to either open up for the G-men or get shut down. RIM says it won't comment on regulatory issues as a matter of policy, but it looks like the Indian government is playing hardball, with Telecom Minister A Raja saying that national security will not be sacrificed at any cost. Hmm, hear that? That's the sound of over 400,000 Indian Blackberry users desperately grabbing at their devices to get another quick fix -- something tells us this isn't going to end well.

[Via Cellpassion]

Remember the Indian government's threat to shutdown RIM's in-country network if they didn't open it up for snooping? Ain't gonna happen. Today the Indian government ruled out banning the BlackBerry service. Instead, the government will continue working with the Telecom Commission on security matters (whatever that means) with a promise to resolve the matter soon. Look India, if the notoriously controlling Chinese allow the data to run encrypted, what's your beef chicken?