It was recently announced that iPhone is being launched in India around September 2006 by Vodafone, almost a year after it was first introduced in US.

India is a unique iPhone market because of the fact that we already have thousands of iPhone users who have been using unlocked iPhones in India. Apart from the obivious question about the price, there are some more answers that eager iPhone fans in India seek from Apple/Vodafone.

Tariff Plans

Since the phone will be in partnership with Vodafone, it will most certainly be carrier locked by them but.. Is Vodafone going to introduce special (read costly) tariff plans for iPhone users or can any Vodafone postpaid user be eligible to buy and use iPhone? AT&T has some special iPhone plans and has also classified some of its existing plans as ‘qualifying iPhone plans’.
Secondly, will iPhone be available pan-India or only in select geographical regions?

Visual Voicemail
Voicemail usage in India is very low, the main reason for this being lack of awareness and high charges. All this can change by iPhone’s revolutionary Visual Voicemail – It is a voicemail system where users can see on thier iPhone screens all the pending voicemails and only listen (and be charged for) to those which they choose. This system cost AT&T a small fortune to set up in US, will Vodafone be willing to invest in it for their Indian iPhone users?

Location / Where am I?
Another of iPhone gems, iPhone’s Location feature oblivates the need for GPS. This technology uses cell phone towers and wifi access points to indicate to users EXACTLY where they are on a Google Map. This powerful combination of Google Maps/Earth and iPhone’s graphic and intuitive capabilities make it an indispensible tool. Only problem is that there are few “branded” wifi access points throughout the country. How will this work in India?

Note: The above two questions (Visual Voicemail and Triangulation) were pertaining to special iPhone apps that users of unlocked iPhones cannot use. If these are not viable in India, what incentives do Indian iPhone users have to pay higher charges for a Vodafone enabled iPhone as opposed to an unlocked iPhone?

Existing iPhones

Will Apple service iPhones brought into India before they were officially introduced? Given the current conditions, will there be a “legalization” option where unlocked users can convert to official users?

Opting out

What if an iPhone user wants to buy some other phone? Will he have to mandatorily return it to Vodafone at prices set by them? If yes, there will be no legal second-hand market for iPhone and iPhone users may be stuck with an iPhone if the return price offered is not competitive.

If you have a clue about any of the above questions or have even more rhetorics to add, please post them in the comments below.