Apple to launch iPhone 6 on October 16

Santa Clara-based computing giant Apple on Monday opened bookings in India for its neophyte iPhone 6 and the kingsized iPhone 6 Plus, which are part of its bestselling smarphone series since 2010. Dealer sources said that the models would go on sale in India from the midnight of October 16.

The iPhone 6 will be available in India in the 16 GB, 64 GB and 128 GB tiers, one dealer said. The 32 GB version has been discontinued by Apple for the latest iPhone iteration keeping in mind cost of storage and profit margin dynamics.

The 16 GB version is expected to go on sale priced at around Rs 55,000, while the 128 GB iPhone 6 will carry a hefty price tag exceeding Rs 1 lakh. “We are expecting huge pent-up demand for earlier models like the iPhone 5, 5 S and C series which are likely to see more price cuts. Sales of earlier models will be as strong a takeaway for Apple as the launch of the latest iPhone 6,” dealers said.

Though pre-orders for the phones will officially be open from Tuesday, October 7, it is understood that bookings started on Monday. Bookings were open for the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus at Rs 5,000 with one dealer gathering bookings for 200 iPhone 6 models by Monday afternoon.

Online retailer Ebay has been selling the 16 GB factory unlocked version of the iPhone 6 in the range of Rs 53,000-Rs 70,000 apiece over the past week and shipping it to buyers in India. The 16 GB version of the iPhone 6 Plus has been selling at prices as high as 1.28 lakh on Ebay.

However, an Apple employee who did not wish to be quoted said that the company was not too worried about the development as volumes from these are negligible. “We can’t look at it as grey market volumes or something. The main problem is that the price is not sustainable, even though hardcore iPhone fans wouldn’t mind. The question of warranty is something they should be worried about, though,” he said.

Both the 4.7-inch screen iPhone 6 and the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus will come with the standard Retina HD displays, 8-megapixel cameras with panorama, timer and burst mode facility, photo geotagging, fingerprint identity sensors, simultaneous support for multiple languages and characters and dual-domain pixels for wide-angle viewing.

While the iPhone 6 will have talktime of upto 14 hours on 3G with standby time of upto 10 days, the iPhone 6 Plus will offer upto 24 hours with standby time of upto 16 days.