If I were an analyst...

Yet another one of those analystic predictions I am making...

This time, it's "iPhone in Singapore"...

Let me start with the "When and how" part....



When, How?
As Apple mentioned, Asia gets the iPhone in 2008.

I predict this maybe November 2008 for Singapore, just before Christmas season. Apple goes off from product release after November and enters a window period until MacWorld in January the following year. And as we see, Germany and the UK have confirmed iPhone availability (one day after each other, i might note) on November 9 2007.

However, if Apple were to release the iPhone in Asia, I reckon they may release it in the rest of Europe, Japan, NZ, and Australia first. Why? Look at iTunes...

Singapore still doesn't have an iTunes Store. Part of the iPhone feature is activation through iTunes using your iTunes Account. This does not make sense if you don't have a iTunes Singapore Store. How do you activate a Singaporean iPhone if you don't have the store to connect to? and forget about the whole iTunes Wifi Music Store...

iTunes has to come before iPhone. That's the logic. and that should both happen almost simultaneously, along with a Genius Bar and an Apple Store in Singapore.

now, we get to the "who"...

Who?
There's 3 options in Singapore... M1-Vodafone, Singtel Mobile, and Starhub Mobile.

Case #1: M1-Vodafone

I deliberately added the "-Vodafone" to remind you that Vodafone owns M1, so whatever Vodafone gets, M1 should also get. Previously, I would have placed high hopes in iPhone being on M1 because of rumours that Apple and Vodafone may be teaming up for the release of iPhone in Europe. But the dating game failed, according to follow-up rumours. So, by looking at Europe now, I predict M1 will NOT get the iPhone, because of the fact that M1 is the smallest telco amongst the 3, and the fact that Vodafone and Apple are ex-girlfriend/boyfriends... you know what I mean...

Case #2: Starhub

Starhub is the 2nd largest Telco in Singapore, and they have the best data plan rates. I really wish Apple will go with Starhub. Both companies seem to always innovate. There's no reason why these to don't match, but at the same time, none for them to match either. Having no EDGE network is not necessarily a problem, as we saw with O2 in UK.

Case #3: Singtel

Singtel is the largest Telco in Singapore, needless to say. However, Singtel does not seem to care about the services they carry. I don't think they really care if they have visual voicemail, data plans, etc... If Apple goes with Singtel, they may not see eye to eye on many issues...

Case #4: All of the above.

Actually this is quite likely. Singapore has a law which prohibits mobile phones to be locked to one telco service. All phones must be interoperable with other telcos, such that you may switch between telcos by means of swapping the SIM Card. As such, iPhone cannot be locked into one carrier, or Apple will have to hear from the lawyers, together with whatever telco they married with. Thus, the only way to avoid this problem is to sell the iPhone hardware unlocked, but register online and choose the telco the customer wants to join at that point in time... The only forseeable problem I see is that Apple is very reluctant to do this, so I doubt this scenario is possible (for them)...

now, we get to the Where...

Where?
Apple Store Online, Telco Official stores, Apple Store [w/ the Genius Bar] at the yet-to-be-known place.

Possibilities of all these being true?
Quite low. Singapore has only 4million people. Not a huge market. How many iPhones does Apple to sell here? not a lot. Handphones are not disposables. So, Apple may not even consider Singapore when opening stores, even iTunes Store... but never say never. Look at iPods. They sell quite well here, in spite of Creative's local presence. So, let time tell...

What?

iPhone. The 8GB and 16Gb models... I expect 16GB iPhones by Macworld for presently "iPhoned nations". Price of 8GB iPhone is now US$399 (S$601.29). After including 7% GST, inflation, etc, I predict a price of... [drum roll...]

S$ 599 for 8GB and...

S$ 799 for 16GB

How did I guess? Look at the iPod Touch Pricing...

The US Store sandwiched the prices of the 8GB iPhone between the 2 iPod Touch config prices...

Expect the same when the 16GB iPhone comes out...

and btw, the iPhone will not be 3G. too battery consuming... Just WiFi and GSM+EDGE...

maybe there'll be one version for video-conferencing, though...