Apple iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus to hit Indian shelves on October 17

It looks like India is climbing up the priority tree for Apple. A little text ticker on top of the Apple India website (which is unsurprisingly dominated by a huge image of the new iPhone 6) states that the device will be available in India on 17 October.   This is in line with Apple’s announcement that the devices would be available in at least 115 countries by the end of the year.   Although the wait is not ideal for the fanatic Applehead (that’s over a month to wait, people), it’s still a massive improvement from how long India has been made to wait in the past.   Previous iterations of the company’s smartphones and other devices took so long to come to India, that d_esi_ Apple heads often resorted to the grey markets, paying significantly more than the market price of the already expensive devices, just so they could own them.   And in the long run, if you were an Apple head, the move still made some sense, because by the time Apple would eventually roll out its devices to India, it was just way too late and almost time for the next model.   In the recent past however, and under the aegis of Tim Cook, Apple has been focusing a little more attention on India. Although the schemes and device rollouts have not been exactly optimal or value for money, it showed that the company was finally waking up to the fact that it could not ignore the fast growing Indian smartphone market.   EMI schemes and the reintroduction of the iPhone 4 for a lower price showed results for the tech giant, resulting in a 223 percent growth in revenues in 2012 as compared to the previous year. Earlier this year, it also dropped the price of the 16GB iPod touch model to Rs 16,900 from Rs 17,800.   It would also make sense for Apple to pitch its new devices to India, where large screen phones have found an enthusiastic reception. In fact, in July  Apple said that although the iPad, the world’s most popular tablet, saw a decline in sales, sales rose by 45 percent in India during the last quarter. The overall sales fell to from 16.3 million units in the previous Q2 to 13.2 million in Q3, but India bucked the trend, even as year-on-year figures showed a decline of about 1.5 million units.   The **iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus** which come with larger screens, are being seen as an effort to grab some share of the demand for larger screen phones that has been working so well for Android based devices like the Samsung Galaxy series, which has found many takers in India. The iPhone 6 will have a screen of 4.7 inches and the 6-Plus will be 5.5 inches, allowing Apple to adapt to consumers’ apparent preference for bigger displays.   Cook said the new handsets represented “the biggest advancement in the history of iPhones.” Apple senior vice president Phil Schiller the new iPhones were “simply stunning” with polarised glass displays and bodies that are “thinner than ever before.”   “These are the best phones ever made,” Schiller said, as he described the new devices at a major set-piece event streamed live online.   The new iPhone 6 will start at the same price of existing iPhones at $199 for US customers while the iPhone 6 Plus will be at $299 with a two-year contract. An India price has not been announced as yet. The contract free version of the iPhone 6 starts at $649 and iPhone 6 Plus starts at $749 (for 16 GB version).  That’s close to Rs 40,000 and Rs 45,000 for the two versions without taxes.   Before you get hopeful that the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus won’t cost the Rs 50k and above in India, remember the final price is likely to be very different.   With inputs from agencies