Indeed, the aspects of the Indian market that are most important are precisely those that the iPhone does not represent. Its price is strangely high; as our columnist today points out, the Indian consumer is price-conscious, which helps technological innovation and the ground-up rebuilding of products. (The Tata Nano, an engineering marvel, is an example of what this pressure can produce.) Nor is the iPhone adaptable: like most Apple products which bear the stamp of its famously control-freak founder, third-party innovations are rigidly controlled, and the consumer’s options are severely curtailed. Indian consumers typically demand infinitely extensible products. The true representatives of mobile phones in India are handsets incorporating flashlights marketed to truck drivers. India demands sturdy products which can take this country’s extremes of temperature and humidity — it remains to be seen how the iPhone’s elegant screen responds to Mumbai mugginess.

Of course, it is a matter for celebration that so many people want and can afford the instrument now, and that world-spanning companies launch their products here with far less of a time lag than earlier. When the day comes on which those corporations adopt the Indian consumer’s savvy price-sensitivity, near-immunity to pointless marketing and demands for flexibility, we will be even happier.