Opinion: You Got An iPhone, Now Think Of 'Envy Imperialism'

The iPhone is a curious gadget – it is both a product and a platform in the industrial production of glamour. Was it always intended to be so? Let’s go to what experts were saying about the telecom revolution and the advent of the smartphone at the beginning of the 21st century. The news cycle around the sale of iPhone 16 across India is yet another reminder of how the industrially produced concoction of glamour, envy, and cultural imperialism continues to define most markets in the Global South.