REason why Apple is not interested with Malaysia is that our telcos are an entity on its own. See other ccountries, for example Singtel. Singtel holds percentage interest and hold in companies with large customer bases in Australia and South East Asia, hence their ability to take up presence and charge to do the launch. It just also happen that they are from Singapore and hence passing that right and chance to fellow Singaporean.
What about those little African countries like Botswana and such, you ask? Check their telco, and you'll see that most if not all their telco are telecom multiconglomerate such as Vodafone and such, and since Apple have grant blanket rights to them to launch, Vodafone extends such rights also to launch in those little African countries. The same reason why in certain countries like in Italy, besides TIM, Vodafone Italy is also launching it there, because they are given the blanket rights.
Malaysia? Got Vodafone Malaysia? Orange Malaysia? Or T-Mobile? Nope, we have Maxis, Celcom and DiGi. The very extent of them allowing these large telecom multiconglomerates into Malaysia is via partnership, most evidently by business joint-ventures like Celcom-Vodafone Blackberry service for businesses. Other than that, Malaysia is LOCKED TIGHT, between the three main telcos here. Apple may or may not have negotiated with our Big Three but knowing how Malaysian companies operate (untung besar, on as little as possible investments or effort, eg: TMNET, Proton), Apple decides to not go through here, or probably disgusted/disenchanted with how things are done here. Why bother with such a small market and when the telcos representing us here are acting like hungry whiny babies, wanting to be fed?
There may be exceptions like Hong Kong's "Three" by Hutchison, but I see that as Apple's attempt to penetrate the Chinese market after their failed attempt with China Mobile. they may be sending a signal to Three to push their presence into China and allowing Apple to sell their iPhones there.
See, beneath this desperateness of getting the 3G iPhone, is a well-informed calculative mind. I may not seem rational in my obsessiveness in getting the 3G iPhone, but that is just my nature: I'll do whatever it takes to get one, within reasonable mean. But I draw the line when it comes to others taking advantage of my obsessions, such as local importers here wanting RM4,000 for the 3G iPhone. I seething hate cutthroats like these, no matter how business-minded they portray themselves to look like.
I've been lurking the iphone lounge for quite a bit this past weekend and this is the best reply I've come across. Period.
It's absolutely spot-on, especially the part on Malaysia's Big Three.
It's allegedly reported that the first delivery of RM4.2k 3G iphone has been sold out; and now Maxis rumours of being able to bring it in at RM1k.
Of course, it'd be great news to all if the rumours are substantiated in the near future. But I would recommend stringfellow's reply above as the Golden Rule of not being overly optimistic.