iPhone may debut in Chinese market by early 2010, sans Wi-Fi
Two reports from Friday indicate that the iPhone will soon make it to market in China, although the Communist government wants to make sure that users aren't free to use their newly-acquired Apple goodness to criticize official policies.Gizmodo published an unconfirmed report that China Unicom may have a deal with Apple to sell iPhones with Wi-Fi blocked. Some of our readers might comment that China Unicom could just sell customers devices that have been upgraded to iPhone OS 3.0, since Wi-Fi doesn't appear to be working properly on many of those iPhones, but the Chinese government wants assurance that Wi-Fi is blocked on any iPhones sold in the country.
Why? To quote Gizmodo, "it's harder to sniff local packets than ones drifting through a wide-area network." What they're referring to here is the Golden Shield Project, known to many as the "Great Firewall of China." That's the Internet censorship and surveillance project run by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security.
The Gizmodo post is in turn based on a story by Business Week, which is reporting that Apple applied yesterday (July 10th) to the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology for a Network Access License to sell the iPhone in the country. Business Week notes that Apple may receive permission to officially sell iPhones in The Middle Kingdom by the time of the Spring Festival in 2010, which occurs in January.
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Two reports from Friday indicate that the iPhone will soon make it to market in China, although the Communist government wants to make sure...
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The jailbreaking justice will be swift and lol-worthy.
Can't wait for the Chinese government to declare jailbreaking to be morally repugnant and unpatriotic. Fucking idiots.
Where is China's Mohatma Ghandi?
Time to build products in other cheap places with normal governments.
It's time to support other 3rd world places. Things are only cheap from china due to slave labor. Go Rio Tinto.
I don't get this... I have ben living in China for years now and have bought many cellphones here that have wifi capabilities (more recently my E71 and N79). Also, many Chinese produced phones (国产) also have wifi capabilities.
So I don't buy that they are blocking it for these reasons. Maybe to force people to use the 3G network vs. a free conection at starbucks?
Nice idea, but given the fact that big parts of america already belong to China, that doesn't really make sense.
July 12 2009 at 5:14 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyAgreed, I'd be willing to pay more if that were the case.
Sadly, I don't think many Americans feel that way. Most Americans want "something for nothing" or at least for as little as possible.
American companies should not bend to the will of the communist chinese. apple should not sell them the iphone, google should not offer censored search and Microsoft should not customize windows for their big brother ways.
July 12 2009 at 12:31 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyTEG and Q, your ideas are amusing at best. Besides the obvious reasons, what's not obvious to you is the "evil" things the government (and by association the citizens of) the USA engage in on a daily basis. China and the USA are more similar than you would ever cate to admit.
July 11 2009 at 11:25 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyStop trading with Prc. Hahaha ... That's real funny. The iPhone is made in china. Check out the back of your iPhone in case you haven't notice.
July 11 2009 at 10:03 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyIn theory, Wi-Fi CAN be included on mobile devices in China now, as long as the hardware supports a specific communication protocol, or something like that. All Apple would have to do is switch the Wi-Fi hardware, if they haven't got this hardware in the 3GS already to accommodate these new rules.
July 11 2009 at 7:36 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyJust buy your iPhone 3G from Hong Kong at http://store.apple.com/hk. It's unlocked and you just need a Hong Kong shipping address. I'm sure the Chinese who are able to afford an iPhone in Hong Kong will have no trouble finding someone who has a Hong Kong address to ship.
July 11 2009 at 6:52 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyHot Apps on TUAW
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