Apple store coming to Beijing - Summer '08!

[cdn_in_bj]

Apple will be opening their first China Apple store in Beijing next summer. Perhaps to coincide with the official release of the iPhone over here? I'm excited!

Edit: The store is set to open on Saturday, July 19 at 10:00am!

More info here:

http://www.apple.com.cn/retail/sanlitun/

http://www.ifoapplestore.com/db/2008/07/09/apple-announces-beijing-store-grand-opening/

[venture160]

Where did you get this information? I heard this wasn't going to happen until 2009...... I had heard that Apple was looking to expand their offices here this year and then move forward with retail later... either way that is awesome news, expect iPhone in China by end of next year.

[imron]

Let's just hope it's not locked to China Unicom

[cdn_in_bj]

They announced it on their 4th Q earnings call last night. They also mentioned that Asia-Pacific is their fastest growing region (52% growth y.o.y.). Here is a transcript of the call:

http://seekingalpha.com/article/50846-apple-f4q07-qtr-end-9-29-07-earnings-call-transcript

[md1101]

really? their first? thats funny i remember seeing a few stores in xi'an claiming to be apple stores...

[md1101]

actually maybe they were just official apple resellers...

[imron]

Yep, there are plenty of resellers around. There's one in Beijing a couple of minutes walk from where I work (Dongzhimen).

[cdn_in_bj]

Let's just hope it's not locked to China Unicom

Actually, Imron, this brings up a very interesting question. I did not catch it originally and thought your joke was pretty funny.

Anyways, the point is that there are a huge number of people here on pre-paid mobile plans (ie-Shenzhouxing and M-Zone). I would say that only the minority are on true monthly plans, and in my experience these would mostly be business types and not the "regular consumer" that Apple is targeting with the iPhone. As you may know, in the US and Europe Apple has partnered with the carriers and gets a cut of their monthly subscription revenue from the iPhone users that have to activate and sign up for monthly plans in order to use their new phones. It is actually a big cut - it's generally accepted that they make more profit from these carrier payments than from the actual phone sale. But I think for China they would have to change their strategy, taking into account the pre-paid thing and also because revenues here are lower on a per-subscriber basis. Not to mention the ease at which phones can be unlocked. In fact, I don't think they have ever stated that they would be releasing the iPhone in China, just in Asia in general. I do hope the iPhone gets released here and it'll be interesting to see who they partner with and how they work out the plans. We shall see...

[Loriquero]

So, the iphones I saw here in 徐家汇 are fake or what?

[ipsi()]

Loriquero, they're probably real, but unlocked and thus unofficial, and prone to becoming huge paperweights with every firmware upgrade... At least, that'd be my guess.

I'd expect that the iPhone, if sold in China, will simply retail for a higher price than in the US, as you won't have the "2-year plan discount". That's what happens in New Zealand, at any rate, where there are far, far more people on Prepay than on Post-paid plans. We also don't get the iPhone over here, as Vodafone balked at the terms, and Telecom isn't capable of carrying it (CDMA vs GSM).

Thinking about it, it's quite unlikely that it'll appear in China, unless there are enough non-business customers on a post-paid plan that would want it. In order to be able to sell in to Prepay customers, I suspect they'd have to unlock it. Which is not something they seem particularly keen on...

[cdn_in_bj]

So, the iphones I saw here in 徐家汇 are fake or what?

They are either fakes (but this would be easy to tell) or grey market/imports of the real thing.

In order to be able to sell in to Prepay customers, I suspect they'd have to unlock it. Which is not something they seem particularly keen on...

I'm not sure why they would have to sell it unlocked? They could still lock it to China Mobile SIMs, and at the same time also charge a higher price for the phone like you suggested. That way they could work out a deal with China Mobile to get a royalty for each activated phone/SIM. But this would also require iPhone customers to change to a new phone number, which I think most people would find unappealing.

[tallynole]

Let's wait and see what happens in France. Over there, by Law, a company cannot keep a phone locked for more than 5 months.. Since Apple signed an agreement with Orange tosell it there, at the latest, by march, free iphones will be running around france and cannot be bricked...

However, that's against the deal Apple signed with ATT&T in the Us which stipulates that Apple cannot sell an unlocked iphone for 5 years..

should be interesting come January.... me thinks this is another case where Apple will have to give into the pressure but then again.. it's Apple

[Loriquero]

I find his chinese lost brother more atractive http://www.itechnews.net/2007/05/25/cect-p168-iphone-clone/

[imcgraw]

How do you even do Chinese character input on an iphone? I guess they're developing some pinyin input IME? I hope that they have some sort of hand writing recognition... obviously the iphone doesn't have a pen, but it would be pretty cool if you could just write a character with your finger and then have it pop up! That would sell me on the iphone. That... and supporting Flash.

[badr]

Chinese input is also my main concern with the buying an iphone today! I've been trying to read up on it and I saw on some forums that they're working on it but couldn't see a confirmation anywhere.

guess will have to wait and see...

[cdn_in_bj]

How do you even do Chinese character input on an iphone? I guess they're developing some pinyin input IME?

The phones that are sold in Beijing come with a 3rd-party SMS application that supports pinyin input called "WeSMS". The problem is that this is only a solution for SMS - all of the other native iPhone applications only support English input (however, they are able to display Chinese characters).

Some folks are working on a replacement or mod of the iPhone keyboard that allows Chinese input. This is the ideal route because it means that you would be able to input Chinese with all of the applications:

http://www.iphone.org.hk/cgi-bin/ch/topic_show.cgi?id=1319&h=1&bpg=1&age=0

[imron]

Let's just hope it's not locked to China Unicom

I was reading today that apparently the MII is going to require that the iPhone remain unlocked if it's released in China. On the downside though, it will probably have WiFi removed.

@cnd_in_bj how's your iPhone going? Have they got Chinese input working for normal applications yet?

[cdn_in_bj]

To be honest I haven't used it that much, as it's been confiscated by my better half. These things happen.

But I can tell you that there's now a 3rd-party Chinese input method called "iCosta". It hooks directly into the software keyboard so it works with all applications and there is no longer a need to use the 3rd party SMS application ("WeSMS") to send Chinese SMS.

http://iphone.freecoder.org/iCosta.html

(I'm still running 1.0.2 firmware on mine)

Interesting, it appears that v1.0.0 of iCosta supports 五笔 input method. I'll have to try this out.

As for the problem with Chinese contacts not being sorted (the ordering in the phonebook seems random), there is a way to make life easier by using a 3rd-party search application. I haven't had a chance to try this out yet.

Interesting note, it seems that phones with pre-1.1.2 firmware are now selling for 1500 RMB more than when I bought mine (now 5400 RMB). You can buy 1.1.2 firmware phones for the old price, but these phones aren't truly unlocked (to my knowledge, no one has yet figured out how to fully unlock an OOTB 1.1.2 phone) - instead they use SIM cloning to fool the phone into thinking there's an AT&T SIM installed. Also, I don't know if there are limitations with regards to installing 3rd-party applications with these 1.1.2 phones.

so far as I know' date=' there are two other this kind of providers in China that make the same product, they call it "sim patch", many of the o.b.t 1.1.2 phones are sold in China with this sim patch installed, without any issues reported so far. The only disadvantage is the patch itself may sometimes stuck in the card slot and this is troubsome.

People who made the sim patch claim that the iphone checks the AT&T sim card twice (and that's all) after booting, so they patched a clip that can fake the AT&T message to the iphone for two times after booting and afterwards it will give the cell network the true information (your own sim card) from the third time and that's why you can use it with any GSM network.[/quote']

[badr]

I wonder if that's gonna work with 1.1.3 firmware. It has proved elusive so far and hard to crack. Some good fellow leaked it ahead of macworld by almost 3 weeks yet no one has gotten the better of it yet

[liuzhou]

I've seen loads of Apple stores in China!

They all sell crap fashion clothes.