Rumor: Apple iPhone in China on May 17th with China Unicom

[gato]

The Chinese press is reporting a rumor that the iPhone will debut in China with China Unicom in May. There was a recent report that talks between Apple and China Mobile broke down due to China Mobile insistence on controlling the sale of apps in China....

After the recent telecom reorganization, each of the three major mobile carriers has been given a different 3G license: WCDMA for China Unicom, CDMA2000 for China Telecom, and the home-grown TD-SCDMA standard for China Mobile, the largest current carrier (as a way to support TD-SCDMA). Since the iPhone 3G uses WCDMA, it does make more sense for Apple to go with Unicom.

http://www.macblogz.com/2009/02/09/apples-iphone-hitting-chinese-markets-on-may-19th-with-china-unicom/

Rumor: Apple’s iPhone Hitting Chinese Markets on May 19th with China Unicom

Posted by Aviv on February 9, 2009 at 9:01 pm PST

http://www.dfdaily.com/node2/node135/userobject1ai152078.shtml

核心提示：据说，今年5月17日的电信日，Iphone将与新联通缔结婚约，正式嫁入中国。观察家认为，Iphone在登陆大陆市场的一年内就可以占据中国高端智能手机的三分之一以上的市场份额，甚至半壁江山。这对在中国高端手机市场上横行霸道的诺基亚、三星、摩托罗拉来说，无疑是一场挥之不去的梦魇。

[crossed-posted on plecoforums.com]

Edited February 12, 2009 at 03:55 PM by gato

[peekay]

I was walking around Zhongguancun a few days ago and it's impressive to see the number of iPhones that are on display by various vendors... they must be selling quite a few of them to keep such numbers in stock.

I've been testing my iPhone 3G and Android Dev 1 phones here in Beijing, both working fine with China Unicom (not at 3G speeds obviously.)

[gato]

The Dongfang Daily article estimated that there are 1 million iPhones in use in mainland China.

[roddy]

Hmm, this isn't the first 'Rumor: Iphone coming' article I've seen, but I guess it's got to happen sometime. Wonder if it will be possible to activate wifi - I'm assume it'll be disabled for the Chinese market, but if they just do it via software it might be easily turned on. I believe with Dopod devices it's just a matter of installing the missing drivers

Edited February 19, 2009 at 02:52 PM by roddy

[imron]

The Chinese press is reporting a rumor that the iPhone will debut in China with China Unicom in May.

It's worth noting however, that currently mobile phones with WiFi functionality are not given network access permits by the MIIT, and so any official iPhone release in May would likely have WiFi functionality disabled.

More information (in Chinese) can also be found here.

Edit: Roddy beat me to it by a couple of minutes.

[roddy]

I was going to say that a full 3G iPhone paired with a functioning WCDMA network would be a hell of a coup for Unicom. Then I just decided to quote the article:

毫无疑问，Iphone正是进入3G时代以来，新联通挑衅中国移动和中国电信的毁灭性武器。

It's the kind of thing people will switch networks for. I would have thought China Mobile would be better off just taking whatever deal they get as long as WCDMA isn't enabled, for the sake of keeping the thing out of Unicom's hands and off its network.

[gato]

Apparently, MIIT requires mobile phones and PDAs to have their WiFi function disabled in the hope of getting more companies to adopt the domestic WAPI standard.

http://net.zdnet.com.cn/network_security_zone/2008/1210/1272342.shtml

WIFI？WAPI？谁才是中国未来的无线霸主

ZDNet 网络频道 更新时间：2008-12-10 作者：IT168 来源：IT168

众所周知基于802.11标准的WIFI协议已经在全世界不断发展，从早期的802.11a,b到后来的802.11g，又到现在深受用户和厂商关注的802.11n标准，WIFI协议的每个动作都引来多方面的关注。然而将WIFI技术应用于PDA，手机等数码设备在国内一直是件不可能完成的任务，所有行货都强制将WIFI功能取消，这都是因为我国在自行研发WAPI无线技术。

http://www.chinatzone.com/news_dls.php?id=901&category=USITO%20Weekly%20China%20Summary

While the telecom carriers are extending their Wi-Fi deployment, China's WAPI (Wireless Authentication and Privacy Infrastructure) camp made another round of proposals to top Chinese authorities during the National People's Congress (NPC) meetings, which are still taking place in Beijing. A representative from the Xi’an Electronics University (Xidian), the initiator and patent holder of WAPI, submitted a proposal to NPC asking for reinforced government measures to promote mandatory WAPI products in government agencies and state-owned enterprises. The proposal said that China's domestic market is currently dominated by foreign wireless LAN products, and that reliance on them is harmful to national security.

[imron]

Apparently, MIIT requires mobile phones and PDAs to have their WiFi function disabled in the hope of getting more companies to adopt the domestic WAPI standard.

And it's not just that. Phones with WiFi would essentially be yet another nail in the TD-SCDMA coffin. China Mobile themselves have said their focus for TD-SCDMA is going to be data and not voice. Given the maturity of existing phones with WiFi, it would definitely cause more than a few people to not bother with TD-SCDMA altogether.

[roddy]

Hmmm, both (or all three, I forget) of my China-bought PDAs had wifi working. Guess they might have been dodgy imports, it was a few years back and I can't remember to be honest. Can the MIIT control PDAs like that though? No phone functionality, hence no 入网 licensing, I would have thought.

[imron]

My iPhone bought in Zhongguancun (where I'm guessing you got your PDAs) also has working WiFi .

PDAs might not need network access permits, but I'm sure there's some other thing the MIIT could come up with if they wanted to. Not that it would stop such devices appearing on the market, it only stops them going through legitimate distribution channels.

[peekay]

I think the objection to WiFi is over VOIP (eg., Skype) more than anything else, to protect the telecoms' revenue and to enable surveillance on carrier voice networks (VOIP traffic tend to be encrypted.)

Most PDAs can't do VOIP so might not be perceived as a threat. Popular phones capable of bypassing carrier voice networks == big no no.

[roddy]

Manufacturer's Chinese sites certainly mention wifi - ie. I don't think there are any regulatory issues with non-phone devices having Wifi.

[peekay]

China Unicom buys 5 million iPhones from Apple, ready for sale in September

"Beijing - China Unicom, the potential exclusive distributor of iPhones in China, has poured 10 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) to buy 5 million units from Apple, ready to sell the first batch in September, local media reported on Wednesday.

China Unicom had already paid Apple 10 billion yuan ($1.46 billion) for 5 million WCDMA standard iPhones with unit price of 2,000 yuan ($293), CBN news said, citing a well-informed source.

Details of launching the iPhone have been finalized and the first batch of iPhone will appear in China Unicom 3G stalls at Carrefour and some large retail outlets run by China Unicom in September, said Zhou Youmeng, vice general manager of China Unicom."

More from: International Business Times

[muyongshi]

Is this the 3G or the 3Gs??

[peekay]

Likely not the 3GS given the amount of flash (8GB & 16GB).

But we don't know if it's the 3G or if it's a special Chinese-only version of the iPhone.

[muyongshi]

Ok... thats good to know, even though for myself I am not too set on having to have 3G functionality. For me the screen quality, memory (I want 32Gb or more so I can replace my ipod) and finally PLECO! When they get that released then I will be all about switching. Oh yeah and having the cash

[hanxue]

Yeah well who knows when PLECO will be available for iPhone.. I e-mailed Pleco about this just two days ago and this is what I got back: "We're really not sure - even if we knew the exact date we'd finish it, it could take Apple days or weeks or months to approve it, and there's the strong possibility they might reject it and force us to rewrite large portions of it (which would delay things even further)."

So who knows...

[muyongshi]

Well, it just gives me time to save money and apple to make their memory and system even better