iPhone 4 in Apple Stores in Mainland China on Sept 25

[gato]

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/09/19iphone.html

iPhone 4 Available in China on September 25

New Apple Retail Stores Opening in Shanghai & Beijing

iPhone 4 will be sold in China through Apple’s retail stores for a suggested retail price of CNY4,999 for the 16GB model and CNY5,999 for 32GB model without a contract.

The new Apple Store Hong Kong Plaza is located at 282 Huaihai Zhong Road, Shanghai. The new Apple Store Xidan Joy City is located in the Joy City shopping center at 131 North Xidan Avenue, Beijing. For more information please visit www.apple.com.cn.

[tboasis7]

either this is a rumor or true, do iPhones sold in China have no wireless capabilities?

[xiaocai]

Ipads have, so probably the new iPhone4 will have it as well, otherwise I seriously doubt there will be to many people willing to pay the ridiculous amount of money for a "castrated" iPhone when you can get a fully functional one for a much low price from Hong Kong.

[gato]

All iPhone 4's will have WiFi. They've solved the legal issue.

[roddy]

I seriously doubt there will be to many people willing to pay the ridiculous amount of money for a "castrated" iPhone when you can get a fully functional one for a much low price from Hong Kong.

If they can get the phones into the more mainstream outlets - shopping malls and the local mobile phone stores, rather than the 电子城s where you find grey market imports - I suspect there'd be a steady stream of customers who won't know their wifi from their hifi. They'll just want that nice one from the advert, or they've heard their son / girlfriend / granddad talk about how cool the iPhone is, so . . .

However as Gato says, it seems mobile phones are now allowed to have wifi. But have any other wifi enabled phones been granted 入网许可, or is it just the iPhone so far?

[gato]

Some HTCs have WiFi now, too.

I know that 苏宁, the elctronics chain, will be selling the IPhone 4, along with the iPad. Apple has authorized many retailers for the iPad (国美 and 百思买BestBuy, for example), so I assume the same will be done for the iPhone.

http://www.kejixun.com/2010/0918/33153.html

目前北京三里屯苹果旗舰店与上海浦东苹果零售店都可以买到WiFi版iPad。在全国范围内，国美、苏宁、百思买、英龙华辰等各地的107家门店也将销售WiFi版iPad。复旦大学、上海大学、南京大学、南京财经大学，南京航空航天大学等13处校园体验中心可以买到WiFi版iPad

[tboasis7]

yea but what is the whole reason behind phones not being able to have Wifi , it all seems just a bit ridiculous.... well from a westerners view.

[roddy]

To protect mobile Internet revenue. Up till now the operators have not wanted to sell wifi phones, and the relevant authorities happily obliged. Why the change of heart I don't know, perhaps some combination of competition from grey imports, the fact that operators now have their own wifi networks in many areas, and the realization it was annoying folk*. Wifi on non-phone devices - ie, PDAs - has never been an issue, as they don't need to go through the same licensing process.

Amusingly, according to this, it also supports WAPI, China's official 山寨 wireless internet standard. I thought that had died a death, apparently MIIT is keeping it on life-support . . .

*and also I now read, they hadn't really given up on WAPI and were waiting for WAPI phones from Chinese manufacturers to be ready. One day this country is going to come up with a neat new standard for octagonal wheels.