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  • China Mobile, Apple Butt Heads Over iPhone [View article]
    mmii: you're spot on about the Unicom experience. But I suspect we'll be waiting a while for iPhones with CHL embossed on the back.
    Jan 29 20:51 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment
  • China Mobile, Apple Butt Heads Over iPhone [View article]
    Boettger: Apple wage guerrilla warfare on the Chinese market? Oh, hell yes!

    I saw an estimate yesterday that as many as 25% of all iPhones sold are hacked and never returned to the network that sold them. How many of those have made it into the hands of China's newly-prosperous?

    Anybody want to bet on whether Apple will unlock the GSM/GPRS iPhones once they launch 3G devices?
    Jan 29 20:50 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment
  • China Mobile, Apple Butt Heads Over iPhone [View article]
    jmmx: thanks for the post.

    Methinks Mr. Jobs - he of the Great Reality Distortion Field - may well be downplaying what is likely an uncomfortable situation.

    Here's my point - The iPhone does not need CHL right now, and CHL does not need the iPhone. As sad as that might be for all of us living here in the Middle Kingdom, them's the facts.
    Jan 29 20:45 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment
  • China Mobile, Apple Butt Heads Over iPhone [View article]
    Reinharden: You're right that Unicom has a GSM network, and in fact they're well into rolling out their GPRS capability. All fine and good. The reason Apple would probably not be prepared to work with China Unicom is the user-experience factor.

    See, if Unicom's GPRS network is so good, I wonder why my BlackBerry 8700 with an overseas SIM card can only find a GSM signal when it roams onto China Unicom's network here in Beijing and not a GPRS signal. I've had to force-select China Mobile on the device or lose all data services the second it gloms onto a China Unicom signal.

    My wife's brand-spanking new RAZR2 V8 GPRS device - she's a China Unicom subscriber - is not getting onto a GPRS network at all anywhere in Beijing.

    Does Unicom have GPRS? Maybe. But you wouldn't know it from OUR day-to-day user experiences in China's capital city, nor those of others who have commented on my blog or emailed me. Whether Unicom has the hardware or not is irrelevant if the network can't offer a consistent user experience on two GPRS devices from two major manufacturers.

    Apple is going to be really sensitive about quality-of-service issues with carriers, a lesson it learned in going with AT&T in the United States. Unicom is in no position to truthfully offer a lot of comfort in that area, a sad legacy of its dual-network (GSM/CDMA) heritage.

    How about them odorless feces?
    Jan 29 20:40 pm |Rating: 0 0 |Link to Comment
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