Gadgets Mobiles

This is the end of a very long journey for Apple in China. The Cupertino company has been in talks with Chinese wireless providers for two years now over the distribution of iPhone in the biggest mobile market in the world. Apple had a chance to make a deal with China Mobile (the company has been said to serveunlocked iPhones by the hundreds of thousands)… the biggest of them all, only to end with a much smaller wireless company in Unicom. Perhaps this fact–that iPhone will operate on a non-dominant wireless provider–and the prohibitive price of each legitimate Unicom iPhone unit (unlocked iPhone is HK are much cheaper) that was responsible for the rather embarrassing first day of iPhone in China. A mere 5,000 units sold. After all of Apple’s Herculean effort to get their touchscreen smartphone to be legally distributed to the Chinese, it’s officially a letdown, the iPhone’s first.

[from CNET report, photo: brisbanetimes]