With China Telecom iPhone deal final, Apple turns attention to China Mobile

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 26
    freerangefreerange Posts: 1,597member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anakin1992 View Post


    china mobile actually has many iphones on its network. of course they only support 2g. i heard, but can not confirm, that the main reason ppl uses iphone on china mobile network is that china unicom, the only iphone dealer in china, does not support transferring china mobile phone number over. so any one using iphone on china unicom has to use a new mobile phone number.



    well, don't overlook this. many VIP mobile users parked at china mobile long long time back when mobile was still a new thing. so most are reluctant to relinquish that prestigious number. however those VIPs love iphones, thus they have to give up 3g and use wifi at home/work, and stay with china mobile.



    if iphone5 can work on china mobile's network, it would be a big sale for apple as those VIPs will dump their existing iphones for a LTE set which can fallback to TD-SCDMA 3g network.



    by the way, i doubt apple will support siri in chinese. its server simply can not handle the load:-)



    You are correct on number portability - however there is none in China on any network and probably never will be as the political interests of China Mobile would prevent it since they operate the homegrown version of the technology. However, at least in Beijing, China Mobile aggressively markets the existing iPhone as they have a ubiquitous wifi network there with an inexpensive citywide wifi package that obviates the need for 3G compatibility on the iPhone.



    As to siri, it most certainly is coming to China but the big question is how good it will be as the Chinese language is very difficult to interpret due to the important use of intonations word (the 4 tones or accents) with each tone giving it a different meaning to the same word.
  • Reply 22 of 26
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by FreeRange View Post


    However, at least in Beijing, China Mobile aggressively markets the existing iPhone as they have a ubiquitous wifi network there with an inexpensive citywide wifi package that obviates the need for 3G compatibility on the iPhone.



    I seem to recall that 1% of subscribers are using an iPhone despite not officially sold and only working on their '2G' network.



    Quote:

    As to siri, it most certainly is coming to China but the big question is how good it will be as the Chinese language is very difficult to interpret due to the important use of intonations word (the 4 tones or accents) with each tone giving it a different meaning to the same word.



    What about regional dialects for Nuance and regional variances in meaning for the same spoken word for the natural language understanding? How much of an issue is that for Mandarin in China?
  • Reply 23 of 26
    aiaaia Posts: 181member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post


    What about regional dialects for Nuance and regional variances in meaning for the same spoken word for the natural language understanding? How much of an issue is that for Mandarin in China?



    I would think that this would be a big a challenge. Even speakers of the "common" Mandarin dialect will have different accents depending on where they're originally from.
  • Reply 24 of 26
    aiaaia Posts: 181member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anakin1992 View Post


    china mobile actually has many iphones on its network. of course they only support 2g. i heard, but can not confirm, that the main reason ppl uses iphone on china mobile network is that china unicom, the only iphone dealer in china, does not support transferring china mobile phone number over. so any one using iphone on china unicom has to use a new mobile phone number.



    You are correct - there is no number portability in China. And there probably won't be for a long time.
  • Reply 25 of 26
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by sessamoid View Post


    Actually, I think all 3 carriers are significantly owned by the government.



    Yup. True, in fact, of most Chinese companies. Directly or indirectly.
  • Reply 26 of 26
    tunetune Posts: 91member
    Iphone is going huge in China.
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