The iPhone in Asia
By the time Apple Inc. releases the iPhone in Asia in 2008, they should have ironed out the kinks with the major Asian carriers, worked out some of the bugs in the first gen iPhone product and be in prime position to start making some decent money in the Chinese market. This is so exciting. I’m starting to save my money for the iPhone, today.
Though it is impossible to verify[ied] at the moment, reports from the Macworld show floor are claiming that users will not be able to install applications on the iPhone. If this is true, I’ll bet that it is because the deal with Cingular means that the iPhone will be crippled, just as so many other mobile phones’ features are crippled in the US by their exclusive carrier, whether it be Cingular, Verizon, T-Mobile, etc.
Fortunately, I don’t live in America. I live in Asia, and Asian carriers don’t cripple phones like their dullwitted American counterparts do. Even if the American iPhone can’t install apps, perhaps the European and Asian models will be able to.
Similarly, the iPhone will make use of Cingular’s EDGE network. Now, I know almost nothing about mobile phone technology, but I do know a thing or two about Apple, and Apple is not one to shy away from cutting edge technology. And apparently EDGE is not the cutting edge; it’s not 3G, the next generation of mobile internet. Others have pointed out that 3G reduces battery life much faster than EDGE and Apple may have left it out for this reason. Anyway, even if 3G is not available for American iPhones, perhaps European and Asian iPhones will include it. [Update: Gizmodo recalls Phil Schiller possibly saying CDMA in Japan. What does that mean exactly? Did Schiller mean 2G CDMA or 3G W-CDMA?]
Finally, I think that Apple now has a lot more potential to sell product in the Chinese market. China’s mobile phone market is the world’s largest, and the Chinese I know love fashionable mobile phones like the Motorola RAZR. However, smart phones like the Treo and Blackberry haven’t caught on here (could you even get one if you tried?), but I think that is mostly because they don’t offer features that interest Chinese users that less expensive “dumb” phones don’t already have. The iPhone, on the other hand, will be offering features that I think will interest Chinese users a great deal, such as chat, music and video. In short, I think that the iPhone will be an iOpener here.
January 11, 2007 at 12:48 pm
[...] APPLE – The iPhone in Asia ” I think that Apple now has a lot more potential to sell product in the Chinese market. China’s mobile phone market is the world’s largest, and the Chinese I know love fashionable mobile phones like the Motorola RAZR. However, smart phones like the T [...]
January 12, 2007 at 4:33 am
[...] in limbo based on visa options – we have to wait until Q4 2007 for an European iPhone and until 2008 for an iPhone in Asia. And where does Canada lie in all this? Certainly, Canada is NOT the United States but then again, [...]
January 15, 2007 at 3:46 pm
I am SO looking forward to the iPhone here — that said:
- My understanding of the “no third-party apps” rule is that it’ll be hardwired, since the phone will (a) be running not on an Intel processor but rather one of the ARM family, meaning that (b) it won’t actually be running OS X, despite Apple’s claims to the contrary. (I’m sure that within a few days of the iPhone’s release, someone will figure out a way to shoehorn Linux onto it, but I don’t really want third-party apps that bad.) I think that for Apple, the limitation is less a carrier-based restriction than it is an attempt to ensure consistency of experience.
(This is coming from a Slashdot article that may have since been contradicted, but basically, since the Darwin core of OS X does not run on the ARM, it won’t be possible for OS X itself to run on the ARM processors, and if Apple were porting Darwin to the processors, they’d have to be doing it in the open because of the Darwin open-source license.)
- I have to say, the onscreen keyboard doesn’t do a whole lot for me. Maybe my mind will change after using it, but I just can’t see myself enjoying an onscreen soft keyboard in English, much less Chinese. Not sure how they’ll make it work.
- Network technology-wise, China’s got a few competing 3G standards, but if Apple does decide to introduce a 3G version of its phone for sale outside the US, they’ll probably pick something relatively standard like WCDMA. There’s something of a battle going on among Chinese telecoms over who’ll get the license to what 3G technology (or possibly this has already been resolved — I’m out of date on this one): nobody wants TD-SCDMA, which is the garbage sui generis standard developed in China.
- Battery life — battery everything — strikes me as a big issue: no replaceable battery? That’s going to go over badly with users and vendors, especially here, and especially if the batteries have the same miserable life expectancy that the iPod batteries do. 5 hours of talk time is not enough for most people — much less when that starts dwindling to 3 and 2 hours of talk time within 6 months of purchase. Of course, China being China, a whole underground sawbones industry would probably spring up to replace batteries illegally — but where are people going to get these batteries? Will they be falling off the back of trucks leaving the Foxconn plants (or whoever’s manufacturing these things)? Will the #3 Amalgamated Evil Chemicals Factory in Dongguan start producing knockoff batteries?
January 19, 2007 at 10:24 pm
- Great points, Brendan. Here’s to hoping for cheap knockoff replacement batteries from Amalgamated Evil #3. Actually, I could do with one for my iBook G4 right now
- I just finished reading about why The iPhone is not for China at Silicon Hutong. The gist of the post is that since Apple isn’t serious about the China market Apple will probably not do what it would take to get the iPhone to sell in China. I highly recommend reading it.
- People are definitely interested in the iPhone in Asia. I’ve seen a nice spike in traffic since writing this post from people googling for “iPhone Asia.” A good lesson for me that writing about the latest buzz can generate a lot of traffic. Too bad this is just a spike and not a new plateau
September 8, 2007 at 3:46 am
there is not many compatable software with iphones because the phones’ operating system is from APPLE MAC OS. if the phones were using Windows Mobile or Symbian, then there would have been another stories.
September 8, 2007 at 7:58 am
There is, in fact, no compatible software with iPhones. iPhone is a closed platform.
October 4, 2007 at 2:24 am
There is a lot of third party software for the iPhone. Apple is just trying hard to lock out all such applications.
November 1, 2007 at 3:22 am
I am not quite sure about the iphone, but i think it is quite interesting. My manager is currently using it, but the unlocked version. I want to buy one, but not unlocked version, the full version that can be used in my country; Cambodia.
Can anyone tell me when can I buy the full version in my country.