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Technology news and Jobs arrow Cornered! arrow Apple’s Chinese iPhone: why no 3G and no Wi-Fi?!
Apple’s Chinese iPhone: why no 3G and no Wi-Fi?! E-mail
by Alex Zaharov-Reutt   
Sunday, 28 September 2008
With no 3G networks, the iPhone has to at least be 2G GSM capable. The lack of any 3G chipset reduces costs to Apple and China Mobile, as would the lack of a Wi-Fi chipset, so cost is one factor, but in the case of Wi-Fi, there is said to be another.

The lack of Wi-Fi is certainly puzzling, given the obvious benefits of being able to go online wherever Wi-Fi networks were available and you had access.

The desire to remove this has been explained by China Mobile not wanting VoIP programs to deprive them of revenue, and if that’s the case, it’s a tough penalty for official iPhone owners and one which seems to make the unlocked import iPhone all the more attractive.

Chinese phone manufacturers have also been busily creating a host of iPhone clones, some running Windows Mobile 6, others running customised operating systems.

One such clone is called the HiPhone. A taxi driver I came across on a recent trip had one, and it was fascinating to see and compare with a real iPhone. The HiPhone was thicker, and as anyone has seen from a HiPhone video on YouTube, the interface looks similar but crude.

The phone performed all its tasks, but clearly without the panache, style, sophistication or speed of a real iPhone. What was surprising was that the iPhone’s multi-touch capability for zooming into and out of photos was available.

While zooming into a photo using finger and thumb brought about a kind of ‘stair-step’ zoom in, it did work, and it’s clear that, over time, these clones will become far more sophisticated.

But the most sophisticated phone has already been available for some time, and easily works in multiple languages, including traditional and simplified Chinese: the iPhone.

This means that the real iPhone, unlocked, imported and as sold in the West, will still be the best iPhone, and the phone any official China Mobile iPhone is truly competing against.

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