“Clearly Apple has got under the skin of Chinese authorities,” Craig Stephen writes for MarketWatch. “After an exposé on the state broadcaster CCTV, came an editorial from the state mouthpiece the People’s Daily branding it greedy and incomparably arrogant. The latest salvo came in the form of directive for Apple to face ‘strengthened supervision’ from China’s consumer watchdogs.”
“But why exactly has the world’s most popular consumer-products company sent the government of the world’s most populous country into such a tiff? The level of protest seems out of proportion to what is officially just a disagreement over warranty policies,” Stephen writes. “It looks beyond even the long arm of China’s government to push Apple’s evangelical customers into the arms of a local handset maker. However, there is another party that could benefit from Apple being taken down a peg or two. Enter China Mobile , the world’s largest wireless operator, with 710 million subscribers. These two giants have been reportedly locking horns for some months as they seek to agree to terms for Apple to provide next generation iPhones.”
Stephen writes, “China Mobile needs Apple, not just so it can broaden its phone line-up but also to lift the pace of customer upgrades to 3G and 4G networks… It is likely there are a few wireless operators around the world that might nod in agreement that Apple is arrogant and hard to deal with — at least privately. But that’s what happens when you have a product everyone wants. You need the iPhone to be in the game… Most likely, this Apple persecution will be short-lived, and China Mobile will ink an iPhone deal with Apple.”
Read more in the full article here.
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Popularity buffers Apple Inc. from state-run media attacks – March 28, 2013
Apple and China seem made for each other, so why is China attacking Apple? – March 28, 2013
Manufactured Apple ire shows up for real against China’s state-owned monopolies – March 27, 2013
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China wont want Apple die as Foxconn needs Apple to feed its MILLION workers.
CHINA government only wants PEACE stable. That is it . No riot.
…manipulation…
Commies are so passé.
I thought they were ‘bastards’? Ya know, as in, “You Commie Bastard!”…
That too.
That’s the other side of the fence, the inglorious ones.
You forgot “Godless”, as in “Godless Commie Bastards”.
Obama should just have a word with the Chinese government. You know, from one commie to another. But he won’t the gutless fool. He only wants to reach into your pocket and pick you clean through 100% taxes. It’s coming.
Cyprus is just the prelude to more commie interference. Once they take your bank deposits, what China is doing is going to seem like a walk in the park.
Dude relax or we have to shorten your name to just ” Nut”….
I’m with Nut.
Pathetic marxist brain-dead lemming blah blah blah!!! zombies blah liars statist assholes blah blah!!!!! socialist blah blah! card-carrying communists anti-family un-American scum blah blah!!!! … (choke cough spit drool)
That is exactly the kind of drivel I expect from a testicle attached to the biggest fool in the world.
Nut, you really are fucking ignorant. Cyprus has NOTHING to do with ‘Commie’ influence, as you put it, and everything to do with the EU stealing money from ordinary people’s bank accounts because of a failure in the whole banking system as a result of Germany and France insisting on a ‘one-size-fits-all’ single currency, the Euro; which was doomed to fail from the word go. Typical American know-nothing outside of the continental US. Either get some facts about what’s really going on, or shut the fuck up.
Yes, there are lots of Russians with large amounts of money stashed in Cyprus’s banks, but it’s the Euro that’s the problem.
The Germans could walk away from the Euro anytime, why? they still make things! They have not sold out like the UK and the US, bank derivatives are nebulous like the hype over cloud computing.
If this is true , Foxconn will also be kicked out of china coz its boss is Taiwanese ? And china government will help local to become the second Foxconn ?
Come on , any more bullshit coming ?
I posted on a previous story about this, but it bears repeating here:
The Chinese government is pressuring Apple to make it’s devices – iPads & iPhones primarily – more ‘surveillance friendly’. Apple, apparently, has been resisting. You can surmise this from the fact that the PRC government is making such overblown noises vis a vis warranty issues. This is a] a way for the government to come across as in the people’s corner, and b] a more convenient public rational for denying Apple more access to their markets IF Apple doesn’t knuckle under.
Apple, for it’s part, is not going to reveal the true reason for getting on the government’s shit list, just in case they make a purely business decision & comply.
Apple is in a bad spot here. China is theirs for the taking, in terms of the popularity of their goods already (again, PRC government is being very sly in besmirching Apple’s good name this way … blunts a mass uprising by those who would otherwise be clamoring for these devices). So for Apple to do the right thing & keep the government’s hands out of their devices (& their customers safe from unwarranted snooping), the lost opportunity costs would be enormous. On the other hand, to try & placate the PRC government … well, lets just say that once you decide to share your bed with a poisonous snake you can expect to get bit – often & badly.
Apple could use a lot of help here, but because of the way they’ve kept the profile so low on it, I’m not sure how many would believe them, or be sympathetic if they did. It’s been going on so long now that it’s clear Apple is trying to square the circle as best they can, but that’s like saying ‘We tried to make the poison taste really, really good’.