China Unicom denies having bought 5M iPhones
By Chris Ziegler 
posted Aug 16th 2009 6:22PM
posted Aug 16th 2009 6:22PM
[Via Unwired View]
posted Aug 16th 2009 6:22PM
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Count the black dots between the iPhones...
ya neat optical illusion, at first i didn't know what you meant.
U sir r brilliant!
That was the first thing I thought of! Unfortunately, the picture mesmerized me and I couldn't post my comment until now.... (Seriously, the illusion does kinda mess with your eyes.)
but more importantly there are 32 iphones. does that mean that unicom bought 5 million iphones in the 32GB flavor?
I'm really slow... please explain.
It's optical illusion, when you move around your eyes over the picture, you should see black dots at the corners of the iPhones.
engadget should award prizes to humorous/cool first posts that aren't spam, don't include 'first', 'ftw', 'iphone','winmo' etc and actually encourage readers to keep scrolling down.
There are unicorns in china buying iphones??
Nope, they are multicorns.
3 cheers for a non flame bait thread
Why would they need to lie about it?
because if they dont, they might have to allow someone else to jump off a building.
Who is they? You meant troll like yourself posting shit? You're not alone apparently! ;)
???
Its obvious :D they get the stock and they sell it in the shops, if you go to hong kong or china you will see people buying the phone with no plan..
its simple. they know that the chinese wont join the plan for the phone OR.. the company wants quick cash, sell the phones and they could get cash to invest on something else. if the phone was paid by monthly payments they might not have enough money for the cash flow.. thats what i think.
they have no concept of app store too, i think.
The decided to go with the superior quality of Nokla instead.
I wouldn't be so smug if I were you, if you have ever been to China, you would know how many nice brand name high-end phones they've got there that you probably have never seen before.
Sure there is a low end market segment where they would buy knock-offs like "Nokla", but many many more people actually have some real nice Nokia/LG/Samsung/Chinese brand smart phones that are never made available in the North American market.
idiscuss:
I have been to China. You greatly exaggerate here. There are a few nice smartphones the US doesn't have that China does. But by and large, what they have is a lot of junk like Meizus. And as you point out there are the even worse knockoff devices.
@why not the LS2LS7
So you have been to China, as a tourist? for a few days? that must make you an expert on everything China, right?
"There are a few nice smartphones the US doesn't have that China does."
There you said it!
"But by and large, what they have is a lot of junk like Meizus."
1. Meizu is junk?
2. "by and large"? That is what I call a gross exaggeration.
3. You must have forgotten that iPhone is made in China.
4. Unlike many other countries, China is playing hard ball with Apple, it is the No.1 Mobile handset market in the world, they have the balls and the market size to say No to Apple. If iPhone is coming to China, it will be on China's terms and schedule.
idiscuss:
I never said I was an expert about everything that happens in China.
'"There are a few nice smartphones the US doesn't have that China does."
There you said it!'
You implied there were a lot of them. I guess now you're saying you meant there are a few?
'"But by and large, what they have is a lot of junk like Meizus."
1. Meizu is junk?
2. "by and large"? That is what I call a gross exaggeration.
3. You must have forgotten that iPhone is made in China.
4. Unlike many other countries, China is playing hard ball with Apple, it is the No.1 Mobile handset market in the world, they have the balls and the market size to say No to Apple. If iPhone is coming to China, it will be on China's terms and schedule.'
1. Yes. They are junk. They're not the worst junk, by far, that'd instead be the aforementioned knockoffs.
2. I don't agree. By and large, it's a very accurate way to characterize the phones that are unique to the Chinese market.
3. I doesn't matter where the iPhone is made, we aren't talking about phones made in China. We aren't even talking just about what phones are available in China. We are talking specifically about phones that are available in China that aren't available in the US, and the iPhone isn't one of them, because it is available in the US.
4. China isn't a company, it's a country. Why are you acting like Apple is negotiating with a country here? Chinese carriers have been reticent to order up the iPhone presumably partially because WiFi wasn't allowed, and with just EDGE the iPhone is annoying to use. 3G deployment was also delayed in China, seemingly because of the same concerns about mobile internet devices that precluded WiFi. All this seems cleared up now and now is a great time for the iPhone to deploy in China. Now perhaps the only real problem left is Apple doesn't seem to have any flexibility about software loads, and Apple's google-oriented apps won't be all that useful in China.
I think by your comments on #3 here that you have somehow gotten your ego mixed up in all this. Specifically it seems like you think I am impuning the ability of Chinese companies to make quality products. I am not doing that at all. As you point out, the iPhone is made in China, and it's FAR from the only quality product to be made there. But none of this manufacturing prowess changes the fact that aside from these good products, Chinese plants make a lot of crap too, and in phones that includes knock offs and low-rent stuff like Meizus.
dude all my feeling about nokia aside explain one thing to me ... how the f*** does your comment relate to the article or the engadget post?
Not to mention that in all fairness Nokia still does not have a device that is truly capable of competing with the iphone. If this whole ordeal about a 5 mil order is true I can tell you that Apple is really headed for the top this time around. It also means that Apple is about to experience the software piracy problem that MS has been dealing with for so long but that is a totally different story. ( not like there already isn't pirated software for the iPhone )
I like your style, Dude
I like reading stories about how china is trying to get what the US already has.
Yeah, right. Keep telling yourself that if that makes you feel good. It is not going to last very long.
China makes the stuff the US has :P.
...cardboard dumplings?
Cardboard dumplings was a hoax; a reporter trying to make a story out of nothing.
bigcow5:
That's not completely clear. The government was the force behind the reports that it was a hoax. However, as this was a major black eye to China (for no good reason), the government is very likely to have dictated the "facts" instead of uncovering them. This, unfortunately, is not one of the things that we'll ever have a clear answer on.
This story is relevant, why?
Because the world is going China in a handbasket. So Engadget is just trying to ease you into the rough transition.
because its apple related!!
Like O M G, we go a day with out a piece of news about apples crap, then the world will end!!
[/end sarcasm]
I would say they got ripped off, people there prefer the knock offs with hand writing recognition and dual sim
iPhone revolution has just begun? No?
No.
I'm sorry - I only came here because I thought the title read, "China Unicorn denies having bought 5M iPhones".
Not much difference between the word Unicorn and Unicom visually, but WOW, what a cooler story it'd make. I'd be all like, "Alright unicorn, where'd you hide them iphones!"
What drugs are you on and where can I get some?
he's on powdered unicorn horn
I'm with you, when ever I see a china unicom story I think of something like this: http://image36.webshots.com/36/1/9/61/2359109610085361957udotfD_fs.jpg
sorry google image search linking issue, http://home-and-garden.webshots.com/photo/2359109610085361957udotfD
Heh.. I first read it as Charlie Unicorn.
maybe theyre talking about a replacement for the iphone's youtube app? bcuz as far as i know youtube is blocked in china..
...and they have YouKu.
That is easy, Mike. There are several localized video sharing there, like Tudou.com, youku.com etc, with mostly Chinese language content.
Twitter is blocked neither !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Maybe it's right to block Twitter. Some months back during the Iranian election protests, someone on whyweprotest.net apparently traced a vast amount of tweets supposedly from the protesters back to Israel and a number of other countries. There are things going on in there that we're not aware of.
China Unicom need the story to get attention. China Mobile has a larger market share than China Unicom.
I read the headline as "having bought 5MP iPhones," then thought it was another post from the Keeping it Real Fake series.
anyone else?
I would bet money that they already put this on the books for the last stock reports before earnings.
The phone can't even Multi-Task except with it's own apps. Pathetic at Best!
I'll take Steve Job's options because he's already beat that once in the courts. I would have hate to be the fall guy for Steve. Must have cost him a LIVER!
so, I guess this marks the inevitable demise of the iphone.
Chinese hackers en mass...have fun.