@helldiver: Indeed they are. They're made by Foxconn. And everything Apple ships out of Shanghai. Zunes ship out of Zhuhai to Shenzhen.

OMG! Ponies!

Aren't all IPhones made in China anyway?

helldiver

@Joseph: nice!

elvisml2

My question is... why would any buy an Iphone in China now?

Oh wait.. that's exactly what the China Gov wants.

KLanD

I wonder how long it would take them to do something to reactivate the Wifi. I am not sure the extend of what Jailbreak can do, but I doubt Apple would make a whole new line of iPhone's just for China with the actual Wifi chipset taken out, so it would probably still be there. Just running a different firmware.

VulnoX

@BEERxTaco: there = their

BEERxTaco

They sure like to do things there own way...

BEERxTaco

the lack of 3G and Wifi could be to keep chinese citizens from Googling tiananmen square.

too soon? really?

se.beercan

The hobbling of these features will make the iPhone 3G inferior to even its Chinese made knock-offs.

General Halfshaftery

An almost-useless shiny brick? That must be the Brick everyone is rumoring about.

hanswurst0815

Billions on the Olympics? Check. Tainted food/toy exports? Check. iBrick? Check.

DashTheHand

I guess we know what that brick rumor was about, then...

NcSchu

Hah, it would be funny if it had copy/paste though!

Joseph

Following comments may suggest that it's already a useless shiny brick. It's just too obvious.

Oh China, you so craaazeh.

Kaiser-Machead

The Wifi thing is probably because Chinese government wants a different standard for wireless network.

alanine

i would imagine it's more of a censorship thing than anything else. the Chinese government doesn't want such or powerful computing device, being able to hop from wifi network to wifi network without government control.

TonyRockyHorror

@se.beercan: Aloha Mr. Hand

OMG! Ponies!

@OMG! Ponies!: thank you mr. spicolli, i'm going to put your name on the board for that one.

se.beercan

@Drummer_Boy: No it's not.

You can still stab someone with a broken pencil.

OMG! Ponies!

This is like a broken pencil.

Drummer_Boy

"...it simply makes the iPhone an almost-useless shiny brick." -- So are you saying mobile phones and iPods are almost-useless, or that the combination of the two in one device becomes almost-useless, kind of the way fruitcake is not nearly as good as fruit or cake?

sumocat

@alanine: They would be stupid enough to do that wouldn't they? I can see it now....The Great Chinese Wireless experience! Slow and incompatible, just how governments like it!

SgtToastie

China's electronic shops are full of unlocked "imported" iphones anyway, I don't think anyone there will even bother looking at the "official" one...

shinchan

Their "big brother" program is still behind the times; they need to limit data rates the same as the US needed to limit dial-up to in stages from 28k - 56k back in the early 90's. Once the NSA computing power cought up, the government lifted the caps. That is when ISP's allowed consumer ISDN (ASDL) and cable internet.

The China government will increase their computing power then the cap will be lifted.

pcyoung

If they have no 3G net in China why should they sell 3G Phones? No-wifi is a little silly though

GianinaCatilina

Who ever say china has no 3g is a retard! china has 3G, you gotta include HK, not like the phone in china aren't used in HK, and seriously, america is most behind in phone technology use here, the last time i go to china, people are doing video conference on their cellphone. check your source, it's wrong.

OprahNanger

@VulnoX: The wifi could be integrated into another chip or something, but you could always mod the firmware AND remove the antenna. That would make re-enabling it rather difficult.

ludwigk

Please keep in mind the source! South China Morning Post? Facts of the matter are: a)China has had 3G for quite a while now, and b) WiFi IS available, with quite a few major cities already planning to go for complete WiFi coverage city-wide.
The story was in all probability written by a journalist who dropped his iPhone into his beer during a bender in Wanchai (HK's red-light district), and decided to blame the government after his phone wouldn't work properly the next day when he sobered up!

professor

Power of the people indeed...

Chromeo

GIven my previous experience with China Mobile phones (I got a Moto RIZR off eBay that turned out to be from CM), I can't say I'm surprised. That phone was seriously locked down - no bluetooth other than headsets, no MPT, no font choices. They even disabled the bootloader, preventing anyone from flashing the device with US firmware.

Now will Apple agree to this? That's a different question entirely...

rekoil

A people like Communisms because...? Stupid government (if you call it that) and poor people for living a lie.

SakhiGolden

Well, dunno why they lock it, but anyway, most of the iPhones users i meet have it only to show off, make calls and stroke it in front of people.
Asian "new rich" people love the iPhone, because it shows their money. Apart from that, it can even make call, which is enough for most of them.

fargi

haha! i was going to say the same thing!

jgeezy

@fargi: Who says they will use it for voice calls. In Asia (in general) texting rules! I saw my niece from Hongkong texting while snoring. That's pure talent!

rjbuddyboi

3G and WiFi open the posibility of VoiP.
China bans Skype, yet people use it. But not everyone has PC's....
Do the math...

aec007

No Wi-Fi because there isn't any fucking Wi-Fi in China. Believe me I know.

unkpku is think that new comments are like iPhone 3G pre 2.1, yeah it sucks

It doesn't matter because China blocks almost the entire internet so there's not much for them to see anyway. Although it would be hard to use the gps on EDGE but then again the government probably doesn't want you to know where you are.

gamecrazychris

@OprahNanger: To clarify, he never said that China didn't have a 3G network. He said that China Mobile, the Chinese carrier of the iPhone didn't have a 3G network. Do yourself a favor and think before you call other people a retard. When they're right and you're wrong, doesn't that just make you look...to put it into words that you should be able to fairly comprehend, retarded?

Katoejoe

@OprahNanger:
All Look Same

darex

Thank you to all the HK'ers reminding us that HK is part of China. There is no 3G network in *mainland* China. Yes, HK has 3G ... they already sell the iPhone 3G there. This article is about *mainland* China, where TD-SCDMA is still in limited trials. The ban on wi-fi in mobile phones is not because of censorship or competing standards, but because of one purely capitalist reason: money. China Mobile is extremely afraid of competition from VoIP. Officially, there are no wi-fi capable mobile phones available in mainland China (eg: Dopod S1 / HTC Touch). Unofficially, the store will flash whatever firmware you want when you buy the phone. Or, you can just buy a Hong Kong import or one of hundreds of no-name phones that are somehow unrestricted. I always find it hilarious when Americans comment on the mobile phone situation in China, as if a system where you're locked into a contract, pay outrageous fees for something as simple as SMS, and even pay for incoming calls(?!) is any better than our government-monopoly / pirate-hacker balance.

GiorgettaCougar

unlikely, but i wonder if they're concerned about the possibility of the iphone being used to identify gps coordinates for wireless networks.

VenitaPolyhymnia

@NcSchu: nice

jozen

@GiorgettaCougar: Nice to see an accurate description of the situation for once. It doesn't amaze me, however, that the Chinese government doesn't officially allow wi-fi phones at all--it would make dissemination of sensitive information much easier, especially when crises like protests or riots break out, which are happening more and more every year.

genghiskhan

I'm an American living in China. A coupla cents worth: 1) Wifi is widely available here in most cities at the usual places (bars, restaurants, hotels, coffeeshops). The government censorship of the internet is annoying, but hardly all-encompassing and is easily bypassed if you're slightly tech savvy (anonymizers, VPN, etc.). Most of the websites you'd usually visit are also available here (news, porn, whatever) and it's not hard to find ways to access the blocked sites. It's unlikely that censorship has any connection to the decision to not have wifi capability on the iPhone here. 2) I know many people, Chinese and foreigners, who have bootleg iPhones which are able to use wifi to access the internet. 3) I use ChinaMobile with my Sony Ericsson M608c (m600 in US, I think) and am able to connect to the internet with it almost anywhere in the country (I travel around a lot here). Of course the connection is slower than wifi, and I'm not saying it's a good idea. I'm just assuming that ChinaMobile doesn't want the iPhone to have wifi so that users will have to pay to access the internet the way I do. 4) I won't buy an iPhone, regardless, because I need to swap batteries whenever power is low and because I want to use removable media storage (also my 2-year-old SE phone is an indestructible SOB). Do like that HTC Touch Pro, though...

HarmonyNuggletron

I will tell you why there's no wifi in the iphone, because nobody can use it! Wifi only seems to work for me at 10% of the wifi hotspots at starbucks or hotels with my iphone or macbook air when i visit china. I know a few in shenzhen that work and that's it. I think it's an apple product incompatibility.

AimeeEpicasta

Betchu China will still buy it.

DJTripleRRR

:O@OMG! Ponies!: so you think they might actually get some better features than us?

Elasticity

:O

Elasticity