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China Mobile Hits 15 Million Unofficial iPhone Users as Apple Fixes iPhone 4S Signal Issues

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Apr 12, 2001
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China Mobile may be the world's largest carrier with over 650 million customers, but it is not yet an official iPhone carrier, due in part to unique technology used for its 3G network that would so far have forced Apple to build special hardware to be compatible with the carrier.

But that hasn't stopped the carrier from supporting the iPhone for its customers to use on its 2G network, and Tech in Asia now reports on news from Beijing Daily sharing that China Mobile now has 15 million iPhone users. The milestone comes just over four months after the carrier reached 10 million iPhone users.

china_mobile_iphone_promo.jpg



Despite the iPhone's popularity with China Mobile's customers, the device's potential there is undoubtedly barely being tapped, with advances in chip technology and the carrier's network meaning that future iPhones are likely to run on its fastest 4G LTE networks without requiring unique hardware.

Even iPhone 4S users trying to use the device on China Mobile's 2G network have been experiencing difficulties with SIM card activation, but Beijing Daily reports (via The Next Web) that the issue has now been resolved by Apple despite the fact that China Mobile is not an official carrier for the device.
Apple Inc. may release an IOS update specifically for the Chinese mainland in early March to resolve the signal problems plaguing iPhone 4S owners using China Mobile's network.

China Mobile said that Apple had updated the system of all iPhone 4S handsets manufactured after Feb. 8, 2012 to fully support its network, and will offer a software update for previously manufactured iPhone 4S handsets in early March.
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The issue is reportedly related to the handling of two different frequency bands used by China Mobile's 2G GSM network, with iPhone 4S incompatibility with the E frequency band resulting in users being unable to connect to the network in areas served by that frequency band.

Article Link: China Mobile Hits 15 Million Unofficial iPhone Users as Apple Fixes iPhone 4S Signal Issues
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/03/05/china-mobile-hits-15-million-unofficial-iphone-users-as-apple-fixes-iphone-4s-signal-issues/
I'm sure Apple will get around to it right after they finish up on that 14" Macbook Air... :eek: ;)
 
So on a Chinese iPhone, everything is written in Chinese except "App Store" and "Game Center" ???
 
1.336.718.015 people in china,

1336718015 / 15000000 = 89.1....

or 1 out of 90 people own a iPhone 4s... ?

damn
 
JilzVT said:
So on a Chinese iPhone, everything is written in Chinese except "App Store" and "Game Center" ???
Click to expand...

Every iPhone is capable of being changed into other languages. I've used Japanese once myself. It literally transforms the iPhone into one used by a native speaker of the other language, that is, any apps that support that language have their names changed to the name in that language, the names of settings in the settings app all change, etc.
 
Frequencies?

What is the e band frequency and all the other ones China Tel is using. Here in Canada there are other carriers who offer way better deals on cell plans but Apple does not open up the freq. I understand the broadcom chip supports those freq....

This update could prove interesting, if it opens up more markets, especially here. It will make cell companies providers and more easily comparable.
 
Why aren't "App Store" and "Game Center" translated into Chinese as well? I'm genuinely curious.
 
Good thing these 15 million people are supporting their own economy since it is made right there.
 
BobbyRond said:
Those are product names. Product names are never translated...

What I'm wondering is this: 5,000,000 iPhones in 4 months. Here in Holland we are out of stock almost always... I feel left out... :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Yep, there is a reason that the New York Apple stores have a distinctly Asian feel to them during the first few weeks of sales; large numbers of iPhones being bought here and shipped to China to be sold on the Grey Market. But a lot of those added phones are probably used iPhones. Upgrading iPhone 4S users are selling off their used iPhones and I bet a ton of them are ending up in China.

I've always thought China has the potential to be a bigger market for Apple than the U.S. The icon driven design of the iPhone coupled with the abandonment of the innately western physical qwerty keyboard creates an opportunity in Asian markets that I just don't think has been grasped by the largely western financial analysts.
 
Well, in China, the official carrier for iPhone is China Unicom, which runs a WCDMA 3G network (which iPhone supports). But it is a less popular carrier in China. China Mobile is the biggest carrier but it has a strange 3G technology developed by itself (TD-SCDMA).. Although China Mobile's 3G network is not standard, it still managed to maintain a big market share because they have a giant user base and they heavily discounted within-network calls/texts.
 
nickinVictoria said:
What is the e band frequency and all the other ones China Tel is using. Here in Canada there are other carriers who offer way better deals on cell plans but Apple does not open up the freq. I understand the broadcom chip supports those freq....

This update could prove interesting, if it opens up more markets, especially here. It will make cell companies providers and more easily comparable.
Click to expand...

First off, it's not Broadcom. It's Qualcomm for the 4S and Infineon for the 4, 3GS, and 3G.

I'm really quite tired of seeing this question brought up.

While the baseband supports other frequencies, that's not the only thing preventing a phone from working on all bands supported by the baseband chip. There are parts (amps and filters) that are physical parts that need to be there to support those bands.

Adding these parts is not as simple as plopping them on the board, and there is no phone manufacturer who installs these parts on phones and doesn't enable them.

All the iPhones manufactured are identical in hardware across that particular model now. So whatever bands are supported are final. There won't be a software upgrade to magically support the AWS band for these phones because there is no software upgrade that gives you more physical parts.

Other phones which support various bands are the same way too because that's just a fact of life. The Nexus S, for example has two slightly different boards for two slightly different phones. i9020A for AT&T and i9020T for T-mobile. They have different model codes because they have just a few small parts different, which enables them to use 3G on the respective networks.
Likewise, there will never be a software update to take one and turn it into the other.
 
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