If this is not bizarre, I don’t know what is. Customers looking to purchase a iPhone 3G in China will soon be able to do so. Just a little catch though, minus the 3G and toss in the omission of WiFi.
China Mobile does not have a 3G network so I understand them asking Apple to disable 3G but going a step further asking to disabling WiFi as well?! That leaves all of the owners of the iPhone 3G (don’t forget to take away that 3G) with a slow 2G data connection. China Mobile might as well sell the iPhone 3G as a very nice paperweight to all of their customers. Exactly why China Mobile would disable WiFi is way beyond me.
Apple ships the iPhone all over the world, so it is highly doubtful that a hardware change would be made simply for China Mobile. So how would these features be disabled? Software… Which means potential customers could still turn to hackers to gain back access to at least WiFi. It would only be a matter of time…
(Via Gizmodo)
Thanks to iPhone developer, forum regular, and troll-slayer extraordinaire cmaier for passing along this gem from McRumors:
Apple has quietly included handwriting recognition for Chinese (Traditional and Simplified) into the latest iPhone Firmware 2.0 beta. When you select Chinese input, you are given the option to use handwriting recognition allowing you to draw characters on the screen with your finger. As you write the character, four possibilities appear on the right side of the screen.
Simplified characters, the official version in Mainland China, is the key to one massive market. Traditional characters, used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, regaining popularity in the South of China, and adapted to form parts of the Japanese and some South East Asian regional/cultural groups, is key to a second.
(Not to mention what implications, if any, this has for on-again/off-again China Mobile discussions…)
Having studied Chinese for a few years, and not having found any handset character recognition I’ve been particularly fond of yet, I’m likewise eager to see what Apple can bring to the table.
What do you think?
