Last Wednesday I posted an article about iPhone sales in China. There is no official sales channel, as Apple has not closed a deal with any of the major telecom carriers in that country.
That has not stopped Chinese users from buying and using unlocked iPhones, as this Wired article describes. The iPhone has become the new status symbol for wealthy, urban Chinese.
Of course, the iPhone is manufactured in China. It’s not surprising that units built for export to Europe and North America have been imported back into China, especially when some Chinese users want an iPhone so badly that they will pay a premium.
How bad(ly) do you want that iPhone?
Without the carrier’s support, the iPhone is more limited. Chinese customers can make and receive voice calls. Users can surf the Internet on a WiFi connection. Songs can be synced to the device.
Unfortunately, text messaging doesn’t work well. Users have to memorize the recipient’s number and retype it into the To: field on every message. That takes a lot of the fun out of text messaging.
Data connections over GSM probably don’t work, either. That means that the iPhone’s push email features are unavailable unless the phone has a WiFi connection.
Visual voicemail is unavailable, as that requires the carrier’s assistance.
At any point, Apple could send a software update via iTunes that would break or cripple these unlocked iPhones, of course.
