Chinese

Eight 'Chinese' stories June 2011 - May 2016

Apple will appeal loss of iPhone trademark rights at China’s highest court

Benjamin Mayo May 5 2016 - 2:46 am PT

In a statement, Apple has said that it will appeal a Chinese trademark ruling which saw the company lose exclusive rights to the iPhone name, allowing other Chinese companies to use the name for leather goods products. Obviously, the iPhone is Apple’s cash cow so the initial ruling was a big blow allowing legal dilution of its most-valuable brand.

Apple will take the appeal to the Supreme People’s court, the highest court in the Chinese law system …

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Rectangular mold appears on Weibo, purportedly used for iPad Pro production

Benjamin Mayo Jan 8 2015 - 8:29 am PT

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This image is circulating today, although you shouldn’t get too excited. The image, posted to Chinese blog Weibo (via Letemsvetem), is labelled iPad Pro and depicts a rectangular manufacturing mold for … something. The only sign that this is an iPad Pro mold is the fact the Weibo page (which has no history with Apple leaks) says so.

With no reference of scale, this could easily be a mold for a current-generation iPad Air. In fact, this could just be a mold for an Android tablet … or something else entirely. There is simply not enough detail to make any conclusions about the picture. What do you think?

An equally sketchy image of an iPad Pro render appeared a few days ago. At least that looks like an iPad with discernible differences (additional speaker grille on the side). The currently-unconfirmed-but-widely-rumored device is expected to be released in the first half of 2015.

Chinese government apparently phishing iCloud account info with man-in-the-middle attack (Update: Apple confirms)

Benjamin Mayo Oct 20 2014 - 6:51 am PT

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Update: Apple is aware of the attack, via CNBC. As expected, Apple’s own servers were not compromised.

Although unconfirmed, GreatFire is reporting that Apple is now the subject of Chinese government hacking attempts. According to the report, the government is using the institutional firewall to redirect traffic directed at iCloud.com to a fake page that resembles the iCloud.com interface almost perfectly.

Like other phishing attacks, this page is pretending to be Apple’s portal but instead intercepts entered usernames and passwords for other means. Although some browsers in China are set up to warn users about these kind of man-in-the-middle attacks, many don’t and (assumedly) many citizens disregard the warnings as the site appears quite genuine otherwise.

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Desperate Chinese housewives on trial for iPad and iPhone-smuggling

Jordan Kahn Nov 16 2012 - 7:07 am PT

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The grey market for iPhones in China is no secret, with thousands of the devices smuggled from places like Hong Kong and the U.S. back into Mainland China for sale by scalpers. Today, Reuters reported that 26 suppliers of one of China’s largest online grey market iPhone dealers, Lanyou Shuma.com, are currently on trial in a Shenzhen court. According to local reports, many of the suppliers accused in the case are “described as housewives who frequently travel to Hong Kong.” Citing various local newspapers, Reuters said the housewives were usually paid 20 Yuan to 30 Yuan for each phone smuggled back to China, with 25 of the defendants accused of smuggling both iPads and iPhones:

On Wednesday, 26 suppliers of Lanyou Shuma.com were tried in a Shenzhen court as part of five rings that smuggled more than 162,000 mobile phones worth over 500 million yuan ($80 million) from Hong Kong over the past two years, the Beijing News said.

Half of the suspects are described as housewives who frequently travel to Hong Kong, according to another newspaper, the Southern Metropolis Daily, adding that they were paid 20 to 30 yuan in commission for each phone they brought back to the mainland

The Lanyou Shuma.com digital store, once one of the largest on China’s Taobao Marketplace, was forced to close in April by Taobao after Hong Kong authorities launched an investigation on possible smuggling of the iPhone 4S, the Beijing News said.

Sparrow to charge for push notifications with yearly subscriptions

Jordan Kahn May 14 2012 - 7:00 am PT

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The last we heard, iOS email client Sparrow said push notifications were coming “with or without” Apple. Apple has decided not to extend the privilege of VOIP apps to Sparrow, which, due to latency issues, are allowed to keep an open network connection in the background for processes like notifications. The alternative forces non-VOIP, third-party apps—such as Sparrow– to send push notifications from its own servers. The company initially said it would not implement push notifications due to security and cost concerns, but confirmed in a blog post today, while announcing Sparrow v1.2, that it will soon offer push through a yearly subscription:

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Apple reportedly assembled anti-counterfeit team in 2008 to combat fakes

Jake Smith Aug 29 2011 - 7:31 pm PT

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CNN is reporting that recent Wikileaks cables have revealed that Apple assembled an anti-counterfeit team in 2008 to combat counterfeited iPhones and iPod touches. Apple’s early plans to attack Chinese counterfeits were to go after retailers and street vendors, work with police to raid manufacturing facilities, and to go after online retailers.

The technology giant eventually organized a team in March 2008 to curtail the explosion of knockoff iPods and iPhones, according to an electronic memo from the Beijing embassy dated September 2008.

Counterfeiting Apple products has been a huge issue in recent years. Most recently, fake Apple stores have opened up selling almost identical products to Chinese consumers. We attribute the high amount of counterfeit sales to the scarce availability of stores in this region. As of now Apple only has 4 stores, but a new Hong Kong store is on its way — which we’ve heard is coming along nicely.

Apple’s efforts to combat counterfeits has slowed down recently, as more and more appear due to the upcoming iPhone 5. Apple reportedly isn’t getting any help from the Chinese government either, as CNN notes after the break:

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iOS 5 beta 2 adds additional support for Chinese email services

Jun 25 2011 - 5:57 pm PT

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iOS 5 includes support for China’s QQ, 163.com, and 126.com email services – in the same way that the mobile operating system for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch supports services like MobileMe and GMail. As Apple attempts to make a bigger impact on the Chinese market, adding new support for mainstream Chinese services is critical. Apple COO Tim Cook was recently spotted meeting with China Mobile executives ahead of a rumored deal to bring the iPhone to the world’s largest carrier.
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