Apple CEO Tim Cook has put in an appearance at a Chinese games tournament and local Apple Store. The rest of his itinerary isn’t yet known, though it’s likely he will be attending an international political and economic forum hosted by the Chinese government.
The visit comes at a time when Apple has been caught in the cross-fire of diplomatic tension between US and Chinese governments – and Cook also managed to get caught up in a minor photo battle of his own …
Chinese games tournament
Honor of Kings and variant Arena of Valor has been cited as the highest-grossing mobile game of all time, with well over 100M daily active users.
Honor of Kings is a multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) game in which the player controls a character with unique abilities to kill non-player characters and opponents to gain experience points (XP) and gold. With experience points, players can unlock their characters’ abilities or further augment the power of their existing abilities. Gold can be used to purchase items at the shop to change specific attributes of the character depending on the item bought.
To win a game, players need to knock down the enemy’s defensive structures, called turrets. Victory is achieved by destroying the opponent’s base crystal, located within the enemy team’s base.
Bloomberg reports on Cook’s visit.
Cook showed up at a Tencent gaming tournament in China, endorsing one of the biggest earners on the app store as uncertainty persists about the US company’s top overseas market.
The chief executive officer waved and made brief remarks to shoppers and staff during a surprise visit to Apple’s Taikoo Li store in the southwestern metropolis of Chengdu, according to a brief video posted on the social media platform Weibo. Cook thanked gamers who were vying for the top prize in Honor of Kings
Cook’s visit coincides with the annual Belt and Road forum – an international event designed to foster political and economic cooperation with other countries and multinationals.
Inadvertent iPhone 15 photo battle
The site says that Cook found himself at the center of a photo battle, after posting a night shot taken with the iPhone 15 Pro Max.
The CEO put up a photo of Chengdu’s nightscape he said was taken with an iPhone 15 Pro Max — the top of the range model. His feed was then flooded with complaints about the poor quality of the snapshot, as well as comparisons to pictures produced by the Mate 60 and other local devices.
Apple caught in diplomatic cross-fire
Cook’s visit comes at a time when the relationship between American and Chinese governments is strained by US sanctions on chip tech – with Apple caught in the middle.
China has hit back by trying to hurt iPhone sales in the country. There was initially talk of a ban on government employees using iPhones. China denied this, but muttered vaguely about unspecified “security incidents” with the devices. The US government called this an “inappropriate retaliation.”
China also threatened to ban major apps like X and Instagram when Apple failed to comply with a new law, which the company reluctantly did at a later date.
The chip sanctions have made it harder for local brands like Huawei to compete with iPhones. China hasn’t been able to buy US-made 5G chips, and wasn’t believed to have the ability to make its own. That led to raised eyebrows when Huawei launched a new 5G phone after the sanctions were fully in place, leading to suggestions of either sanctions-busting or industrial espionage.
Related or not, Chinese sales of iPhone 15 models are reportedly down on last year’s iPhone 14 numbers, and Cook will doubtless be wanting to play whatever part he can in smoothing over relationships.
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