China Telecom May Launch iPhone 4S by Late February

Why? It's an inconvenient truth so that we can all have our precious gadgets. As long as I've got the cash, who cares about the human rights toll, right? :apple:

The Foxcon employees are much much more politically empowered by their comparatively high wage manufacturing jobs than they would be if they had remained subsistence level farmers. Remember, these guys live under a communist dictatorship. China's continued focus on capitalist successes, like Foxcon, is actually bringing greater and greater political freedom to that country. The communist party remains the sole political power, but they have to make freedom concessions to the capitalists in order to continue to feed the economic expansion.

If you want to feel sorry for anyone in China, feel sorry for the 100s of millions of impoverished peasants. Don't cry for the Foxcon employees, they are far from the bottom of the economic food chain in China.

I think iPhone 4S sales in China will improve if and when Siri supports Mandarin and Cantonese. So far, the Siri beta supports 3 English accents, French, and German.

And, come to think of it, I think iPhone 4S sales would improve if Siri supported Spanish, German, Portuguese, Russian, Italian, etc. (And the different accents of some of those languages. Ever hear Swiss German being spoken?)

All I can think about is the increased production, and that additional stress on FoxConn employees. It makes me sad :(


#StandTall

It would be nice to have an iPhone production article without having to drag this topic in every single time.

Perhaps we should take this discussion to current front page article about how desirable Foxcon jobs are in China.

But I have to reply specifically to your suggest that Apple voluntarily pay more to the manufacturing companies for their product. I do not believe that those higher payments would result in a meaningful amount of it trickling down to the factory floor workers. Apple could try to set wage control minimums, but that would be very hard to enforce and the companies might extract those additional wages through another means (higher rent for the on the on campus housing, for example). Also such decision to give away cash would not be in best interest of shareholders, which the Board of Directors and the company Officers have a legal obligation to consider.

China is raising it's minimum wages by huge percentage.


China province raises minimum wage by 23%

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16311751

This will have a huge impact on revenue. . . Apple's fastest growing region and the region's largest carrier . . .

With the size of the Chinese market being so vast, it seems like Apple has tremendous growth potential for the iPhone. They can't even sell into the market right now without scalpers setting up shop and one of the largest networks doesn't even support the iPhone. When those customers become potential customers, how big will the demand be? Could there really be shortages of the 4S all the way into the summer in China?

Also, how much money has Apple left on the table by not being able to satisfy global demand? If Apple had had a perfect crystal ball on iPhone demand three years ago, could they have made investments in manufacturing or made binding pre-orders so that production levels could have been much higher than they are? Or is it possible that there just wouldn't ever have been enough parts and manufacturing capability to make more iPhones than are currently being manufactured?

With Verizon being added, then Sprint and then the big China telecoms, the market for the iPhone keeps growing. Can Apple get the manufacturing at the level where 100% of demand can be satisfied within the first 6 months of sales? They clearly haven't gotten to that level for the 4S. What happens if 5 is truly revolutionary and demand for it is substantially higher than for the 4S?

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It would be nice to have an iPhone production article without having to drag this topic in every single time.

You know that person was being sarcastic, right?

Presumably the CDMA iPhone 4 will also be available on China Telecom. Has the CDMA iPhone 4 been available at any carrier other than Verizon up to now?

While I can appreciate what you are saying, I think the difference is those peasant farmers aren't working in reprehensible conditions to export food to my local market. I also do not believe that slave-like labor conditions somehow advance a capatalist movement in China. Sure, top managers and owners are raking in money hands over fist, but that's identical to the power structure in a communist country anyway. The elite are just a handful but its the masses that have to support this way of life.

Not to mention that Apple maintains an incredible profit margin with the products they sell - almost unheard of for a non-accessory item in the electronics industry. Kicking some of that profit down the supply chain would improve worker conditions - if nothing more than these companies would be able to hire more people to produce these products that spoiled, hipster kids camp out in front of chain stores to buy because they don't need to have a job.

Perhaps we should take this discussion to current front page article about how desirable Foxcon jobs are in China.

But I have to reply specifically to your suggest that Apple voluntarily pay more to the manufacturing companies for their product. I do not believe that those higher payments would result in a meaningful amount of it trickling down to the factory floor workers. Apple could try to set wage control minimums, but that would be very hard to enforce and the companies might extract those additional wages through another means (higher rent for the on the on campus housing, for example). Also such decision to give away cash would not be in best interest of shareholders, which the Board of Directors and the company Officers have a legal obligation to consider.

I am little bit affraid about the quality. Hope the price will be less than before.