Apple and China Mobile have not yet finalized a deal that will allow the world’s largest carrier to sell the iPhone, reports Reuters. Earlier in December, a report from The Wall Street Journal suggested that negotiations were all but complete, with the two companies on track for a release sometime around December 18, the expected date for the carrier’s 4G launch.
A China Mobile store promoting Apple products last week
While China Mobile did launch its 4G network earlier today, bringing 4G speeds to its more than 700 million customers, there has been no sign of an iPhone deal.
Xi Guohua, the chairman of the world’s largest mobile phone carrier, said on Wednesday morning that his company had no announcement to make on any deal to carry Apple’s smartphones. Xi was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a conference in Guangzhou, a southern city of China.
Multiple signs of an approaching deal between the two companies have popped up during the final months of 2013, with Apple receiving licensing needed to operate on China Mobile’s TD-LTE standard in September and releasing the iPhone 5s and the iPhone 5c with TD-LTE support.
Though a deal has not been struck, it is clearly in the final stages as China Mobile has been accepting iPhone pre-orders and heavily promoting both the iPad and the iPhone in stores across China.
China Mobile is expected to bring millions of new customers to Apple, significantly increasing the company's presence in China. While Apple currently has deals with smaller carriers China Unicom and China Telecom, both carriers combined have fewer subscribers than China Mobile.
Apple's stock price is currently down nearly 1.8 percent following the lack of a deal announcement.
Monday October 27, 2025 7:55 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
The upcoming iOS 26.1 update includes a handful of new features and changes for iPhones, including a toggle for changing the appearance of the Liquid Glass design, "slide to stop" for alarms in the Clock app, and more.
Below, we outline key details about iOS 26.1.
Release Date
Given that Apple has yet to seed an iOS 26.1 Release Candidate, which is typically the final beta version, the...
Monday October 27, 2025 4:51 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple is designing an updated version of the Apple TV 4K, and rumors suggest that it could come out sometime in the next couple of months. We're not expecting a major overhaul with design changes, but even a simple chip upgrade will bring major improvements to Apple's set-top box.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos.
We've rounded up all the latest Apple TV rumors.
...
Wednesday October 29, 2025 4:22 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple is about to drop iOS 26.1, the first major point release since iOS 26 was rolled out in September, and there are at least six notable changes and improvements to look forward to. We've rounded them up below.
Apple has already provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of iOS 26.1, which means Apple will likely roll out the update to all compatible...
Monday October 27, 2025 9:15 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Apple this month refreshed the 14-inch MacBook Pro base model with its new M5 chip, and higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips are expected to follow in early 2026. However, these machines will represent the final update to the current design, with Apple reportedly developing a completely new version of the MacBook Pro packed with next-generation hardware...
Tuesday October 28, 2025 1:07 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate versions of upcoming iOS 26.1, iPadOS 26.1, macOS Tahoe 26.1, tvOS 26.1, watchOS 26.1, and visionOS 26.1 updates for testing purposes. The RCs betas come a week after Apple released the fourth betas.
The new betas can be downloaded from the Settings app on a compatible device by going to General > Software...
Friday October 24, 2025 2:30 pm PDT by Juli Clover
In the fourth iOS 26.1 beta, Apple added a "Tinted" option that reduces the translucency of Liquid Glass for those who prefer a more opaque look. I saw some comments wondering whether the setting might preserve battery life, so I thought I'd do some testing.
Test Settings
I did four separate tests using the iPhone 17 Pro Max, and I kept the parameters as similar as possible. Here are the...
Monday October 27, 2025 7:41 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
You will "soon" be able to add a digital version of your U.S. passport to your iPhone, according to Jennifer Bailey, vice president of Apple Pay and Apple Wallet.
Bailey reiterated that the feature is coming soon during her keynote at the Money20/20 USA conference in Las Vegas on Sunday.
On its iOS 26 page, Apple says the delayed feature will be "coming later this year."
Apple's...
Monday October 27, 2025 4:01 pm PDT by Juli Clover
For the 10th anniversary iPhone that came out in 2017, Apple introduced the iPhone X with Face ID, notch, and minimized bezels, providing more display space than ever before. The 20th iPhone anniversary is approaching and Apple wants to take the iPhone X design even further.
We're two years away from the 2027 iPhone, but it's tough for Apple to keep major changes under wraps. We've rounded...
Tuesday October 28, 2025 1:21 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today provided developers and public beta testers with the release candidate version of macOS Tahoe 26.1, which means the update will likely see a public launch next week.
The release candidate includes notes on what's in the update, so we have a full picture of the new features that Apple has included.
macOS Tahoe 26.1 adds AutoMix support over AirPlay, improved FaceTime audio...
Doing business with China is usually not a great deal.
We give them our know how and technology and they give us cheat labor. I think we get the short end of the deal.
Without the deal with China, those poor people in the US will be living in the hell, not be able to afford anything. Thank China so that 95% people in the US can afford our computers, cellphones, cloths, furniture, dishes, etc...
The headline suggests an editorial opinion. If you want to be objective, what do you think about "Apple, China Mobile Negotiations Continue for iPhone Deal"?
If any expectation of a deal was set, my understanding is that timeframe was set by a news organization -- not the parties involved.
Also, the Apple stock price dip may reflect a host of other issues besides the China Mobile deal. While there may be a correlation, there's no verifiable indication of causation. I'd recommend, "Apple's stock price is currently down nearly 1.8 percent."
To be fair, the stock recently shot up (to just over $570) partly on the news that a China Mobile deal was so close, with a date of around today given. So this is just setting it back to how it was before. However, if the deal is imminent, why go back so far? :confused: It is confusing to me too. It makes some sense, but still not really logical.
So Wall Street got excited earlier this month over a deal that was never announced and stock went up 10%?
