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Apple Making Big Push to Attract Chinese App Developers

Friday June 6, 2014 8:41 am PDT by Eric Slivka
China has become a major focus for Apple in recent years, with the company seeing tremendous opportunities for growth in the region and working to build out China-specific software features to help attract users. These features occasionally also receive brief stage time at Apple's media events, as with iOS 8 at this week's Worldwide Developers Conference, highlighting the country's importance in Apple's eyes.

ios_8_china_improvements
Apple software chief Craig Federighi highlighting China-specific improvements in iOS 8

Apple is also working hard to attract Chinese app developers to its ecosystem, increasing its staff in the country and streamlining the customer experience, according to Bloomberg.
Since 2011, Apple has steadily beefed up its developer-relations team in China so new apps can be approved in the country, and it has opened a new office in downtown Beijing where the China App Store is operated. Apple has also smoothed the process for how customers buy apps in China, and built new Chinese-language-specific software to benefit developers.
The report highlights Apple's fifth-place market position for smartphones in China as motivation for Apple's initiative. Apple's ecosystem in China has also been challenged by the fact that many apps designed for Westerners don't translate well to the Chinese audience, with many developers not even making their apps available in the country. As a result, Apple's Chinese App Store includes just 150,000 applications, far fewer than the over one million apps available in the U.S. store.
“On a scale of one to 10 in terms of importance in China, it ranks at about 11,” Ramon Llamas, an analyst for IDC who tracks the mobile industry, said of Apple’s app development. “Nobody buys a smartphone just for it to be a phone -- the value of your device goes up with the more applications that you download on to it.”
Apple's efforts to attract more Chinese developers do appear to be paying off, with the country now ranking number two behind the United States in App Store download volume and the number of registered developers in China doubling over the past year. Still, it's clear there is much more potential left in the Chinese market for Apple, and the company is working hard to capture developers and users alike to boost its standing.

[ 49 comments ]


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henryngan2006
60 months ago

Chinese will never develop for Apple, too difficult to make spyware, hackware, and steal personal data with all the App Store restrictions.

I already avoid all food from China, now Apple users have to watch out for other toxic atrocities coming from there in the form of software on our phones. China is a shining example of everything wrong with mankind.


Thanks Apple.


Yea it's really bad. American doesn't make any spyware and NSA protects our privacy so much LOLZ

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If you've ever been to China hong Kong and or taiwan you would know nearly 10/10 people never buy legitimate software even when the storefront has legit software showcased. Apple should understand the mentality of Chinese people the "P" in PROC doesn't stand for people it stands for piracy!


I call ********. China yes Hong Kong Taiwan no. Cultures between Hong Kong, Taiwan and China are very very very different. I'm from Hong Kong and most of my friends don't download pirated apps (well we did a few years ago because we didn't have credit cards but not anymore) and all my relatives purchase apps.

Maybe you should know more about cultures between these three regions before bashing them.
Rating: 7 Votes
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Spetsnazos
61 months ago
Chinese are all about copying each other, so they have plenty of Chinese App Developers...

Copy everything in the current app store into Chinese and call it original! :apple:
Rating: 5 Votes
Avatar
Anti-Lucifer
60 months ago
If you've ever been to China hong Kong and or taiwan you would know nearly 10/10 people never buy legitimate software even when the storefront has legit software showcased. Apple should understand the mentality of Chinese people the "P" in PROC doesn't stand for people it stands for piracy!
Rating: 5 Votes
Avatar
koban4max
60 months ago
apple, why don't you move to china.
Rating: 4 Votes
Avatar
realeric
60 months ago

Apples Chinese mapping service (autonavi) is an absolute pile of crap, so any improvement would be welcome!


So does US mapping; two-year-outdated POIs.
Rating: 4 Votes
Avatar
szw-mapple fan
60 months ago

If you've ever been to China hong Kong and or taiwan you would know nearly 10/10 people never buy legitimate software even when the storefront has legit software showcased. Apple should understand the mentality of Chinese people the "P" in PROC doesn't stand for people it stands for piracy!


Well, obviously you've never been there, since you are sprouting total nonsense.
Rating: 3 Votes
Avatar
iChrist
60 months ago
Chinese will never develop for Apple, too difficult to make spyware, hackware, and steal personal data with all the App Store restrictions.

I already avoid all food from China, now Apple users have to watch out for other toxic atrocities coming from there in the form of software on our phones. China is a shining example of everything wrong with mankind.


Thanks Apple.
Rating: 2 Votes
Avatar
AxoNeuron
60 months ago
I love when I get called a racist for calling China a "third world country". Obviously, you people don't know your (recent) Chinese history do you? :rolleyes:

After all, there was a rather infamous Chinese leader who created his own Three Worlds theory, and he himself labeled China as a third world nation...

Well, their CEO _is_ sometimes called the "Steve Jobs of the East" :)

Everyone "copies" everyone else eventually. Apple itself could be said to now be in the position of copying its competition (like Xiaomi) by having to increase its screen size and customization, and to lower prices on some models.



"Mi" is pronounced "me-ee", not "my". It means "rice".

It's part of the Xiaomi ("Little Rice") company name, and many of their devices have "mi" in their name. E.g. the Hongmi ("Red Rice") phone.

(Of course, "iPad" was hardly an innovative name. Apple just stuck an "i" in front of a common tablet term. That's why it was one of the possible names predicted ahead of time.)

As for the colors, Apple has never made a pastel tablet. Xiaomi was even first with pastel colors on their Mi-2S (there's that "mi" again) phone, which came out almost a half year before the iPhone 5C.

And the Lumia 800 came out a year before that.

You cannot honestly deny that China doesn't have an enormous issue with piracy and cloned devices, can you? After all, if Apple was to court Indian developers there wouldn't be a huge fuss. There's a reason a lot of developers aren't happy when Apple tries to attract Chinese developers...it's because they're afraid of their hard efforts getting copied, lock-stock-and-barrel.
Rating: 2 Votes
Avatar
s2mikey
60 months ago

Well, at least you are not pointing fingers on Samsung who copied and sell their products at premium. And it's not up to me to decide what you purchase, if you feel like shelling out a premium for a product of the same spec, be my guest. Xiaomi is still a relatively young company and their products IMO are best in terms of price/value ratio.

You seem to have labelled China and India as third world country, when both are in fact a developing country. Such term comes as racist. Global warming? I thought it is suppose to affect the entire world, not just China, every countries' economy are equally affected.

China is a manufacturing powerhouse, look around you and know that many of your electronics are manufactured and assembled in China. It's true that China's pollution is worse than the US (although the pollution from the US is already bad), but China is already starting to take initiative to combat this by enforcing laws. But still, I hated China's air and I think they are pretty late in turning things around for their environment.
China is growing too fast. The growing spurt rate of manufacturing has also produced the many knockoffs by the country and dirtied its environment. But they are not going down that easily, just because you thought the entire country rely on western powers. In fact, it's the other way round, the western world requires China's powerful manufacturing hub for mass production


China and India are third world counties. Most live in poverty and are miserable. Those that answer tech support calls or assemble iPads are only slightly less miserable. And, without the US innovation and our spending power there would be NO jobs or anything else to help build up china so they need us more than we need them. Without the US companies creating this stuff, what are the slaves going to build? China certainly does NOT create anything.... Whatsoever. They rely fully on others innovation and then they provide hoardes of cheap workers to make the stuff. When is the last time china actually developed and created something useful? Sesame chicken? C'mon.... :rolleyes: :D
Rating: 1 Votes
Avatar
iChrist
60 months ago



I call ********. China yes Hong Kong Taiwan no. Cultures between Hong Kong, Taiwan and China are very very very different. I'm from Hong Kong and most of my friends don't download pirated apps (well we did a few years ago because we didn't have credit cards but not anymore) and all my relatives purchase apps.

Maybe you should know more about cultures between these three regions before bashing them.


You are maybe confused from constant breathing in smog. Your small sample size does not override actual evidence.

:apple:
Rating: 1 Votes

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