'Critical' Chinese Apps Coming to Apple Vision Pro
Chinese tech giant Tencent has agreed to make some of its most important apps available on Apple's Vision Pro headset ahead of its launch in the country later this year, The Information reports.
Tencent is one of the biggest multimedia companies in the world and its apps and services are ubiquitous in China. It owns Weibo, WeChat, QQ, WeBank, Tencent Pictures, and games such as Honor of Kings and PUBG.
Apple TV+ and many other entertainment services such as Disney+ are not available in China. "Without Tencent's contribution, Apple would have faced a greater challenge in marketing the Vision Pro in China," the report explains, calling the company's move "critical" to the device's success in the country.
Last week, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that the Vision Pro will launch in China this year. It is likely to be more expensive in China due to import taxes and could even be marketed under a different name due to a trademark dispute with Huawei.
Apple is also apparently seeking Chinese partners to help it launch and run Apple TV+, Apple Arcade, and Apple Fitness+ in the country. The company has not launched any new services in China since iCloud in 2017 due to government restrictions.
Popular Stories
Apple's unusually timed announcement of new Mac mini and Mac Studio models this week was driven by unexpectedly strong enterprise appetite for AI hardware, according to The Information.
Apple normally releases new Mac models in the autumn, closer to October or November, making this week's announcement unusually early, falling just before the anticipated arrival of new iPhone models. The...
Recent layoffs of Apple employees working on the Vision Pro were broader than previously thought, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports.
Last month, Gurman said that Apple cut around 100 jobs from the Vision Products Group, with those cuts centered on the headset's gaming and immersive video teams. Gurman now says the layoffs also reached Vision Pro staff across the rest of the company, including ...
Apple's foldable "iPhone Ultra" may launch in mainland China later than in some other markets, according to an oft-reliable Chinese leaker.
Posting on the Weibo social media platform, Instant Digital said that Apple has a limited initial inventory for its first foldable device, and the rollout could be shaped by regional allocation.
The claim follows a recent report out of Japan...
