14 DAY TRIAL // A new version of Apple'siPhone has been spotted on China's regulator TENAA (Telecommunication Equipment Certification Center), this time including the much desired Wi-Fi standard. Apple's smartphone is offered in China by China Unicom operator, but both models 3G and iPhone 3GS have their Wi-Fi chipset disabled.
Mobile phones coming out in China in 2009 required to support the WAPI standard. The latter is a Chinese National Standard for Wireless LANs. One of the sticking points behind the iPhone in China was the support of Wi-Fi without the WAPI standard. In the end, China Unicom was forced to released it without any WLAN at all. The Chinese government's preference for the WAPI standard in some respects is similar to their preference for the TD-SCDMA for their 3G network.
By the way it looks in the pictures posted on the Chinese regulator's website, the iPhone in question is iPhone 3G or 3GS, and not the newer iPhone 4. This adds to earlier news that China Unicom intends to offer the iPhone 4 and iPad, as an official confirmed that the operator is already in talks with Apple.
Unicom also stated that about six weeks after it launched theiPhone last year, it only sold 100,000 units. By comparison, Apple sold 270,000 iPhones in the 30 hours after its first model went on sale in the U.S. In 2007. The iPad will have even tougher competition in case China Unicom will be able to bring it in China, as the device is “not that elite compared to other tablet that could launch in China soon”.
While there's no certain launching date specified on the regulator's page, the new Wi-Fi enabled iPhone should be available on the market in Q3 2010. As expected, Apple hasn't issued any statements about the possible launch of the Wi-Fi enabled iPhone in China.
