Sep 04
Apple is apparently holding a separate iPhone event in China on September 11th, immediately after the US announcement on the 1oth
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Sep 04
Apple Sends Separate Invite To Chinese Media For Sept. 11 iPhone Event, Adding To Increased Focus On The Region
Posted in: Today's Chili
Apple has sent out a second round of event invitations to media today – this time directed specifically at Chinese publications and journalists, for a follow-up event to their September 10 shindig at Apple Campus in Cupertino. The invites have the same graphic as the original, but will occur September 11 at 10 AM CST at Beijing’s World Trade Center. This marks the first time Apple has held a standalone event specifically for Chinese media.
Recently, Apple has been doing a lot more to bring special focus to its operations in China. The company has been seeking new hires in China, for instance, as recently discovered via a considerable crop of LinkedIn job postings, and there are also rumblings that Apple is looking to build an engineering and R&D center in Taiwan, which it counts as part of its Greater China market. Greater investment in a local presence could be due to setbacks Apple faced earlier in the year apparently orchestrated in part by the Chinese government’s media agencies, which have reason to prefer local tech companies over outside influence.
Some suggest that Apple’s decision to host a separate event in China regarding its upcoming iPhone refresh is about it wanting to reveal a new partner in China Mobile. The carrier, which is China’s largest, hasn’t yet officially offered the iPhone, but recent reports suggest that both Apple and China Mobile had been nearing an arrangement to offer the smartphone on the network with this coming hardware update. That would give Apple access to some 744 million potential new customers (or at least 147 million, if you’re limiting yourself only to China Mobile customers with 3G access).
That’s a big carrot to be sure, and reason enough for a separate celebration, but there’s more at stake here than just a new carrier partnership (big as that is alone). Apple saw its China business suffer a setback during the last quarter, which is a very good reason for renewed attention being paid to customers in Greater China. A unique event for Chinese media should arguably do a better job of addressing the needs and wants of Chinese consumers.
There’s also the iPhone 5C, Apple’s low-cost iPhone hardware, which is rumored to be making its first official appearance at the September event. As Romain Dillet has noted, if real, this is clearly a device aimed at markets beyond the U.S. border. How better to highlight its international appeal than with an international spotlight?
Chances are the event in China will share much more in common with the one in Cupertino beyond just the invite graphic, but it’s still very noteworthy that it’s happening at all. In the past, Apple has seemed content to let China grow as a market key to its business organically; now, it seems more interested in taking an active role in shaping that side of the business.
Sep 04
We can’t be the only ones wondering whether the bright colors in Apple’s September 10th invite were a visual reference to the snazzy plastic iPhones we’ve been seeing recently. Indeed, these same primary hues have now re-appeared in a second invite sent to journalists in China, summoning them to special event on September 11th in Beijing, and that only adds to our expectation that a cheaper iPhone 5C (if that’s what it’s really called) may be imminent. Tim Cook wouldn’t have undertaken all those long-haul visits to Chinese carriers just for the free slippers and sleeping masks.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Apple
Via: Engadget Chinese
Source: Sina
Sep 03
Following LG and TCL, Hisense is now the latest TV manufacturer to adopt Hillcrest Labs’ Freespace technology. According to the agreement, Hisense, the world’s fifth largest smart TV brand (as of Q1 2013, according to NPD DisplaySearch), will be able to add in-air pointing, gesture control and motion control — all via a remote control — to its future smart TVs and set-top boxes. This also means TCL now faces a fellow Chinese competitor with the same set of Freespace features. While there’s no time frame just yet, we’ve been told that Hisense will eventually sell these next-gen devices in the US and China later this year, so stay tuned.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, HD
Sep 03
China’s getting more serious about the drone business with arrival of a new kind of delivery service. A Shenzhen-based courier service called SF Express is currently testing "high tech" drones that can deliver packages to remote locations. Thanks to a built-in navigation system, these drones can go where trucks can’t.
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Sep 02
Meizu MX3 gets official with Exynos 5410 Octa processor and 128GB of storage
Posted in: Today's ChiliMeizu is a name that is perhaps best known in China. And while that may be a true statement, it looks like the recent announcement for the Meizu MX3 may bring some talk from those outside that market. Coming off of some recent rumors and leaks, Meizu has officially announced the MX3 and it will […]
Sep 02
Having sat through Meizu’s entire launch event in Beijing, we have to admit: the new MX3 took us by surprise. We weren’t expecting much after knowing some of the key specs from the leaks, and to be frank, the Chinese company lost its way with the MX2; but Jack Wong’s team seems to have put its focus back in place with its latest flagship. First off, while the MX3 has preserved the predecessor’s metallic-rim design, Meizu has now managed to refine the manufacturing process to remove all the sharp edges, and boy does that new body feel good. The TOL (touch-on-lens) display may look odd with its 1,800 x 1,080 resolution, but it looked good on the demo units, and that 15:9 aspect ratio has some advantage for web browsing in portrait mode.
There were many other features that we couldn’t comment on based on our hands-on, such as the audio quality from the Wolfson chip and the image quality from the third-gen Sony 8-megapixel sensor, but the presence of these components suggests that Meizu may be headed back in the right direction. The number of improvements on the slick, Android 4.2-based Flyme 3.0 is also impressive, making it slightly more user-friendly (especially for first-timers) as well as more pleasing to the eye. It’ll just take some getting used to with Meizu’s own soft key approach (virtual buttons on a “Smart Bar” plus a capacitive home button). Much like the battery life and radio performance, we’ll only be able to properly comment on the software part over an extended period of usage, so do keep an eye out for our MX3 review in the near future. Oh, and we have a hands-on video after the break. %Gallery-slideshow77154%
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Sep 02
Meizu MX3 unveiled with Exynos 5 Octa, 5.1-inch screen, Wolfson audio and 128GB option
Posted in: Today's Chili
Ahead of main rival Xiaomi’s big event later this week, Meizu has today unveiled its latest Android device, the MX3, at the Beijing National Aquatics Center. Like many recent flagship phones, this one finally breaks the previous 4.4-inch barrier to make way for a 5.1-inch display, though with an odd 1,800 x 1,080, 15:9 panel from Sharp and JDI to follow Meizu’s string of odd aspect ratios. At the same time, the manufacturer has managed to keep the screen bezel at 2.9mm thick, making the carefully curved body 72mm wide (as well as 9.1mm thick and 143g heavy). This is apparently the result of Jack Wong’s 30-plus handcrafted wooden prototypes, followed by some 3D scanning. Read on for more.
Update: Our hands-on post is up as well! %Gallery-slideshow77150%
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Source: Meizu
Aug 30
Cloud storage hotshots will give you a few GB to get started, but a Chinese tech company called Tencent is offering an insane 10TB. For free. All you have to do is trust them.
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Aug 30
Huawei’s first two Honor smartphones were straightforward mid-range devices; with today’s unveiling of the Honor 3, the company is going the semi-rugged route. The third-generation model is IP57-rated for resistance to dust and water, and its high-sensitivity touchscreen will recognize wet hands. There’s also an HTC One-like infrared blaster to control TVs and home appliances. The Honor 3 is otherwise a modest upgrade, however — it carries a slightly larger 4.7-inch 720p in-cell touch LCD, a mildly faster 1.5GHz K3V2 quad-core chip, a higher-resolution 13-megapixel rear camera, a 1-megapixel front camera and Android 4.2. The 2GB of RAM and 8GB of expandable storage haven’t changed since last year, although they’re acceptable when the Honor 3 is already on sale for just ¥1,888 ($309) in China.
The smartphone will soon have company. Huawei is teasing a new TV set-top box, the MediaQM310, that should offer both cloud services and China Network Television’s online video. The media hub should be uncommonly powerful for its diminutive size with a quad-core ARM Cortex-A9 chip, Bluetooth and dual-band WiFi. There’s no mention of a price just yet, although that should come when Huawei ships the MediaQM310 to China sometime in September. Check out a photo of the device after the break.
Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile
Via: Engadget Chinese (translated)
Source: Huawei (translated)
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