Apple has officially opened doors to the public at its Westlake store in Hangzhou, China. The Westlake Apple Store is one of five retail stores opening in the country before the Chinese New Year, which falls on February 19. Apple has promoted the launch of the store – which is the largest Apple Store in Asia – with a mural by famed calligrapher Wang Dongling. Tim Cook shared the...
It appears that Gmail service has been partially restored in China. It was reported yesterday that the Chinese government was blocking access to the service through third-party apps, while the Gmail website has been blocked for years. While many are reporting that service has been restored, others are still experiencing delays or outages. From the Financial Times: The episode...
Access to the Gmail website has been blocked for some time in China, but now the Chinese government is also blocking access to Gmail through apps. The block affects not just the official Gmail apps, but also accessing Gmail through third-party apps. Said Google in a statement: "We've checked and there's nothing wrong on our end." Traffic to Gmail from China, according to Google...
Apple recently responded to a BBC report on working conditions in factories that produce its products, and now it looks like the manufacturer in question, Pegatron, has something to say as well. In its response, Pegatron says that it will be looking into the negative claims made in the BBC piece. According to a report by Digitimes: In a statement filed on December 22 with the...
Apple is not happy about the recent report from the BBC alleging worker mistreatment at factories assembling Apple's devices. The report alleged, for instance, that workers fell asleep during their long shifts on iPhone 6 production lines, or were made to work several days in a row without a day off. Apple SVP of Operations Jeff Williams told employees in the UK that no other company is...
Apple has announced that its latest tablets will be available with cellular wireless connectivity starting this week in China. The company will be debuting the iPad Air 2 and the iPad mini 3 with support for TD-LTE and FDD-LTE standards, as well as TD-SCDMA, DC-HSDPA, and HSPA+ in a single model that will work on various cellular data networks in China and around the world for...
While iPhone owners in China may not yet have access to Apple Pay, it looks like they can still look forward to using Touch ID with their mobile payments. Alipay, a mobile payments platform run by Alibaba in China, was updated Tuesday with support for Touch ID verification. The addition of Touch ID verification in Alipay Wallet replaces the app's previous password verification...
Apple CEO Tim Cook met with the Lu Wei, the head of China's internet regulator, on Wei's recent visit to the United States. While specific details of the meeting haven't been disclosed, it does appear that Cook showed Wei the Apple Watch: From Bloomberg: Lu Wei, minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China, visited the companies' offices, according to the report by China....
Apple's Chinese App Store now accepts UnionPay, the tech giant announced today. According to the press release, UnionPay, which is China's inter-bank and clearing settlement system, has issued a total of over 4.5 billion cards to date. Furthermore, the network extends through all rural areas and cities in China, in addition to being accepted in more than 140 countries around the world...
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Alibaba Executive Vice Chairman Joseph Tsai revealed that the Chinese e-commerce giant was currently in discussion with Apple over a payment processing solution tailored for China. According to Tsai: Right now, I think what we can say is that this is focused on the China market for Apple. We are positive about the potential cooperation,...