When China Unicom starts selling Apple's iconic iPhone for the first time beginning October 30, one of it’s subsidiaries – Shanghai Unicom will offer gray market iPhone users amnesty for jailbroken iPhones. Gray market iPhone users will be offered the ability to sign a contract with the mobile carrier enabling all the services available to “legal” China Unicom customers.
China Unicom announced fairly steep pricing earlier in the month ranging from $730 for the 8GB Wi-Fi less iPhone 3G up to to $1,000 plus for an unsubsidized 32GB iPhone 3GS model. Reports indicate that China mobile was unhappy with the initial iPhone demand since pre-orders were opened up to customers on October 1st.
It's estimated that there are already some 1.5 million gray market Chi-Phones being used in China. With prices on those iPhones ranging from $430 for an 8GB 3G iPhone and $732 for the latest iPhone 3GS, many mobile users in China can save close to $300 by going rogue with no ties to a contract.
With the sexy lure of unrestricted software updates, hassle free iTunes sync, and open access to Apple's official App Store, the company hopes to attract a few hundred thousand 3G customers through their clever amnesty offer. The amnesty program is expected to eventually be extended to all China Unicom customers at a later date.
If you can't beat 'em, join em. Or simply form a special task force and hunt them down armed with guns riding Segways.
I purchased my officially unlocked iphone from the hong kong apple online store and had it shipped to my family there.
Posted by: freerange | January 03, 2010 at 07:20 AM
"I live in Beijing and have an officially unlocked iPhone with WiFi that I purchased through Apple's online store."
Which online store did you purchase your unlocked WiFi enabled iPhone - Beijing or elsewhere?
Posted by: Adam | December 11, 2009 at 07:40 AM
There is a lot of misinformation going around by these "news" sites that keeps getting repeated. First, I live in Beijing and have an officially unlocked iPhone with WiFi that I purchased through Apple's online store. I signed up for a China Unicom 3G account got a sim card and plugged it in. No problems. Nothing to do with any ridiculous claims about having to sign up for an "amnesty program". Its just a standard 3G pay by the month option from China Unicom that costs me $27 per month for 60 MB of data which is plenty for my needs as I'm usually on WiFi.
Posted by: cable hdmi | November 13, 2009 at 10:16 PM