That Was the iPhone Event that Wasn't

Reactions to the new iPhone have been lukewarm at best.  In America, it was a bit ho-hum, and Chinese netizens wanted to tear Tim Cook a new asshole when they found out how much the phone would cost.  The new handset, hyped up beyond recognition as the "cheap one" that would go up against Xiaomi's 1999rmb smartphone is only marginally cheaper than previous versions, attracting a large number of negative comments on microblogs across China.

"I thought the cheap 5C version would be priced at one thousand or two (yuan)... I can't sell my kidney for this much," said one poster on Sina Weibo, China's hugely popular Twitter equivalent, referring to a teenager who sold a kidney to buy an iPhone and iPad last year.

"So this is the so-called cheap version? The 5C starts at 4,488 yuan in China. Haha, they treat the Chinese as peasants," said another.

Boasting support for China's TD-LTE, a deal with China Mobile is possible, but hasn't been sealed yet.  With a four thousand kuai price tag, Apple seems hell bent on shutting out a large number of CM's subscribers, giving added impetus for consumers to spend their cash on the local boy made good, the Mi-3.

The only silver lining on this particularly grey and uninspiring cloud is that with the rollout happening in China and the US, Hong Kong, UK and other countries on September 20th there'll be fewer shady characters skulking outside of universities offering foreigners clammy grey-import iPhones.  So yay for that.  Kinda.

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• Apple's no-news Beijing event leaves it adrift in China


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