“We had our best quarter ever in China,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook earlier today. In its post-earnings conference call for Q2 of fiscal 2013, Cook revealed that Apple sales to Chinese consumers (in the Greater China area, not just the mainland) amounted to $8.8 billion in that period of time, which was up 11 percent year-on-year. In response to a question from a call participant, he denied that Apple had hit a wall in China with the iPhone and iPad. The company also revealed that it plans to double its count of official Apple Stores in Greater China (currently 11).

The Greater China stats cover Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, and mainland China. Looking only at the mainland, sales were up eight percent. That’s not so hot when compared to slow growth in the US at a rate of seven percent.

Earlier data from IDC has made clear that 73.2 percent of all mobiles sold in China are smartphones, but the on-the-ground market is far from saturated.

56 percent of Apple’s revenue now comes from non-US markets – representing $24.3 billion in sales. Apple’s total revenues for Q2 hit $43.6 billion, beating analysts’ estimates. But profit nonetheless slipped 18 percent.

Cook inevitably dodged insinuations, notes TechCrunch, about building a budget iPhone, and instead stressed that Apple is selling the older iPhone 4 and 4S in markets like China as a more affordable option for lower-income folks who are trashing their feature phones.

The positive numbers from China come as a relief for Apple after a rough month of public attacks by state media, accusing the company of treating Chinese consumers unfairly when it comes to customer service and repairing devices. Also remember that Android is China’s top smartphone OS, with an estimated 160 million active Android owners right now.

(Source: TechCrunch)

Fourleaf is a Thailand-based startup that helps hotels to create beautiful looking menus on iPads. So, instead of browsing through the usual paper menu, Fourleaf is able to put all these menus — for room services, food menus, TV programs, etc. — on the iPad. Having recently raised THB 1 million ($34,000) angel funding, co-founder Nattapon Nimakul told me that his company is now testing its solution with two hotels in Krabi and Phuket.

For every iPad menu issued (every hotel room will have one), Fourleaf charges the hotel $100 to $170 per month. That’s quite costly, so Fourleaf is only going after four- or five-star hotels. On the surface, Fourleaf’s iPad menus are just another pretty way to impress customers. But there are actually several benefits in using its service.

By digitizing menu content and order processes, it allows the hotel to collect and analyze data to improve revenue from room service. Fourleaf also provides a real-time dashboard for hotel clients to make sense out of the data collected. If any changes need to be made in the menu, it can be done immediately across all hotels by changing content hosted in the cloud.

Readers may remember that I was very enthusiastic about Japanese finance application Zaim. And while I’m pretty happy with that app, I was curious to come across a Korean-made alternative called M-Story.

From Korean developer ParkPill, the iOS app boasts one interesting feature that caught my attention in particular, that being the ability to export all your data to a CSV file, which can then be used in your preferred spreadsheet program (Excel, Numbers, or Google Spreadsheets).

In comparison to Zaim, M-Story doesn’t require you to add too much information. It just asks you to specify what you bought and how much you paid for it. While M-Story has been around for a while, it recently added iCloud backup and Retina display support as well, both big pluses. There’s a lock feature to ensure your finances are kept private, which I suppose would come in handy to anyone who doesn’t implement iOS’s normal lock screen ¹.

Unlike Zaim, M-Story is a paid application for iPhone and iPad. But at just 99 cents, it still looks to be a bargain. I recommend you give it a try and let us know what you think. I’m looking forward to giving it a test run over the next few weeks.

The folks over at Japanese tech blog AppBank have created a short video demo which you can check out below. The interface here is in Japanese, but the app comes in English too.

If you enjoy slashy, swipy smartphones games like Cut the Rope and Fruit Ninja, you might also like a fun new iOS title from Russia’s Anton Roshchine Studio called To Bee or Not to Bear.

The game pits busy builder bees against hungry, destructive bears who fly on screen tethered to firehoses trying to steal honey from your hive. Your job is to help out the bees by cutting loose the bears with a swipe of your finger so they fall to the ground.

The game is good fun, although the difficulty level is higher than I expected for such a cutesy title. Occasionally I found that a single level can be frustratingly difficult, as it can be amazingly tricky to break out of the equilibrium of bees building and bears stealing. The artwork is pretty solid though, and overall its an enjoyable game.

AR Studio is apparently hoping to attract some of the Chinese market, going so far as to put its homepage’s default navigation menu Chinese. The folks over at Chinese tech blog Technode astutely point out that since Cut the Rope (from Russian developer Zeptolab) found China to be its biggest market, that perhaps AR Studio has its eyes on a similar prize. The app itself has multiple language options, including English and Chinese.

Currently the iPhone version of the game is available on the app store for 99 cents and there’s a HD version available for iPad for $2.99. You can check out a video demo of gameplay below, as well as screenshots.

There have been lots of great applications to emerge from Japan over the past year. And while I can’t claim to have that many of them, I have tried quite a few. I thought I’d share five of my favorites for iOS [1], though I’d be very curious to hear which ones you liked as well. Of course, I won’t go so far as to say these are the best, but I certainly got lots of use and enjoyment from them in the past year.

5. Ninja Farm

I’m really not sure why I enjoyed this game so much. I usually despise farming games. But like most people, I do have a soft spot for ninjas ever since Shinobi on the Sega Master System. The idea of planting and harvesting ninjas is a thoroughly ridiculous idea, but somehow the process of leveling up your army and taking them into battle against increasingly difficult enemies made for a game that I didn’t want to stop playing (see my original article here).

The title was made by the CyberAgent’s Gamewave, and if you’d like to check it out, you can find it in the app store.

4. Line Camera

I confess, this isn’t an application that I use a lot, but I am impressed with the photo decoration functions – perhaps more than any other ‘photo-deco’ app I’ve seen to date. Line Camera got off to a scorching start this past summer, as NHN Japan boasted that it reached the 10 million user mark three times faster than Instagram did. It now claims over 17 million users in 210 countries around the world.

In retrospect, looking at the success of the other apps that NHN Japan has distributed via its chat platform, that’s probably not entirely due to the merits of the app alone. But I still think it’s pretty sharp. Check it out over on the app store.

As with many other successful applications, Line Camera has seen imitators spring up as well, most notably (and perhaps shamefully) this crappy Chinese rip-off which has since been renamed.

3. Rage of Bahamut

Perhaps the most successful app or game to come out of Japan in the past year is Cygame’s Rage of Bahamut on DeNA’s Mobage platform. The card battle title has enjoyed huge popularity not just at home but abroad as well, proving that there is some potential for card battle games outside Japan. The game has ranked high on top grossing charts (particularly on Android) and DeNA recently bought a 20 percent stake in Cygames, showing just how much confidence it has in the game publisher.

If you haven’t yet tried it, check it out now on the app store. It’s also available on Google Play for those of you rocking Android.

2. Zaim

This personal finance app is still in the growing stages, but it’s still one of the few apps that I use on a daily basis (see my previous article on Zaim here). You can input your expenses in your preferred currency and according to a range of categories, and pace yourself according to a pre-set monthly budget in each category. Zaim recently pushed its version 2.0 which added support for different types of payment like wallet, credit card, or Pasmo card.

Ideally I’d like to see some sort of data export function in the future for Zaim, although now that I think about it, that sort of thing might be a possibility for a premium version in the future.

Readers may recall that Cookpad recently invested in Zaim to the tune of $512,000, and web and PC versions of Zaim are on the way. You can get Zaim from the app store and give it a try.

1. Battle Cats

I discovered this game just a month back, but I haven’t really put it down for very long since then. It’s a fun tower defense game which pits you and an army of cats against an assortment of enemies. One of the coolest things about Battle Cats is its sense of humor, which rather than getting lost in translation, is actually enhanced in an All-your-base manner, as you can see below from the enemy descriptions. Overall, this game hasn’t been very popular, but I still enjoy the hell out of it, and it’s always making me laugh.

I tried to reach the game’s developer Ponos, in the hopes of interviewing someone at company about Battle Cats – but regretably, they appear less adept at marketing than game development.

If you’d like to try it out, you can get it over in the app store for iPhone or iPad.

Two of Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) newest gadgets have emerged from the Kafkaesque trial of China’s tech regulators to hit stores in early December. Apple has just confirmed that the iPad mini and the updated iPad will go on sale in China on December 7th (Friday), followed by the iPhone 5 a week later on December 14th.

But only the wifi versions of the fourth-gen iPad and the brand-new iPad Mini will be coming to China next week, resulting in an even longer wait for those who’d like to use them on 3G in the country.

As is the new custom, Apple is waging war on scalpers with its reservation system. Tonight’s announcement points out:

Reservation requests will be accepted daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. [local time] beginning Thursday, December 6 for pick up the following day.

The same will apply for the iPhone 5 a week later. But right now, Apple hasn’t updated its mainland China site, which is still touting the iPhone 4S.

Just last night, my colleague Charlie pointed out that the iPhone 5 had been issued its regulatory permit from MIIT, so its arrival next month is no surprise.

In Apple’s most recent earnings call, CEO Tim Cook pointed out that China now accounts for 15 percent of Apple’s sales, where it saw iPad shipments up 45 percent for Greater China, while iPhone sales were up 38 percent.

[Source: Engadget Mobile]

We recently wrote about Mr. Ninja, a fun iPhone game from Japanese developer Ponos. That game was fun for casual play, and for the first time really put Ponus on our radar as a developer to watch. And over the past couple of days I’ve taken a closer look at some of their games, most notably Battle Cats, which was released for iPhone and iPad just over a week ago.

The title is a tower defense game, which might initially turn you off with its bad English text and weird backstory intro. But if you can get past that minor flaw, you’ll be rewarded. You take your cat army into battle against the enemy, defending your own tower and trying to destroy theirs. You have different cats with different abilities that you can send into battle, as well as a canon mounted on your castle which you can fire at enemies when it is recharged.

Overall, I really like the game mechanics of Battle Cats. I’m a big fan of tower defense games in general, but this one sort of reminds me of Age of Empires – or dare I say chess – in how you can put stronger defensive cats up front and try to follow up with more offensive cats from the back. Tempo also comes into play as you can time your attacks to coincide with lapses in the enemies attacking wave.

Each round of the game takes place in a different region of Japan, so if you can’t beat one round, you can back track and re-do an earlier round to earn XP and upgrade your army. Alternatively, you can pay to continue or buy more energy so you don’t have to wait to play more rounds. The in-app purchases are smartly implemented, and so far they haven’t crippled the game for me in any way [1].

Battle Cats is currently doing well in the ‘strategy’ and ‘simulation’ categories in the Japanese app store, but it hasn’t really made an impact anywhere else yet. I know it’s still early in the lifespan of this game, but I think that with some polishing, this game could have some serious potential to be a global hit. It’s the most fun I’ve had on an iPad since Infinity Blade. Battle Cats fits right in that category of ‘cute/wacky Japan’ that follows in the bizarre tradition of Nyan Cat, and the characters are just as marketable as those in Angry Birds [2].

Give it a try and let me know what you think. You can download it for free over in the App Store. Selfish update: If you want to kickstart your game with an invite code, mine is yg2t0!

invoking the god cat, similar to Angry Birds’ Mighty Eagle

Writing on an iPad can be very tricky, given the smaller screen size. If I must write on an iPad, I usually resort to the wonderful Writing Kit app along with some Text Expander Touch / Markdown-fu as a way to take care of text formatting. But for some people, a simpler solution might be the answer. And the new Davinci note app is indeed very simple, and also very beautiful.

A product of Nota Inc., the app contains 16 slick design templates which you can choose from. All you have to do is write in your title and body text. From there you can add one or multiple photos, and you can also select different layouts to make sure they look nice.

I gave the application a spin and I confess I’m pretty impressed with the results. Once you have created your pages, you have the ability to share to Facebook or Twitter, or you can share to the web. Your page will then be hosted on davin.ci, and you can share your link or flick through all your journal entries. Here are a couple of pages I whipped up quickly as a preview.

From what I can see, in its current form it doesn’t really resemble a blog — but then again, it doesn’t really have to. For anyone who wants to publish and share beautiful pages, the Davinci Note app works well. Currently the app is free, and so is the page hosting. Although I’m told that there are plans to introduce advanced paid features later on. I’d personally like to see some sort of timeline capability, and perhaps a data export function so you can get your info out if you ever opt for another platform.

Nota Inc was founded in 2007, and is based in Kyoto but also has an office in the US.

Readers may remember last year when we featured Metamoji’s 7notes iPad application, which conveniently converts your handwriting into text. Recently, the company also pushed out a similar note-taking application called Note Anywhere. And so far, Note Anywhere has been performing pretty well.

After about a week at number one in Japan as the top free app overall, it’s currently ranked ninth — although it is still first in the ‘productivity’ category. It appears to be catching on in the US market as well, and is currently number eight in the ‘productivity’ category there.

In contrast with 7notes, this new application not only lets you jot down notes by hand, but also lets you combine that with sketches, images, digital text, and other web content to create and share documents. While there isn’t the text conversion feature that we saw in 7notes, the floating palette interface makes it easy to write notes in different styles and colors.

Upon opening the app, you’re presented with a choice of note layout templates. From there you can take notes with your finger or with a stylus, although I recommend the latter if you’re going to be using it extensively. Your handwriting becomes a vector graphics element, which you can drag around the canvas an manipulate in many ways. If you’d like to add images from the web or your camera roll, you can do that as well.

Once you’ve finished, there are a number of sharing/export options, including social networks like Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr, email, or send to your photo album or print.

Of course the 7notes application was far from free at $7.99. So I found it curious that Metamoji had taken a different pricing approach with Note Anytime. Kyosuke Tsuda of Metamoji explained a little more about this decision:

Through our experience with 7notes, we learned that for the global market, even a $1 charge is not good [if we want] to expand our customer base. [So] we decided to follow Freemium strategy. Our strategy is not just on selling add-on of apps but extend server features after we launch Note Anytime for Windows 8, iPhone, and Android, [which is] planned within the next several months.

As you can see, Metamoji’s aspirations extend even beyond the iPad, and it will be interesting to see how their plans go. To learn more about how the application works, you can check out the promo video below, or see their assortment of tutorial videos for the application.

Photo: iTunes.Apple.com

Electronic Gamelan, or e-gamelan, is the name of an iOS app that has been created by students and lecturers of the University of Dian Nuswantoro (Udinus) Semarang, Central Java, Indonesia. The app brings the complete sound of Indonesia’s traditional instrument, the Javanese gamelan, which is a large set of xylophones, drums, and gongs. The precision of percussive tones is similar to the original gamelan.

Udinus is an IT-oriented university in Semarang. The e-Gamelan team has performed in many countries like Singapore, Malaysia, and Taiwan. In the country, they have performed for the Governor of Central Java. Later in October, the team will perform at the State Palace.

Team member Ikhsanuddin Mohammed Rahmatullah said that the e-Gamelan community formed about two years ago. All the gamelan objects and sound recordings are taken from the Sri Kuncoro Mulyo Gamelan in Indonesia’s historical music studio, Lokananta in Surakarta. Starting with the inception of the e-Gamelan project by one of the lecturers, they began thinking how to create the modern gamelan. Rahmat said:

This is faculty research. We are under a research body and community service. It started when we won a competition set by the minister of Education and Cultural Affairs.

The purpose of the e-Gamelan app is to attract youth towards traditional music at a time when kids are gravitating towards western pop music – or popular music in general. E-Gamelan rises to the challenge via the iPad app. To achieve these goals, the community works with kids on the e-Gamelan app/program as an extracurricular activity at several high schools in Semarang. As a result, the students are said to have become more interested in the gamelan.

(See also: Bring Out Your Inner Beastie Boy with the Gamelan DJ App)

According to Rahmat, after using e-Gamelan, players can sort of play the original traditional instrument. However, to use the app, you don’t need to know the Javanese instrument. Approximately, it takes two days to be able to smoothly play e-Gamelan.

Several types of gamelan can not be played in the app – or maybe in any app – because of inevitable difficulties with complex actions on a touchscreen. So you won’t find the gender gamelan, the two-headed drum called the kendang, and the two-stringed fiddle called rebab.

e-Gamelan can be downloaded from the Apple App Store for US$5.99. The purchase price of the app will be used by the team partly to preserve the original gamelan – the other half of the income of course goes towards app production and recording costs. Before you buy, check out a demo video here:

[Source: Republika.co.id, Egamelanku]

Today Indonesian developers gathered at the Google Dev Fest in Jakarta. This is the place where they can share knowledge on how to work with the application engine and monetize their apps. The developers could also benefit from having face-to-face technical discussions with Google engineers and local speakers. But Dev Fest is not only for current developers – lots of students went to the event too.

Today’s Dev Fest coincides with Google Day – and therefore Google’s birthday, this time its 14th – whose theme is “University Day”. In Google Day, Indonesian students and lecturers focused on university programs sponsored by Google and also a number of internships. So, this event is more about introducing Google services for educational purposes.

One of the speakers at the Dev Fest was the head of technology and program management at Qualcomm Indonesia, Salim Ezer. He talked about the Qualcomm Vuforia SDK that supports Android and iOS. This is a mobile development platform to build Augmented Reality (AR) applications. Even though it’s a Qualcomm SDK, it’s compatible with processors from other brands. But Salim said that he can’t guarantee it will be as optimized as in Qualcomm devices.

Salim showed off some Vuforia featured apps, which looked very promising. The most amazing part which wowed the audiences was an app that can make it look like you’re being beamed in a Star Trek-style teleportation. The AR app could make you disappear and then show up again in your device screen. Another app has a naughty part that can undress people in a picture. Vuforia can also bring book’s characters to move in a certain tablet app. It has the ability to deliver a lot of information from image tracking. Salim stated:

The numbers of animations which can appear in the apps depends on handset support. But with Vuforia, all of the animations are stored in the cloud. So, you can provide millions of bit of information.

Computer vision

Another exciting topic related to AR was shared by a lecturer at the School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics of Institute of Technology Bandung, Peb Aryan. Discussing ‘computer vision’ applications, Peb shows how an app can erase a person easily from a picture like that person never existed. That happens with the power of accessing and manipulating pixels in the picture.

Peb’s topic, computer vision, plays an important role in an AR app. Basically, it’s a computer’s ability to recognize visual targets just like face-recognition features in Facebook’s photo tagging or determining the state of traffic jams from the police camera images. Computers can be programed to detect and separate objects from the background based on colors, borders, corners, regions, and motion.

The use of computer vision gives a lot of benefit to the kind of apps that we can see nowadays. Computer vision can be “trained” to recognize faces from a moving picture. Peb gives the example (while joking) on how to recognize people when there is a homemade porn video that leaks online. Together with recognition algorithms, computers can match faces in the picture with its database.

Computer vision can also reconstruct objects from assorted pictures. He shows an image of a building complex that has been reconstructed using pictures taken from the people who visited the place.

At the end of the session, attendees shares their crazy ideas on building computer vision/AR apps, throwing out concepts like one for recognizing criminals from e-KTP (Indonesian electronic identification card) photo data, to an app for handwriting recognition for psychological analyses. We hope that some of those crazy ideas from these developers find their way into your cellphone pretty soon.

Photo: Apple App Store

After a rapid jounrney from being a Flash game to PCs to mobile gaming, Infectonator is now out on Android and iOS. Indonesian startup developer Toge Production launched the smartphone versions on September 24th, 2012 with a price tag of $0.99 on both Google Play and the iTunes App Store. Infectonator still brings the same recipe to the mobile game: infecting people, turning them into zombies, and dominating the world.

Before its official release, a fake version dubbed “Infectonator 2” was released on Google Play. But that was illegally ported as an Android app from Toge’s Flash-based game by an account under the name Hasan Akyurek. This award-winning game developer based in Indonesia was furious about this hijacking of its popular game. But now the rogue title has been taken down.

The new Infectonator game has language support for English, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and lots of world languages – and of course Indonesian too. There are also more than 10 unique zombies to play with.

The Infectonator storyline places the player as the person who spreads the virus which turns humans into zombies. You need to decide which city is the target to launch the virus. This will affect the rest of the game. The challenge is to keep the endurance of your brain-dead workforce. In a limited time before the zombies run out of energy, you will have to kill all of the population. And yes, there will be blood. Also there will be coins falling from the pockets of citizens, which you’ll need to collect. Your objective is to destroy all humanity and dominate the world.

The pleasure of playing with a touchscreen phone replaces the way you control the game when it was a Flash game. No longer is there a need to fiddle with the mouse, and now you can just swipe to collect the coins from the victims.

As for monetization in the mobile version, it has in-app purchases for coins to increase the ability of your zombie troops. There is even a package deal to open a whole zombie army. If you don’t want to spend more, you have to be more patient to collect all the coins in the game for getting upgrades.

Are you ready to rule the world with zombies? Get Infectonator in Android’s Google Play or Apple App Store. See the video demo here:

[Source: Kompas.com - article in Indonesian]

Although expensive, the iPad offers numerous advantages beyond just being lightweight. Chief among them; its ability to access the internet gives students an easy way to check overseas schools’ websites or read English newspapers (for example). This could also serve as a huge distraction, of course, but the iPads have been customized to prevent students from using distracting web services like QQ or Renren.

Families of students need not worry — no one is being forced to buy an iPad. For now, the iPads are being bought using public funds. And the test schools are also working with and considering other alternatives, including netbooks and other tablets.

If it were to be implemented on a larger scale, it’s not clear how exactly schools would be able to pay for such a program, and whether or not parents would be required to chip in. But reportedly the students have taken well to the new classroom additions and are already used to using the devices in a classroom setting.

[Modern Bulletin via TechWeb, image source]

Photo: itunes.apple.com

This is not an ordinary ranch. Faunia Rancher is a game that’ll take you on a journey full of fairies and monsters. But the gremlins are actually cute. You can even meet an Indonesian monster called Barong in its traditional Balinese house. For this mythological journey, Chowdown Games and Joyverter Entertainment worked together as ‘Art on Code’ and this weekend won the INAICTA 2012 awards in the games category.

The idea is simple: raise these adorable little monsters and take them on a journey to win crystals so that you can create more virtual gnarly creatures. But its story is what makes it interesting. As a rancher, you will have to raise a unique fantasy creature called “Faunia”.

The way you raise the Faunia makes it like a Tamagochi-style game. You will have to feed them, clean their habitat, participate in regular activities, and treat them when they’re sick. As the Faunia grows, it will give you eggs that can be sold. There are some fun “mini games” bundled in too.

Faunia Rancher was developed by Ronald Widjaja, Erick Theodorus, Burhan Dewantara, Robert Tan, Robin Tjungestu, and Felix Jingga. Even though it has Barong as its Indonesian mascot, this game was intended for the international market. Ronald explains:

We’re open to all kinds of monsters, from Barong to Frankenstein. We also have a collaborations for other characters, such as with Animonster [Indonesia’s anime and lifestyle magazine] and Vandaria [a card game from ZIGMA magazine]. In the future, maybe we can approach a local franchise like Garudayana to put their “Garu” monster in our game.

To keep the developers’ kitchen steaming, this iOS game has in-app purchases for every gimmick in the game. You can buy food, medicine, and even crystal shards to speed up the growth of new Faunias for around $1 to $5 each. Without major promotion, Faunia Rancher have 10,000 players in its first 3,5 months, and sells 5 different kinds of virtual coins every day.

To build the community, Faunia Rancher has its own actual merchandise. More than 2,000 gamers on the Faunia Rancher Facebook page have participated in a design competition for new characters and various kinds of fan art.

Grab the free Faunia Rancher game in the iTunes App Store.

Here’s a surprisingly fun iOS game from the folks at Chinese game development studio Coconut Island. It’s called One Tap Hero. I think many of us, myself included, when we look at China-made games, there’s an instinct to figure out which western game it has copied from. In this case, I don’t find any obvious answer, but I’m finding elements of Angry Birds, Scribblenauts, Super Mario all rolled up into a fun little package.

But as the title suggests, the most interesting feature of this game is the simplified controls. Your hero is indeed manipulated with just one tap, which could be anywhere on your screen. I always thought that perhaps a virtualized d-pad and on-screen buttons would be a good way to proceed in mobile gaming, but I keep finding this to not be the case – most recently fumbling with the controls for EA’s Madden 12 for iPad. The folks from Coconut Island tell me:

So with this control design we could not only win back the hardcore gamers who hate using d-pad on iPhone to play platformer but also attract the casual players who don’t like to play platformers because of its complicated control.

And the folks at Coconut Island have made sure you can do a lot with a single tap. Your hero is constantly in a state of motion, and invariably is turned back from the boundaries of the playing area by bouncy green arrows [1]. But with a single tap you make him jump (high or low depending on how long you hold your tap), or you can make him climb a ladder. The playing field also contains objects like springs, portals, and levers which you can use to move your hero.

The object of the game is to collect three stars and rescue your girl, who – as I understand, from the intro cartoon – has been kidnapped by a witch and turned into a bear. If you finish a round by collecting three stars, then she magically transforms back into a girl. In the same way that you want to finish a round with three stars in Angry Birds, the same concept applies in One Tap Hero.

And similar to Super Mario, there are coins that you can collect along the way too. You can use these to purchase items in the game for your hero, the first one being a fig leaf to conceal his nakedness. You can also purchase items in the game using real money as well.

Overall, I’m really enjoying this game so far. And while there are certainly many elements borrowed from other iconic games, I think One Tap Hero has built upon these in a way that works, incorporating an original one-tap game control that works very well on mobile.

If you’re looking for a new title to play on your iPad, you can pick it up over on the app store for 99 cents. You can get a preview of the gameplay in the trailer below.

The young man, identified as Wang, showed his post-operation scars last year when the grim case first emerged.

Remember that dismal story of the young Chinese man who sold his kidney to buy an iPad last year? Justice is now close to being served, with the trial underway of five people who were arrested in April this year. They’re charged with being central to the illegal kidney transplant and are now facing up to 10 years in prison. Four others are also in the dock having assisted in the operation, but face only fines.

Under the spotlight at the trial – at the People’s Court in Beihu District of Chenzhou, Hunan province – are the surgeon and the fixer who arranged it all via online chatrooms. Song Zhongyu is the surgeon who performed the operation in April 2011, earning himself 52,000 RMB (US$8,228) from the kidney which was actually worth $35,000 when they sold it on the black market. The arranger and mastermind, He Wei, profited to the tune of 56,360 RMB ($8,920). The three others facing jail terms also got substantial cuts of the money.

The young man at the centre of the case, identified only by his surname, Wang, is said to be in poor health on his remaining kidney. He got only 22,000 RMB (about $3,000) for his harvested organ, with a chunk of that earmarked by the man to buy a new iPad. But with no social safety net in terms of healthcare in China, Wang is facing hardship as his kidney-related medical expenses will likely exceed the money he got from the sinister deal. Wang suffered from renal failure shortly after the surgery.

The trial opened yesterday, and heard how the fixer, He Wei, was penniless and mired in gambling debt in early 2011 when he first hatched the plot with a few associates to lure someone into an illegal transplant. They even leased an operating room from a hospital contractor, who’s also in the dock.

Wang’s lawyers are seeking as much as RMB 2.27 million ($359,000) in compensation. The trial continues, and we’ll let you know when a verdict is reached.

[Source: People’s Daily]

Movin Studio, a game and mobile app studio based in Jogjakarta, Indonesia, has just launched its first game. Called Rolling Babaa, it’s a child-oriented physics-based puzzler and is now available on the iTunes App Store.

The sheep, Babaa, loves to eat donuts and our objective is to help it get more donuts. How? By creating shapes, whether it’s circles, squares, triangles, or anything. It will automatically turn into an object that has gravity and you can use that to help Babaa roll along and get more donuts. Aside from the shapes, you can use hinges and nails to connect objects that you have created before (see the embedded video below to see it all in action).

The company itself consists of five people so far with programmers, artists, and sound engineers. Ali Iqbal, the company’s representative, also said that rather than aiming to be a viral game, Movin Studio is also concerned about its educational purpose and that its animations are suited to the target age. There won’t be any in-app purchases in the game so the studio will monetize by releasing two versions. The free one only has 20 levels, while US$1.99 will get you 50 levels with five different realms.

After trying out some levels of the free version, I find it quite interesting – yet the game isn’t really all that challenging. Maybe that’s because I’m not really the target market for the game, or it can be iterated or improved in the future to have more challenging levels.

You can start playing the game and rolling the babaa on your iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch by downloading the free or paid version. Try it out and let me know your opinion in the comments.

PiaScore is an interesting application from Japan which allows you to view digital sheet music on your iPad. But even more than just that, it is enabled with gestures which allow you to turn pages with either a wave of your hand or nod of your head.

That’s a very clever way of using the camera as an interface, since your hands are obviously occupied playing the piano, so being able to nod your head to the left or right is a handy way to flip pages. If you’d like someone to turn the pages for you, that can be done as well via the PiaScoreAir iPhone application which connects to your iPad via bluetooth.

In addition, just recently PiaScore pushed an update which enabled the feature called Cloud Play. This gives users access to a number of public domain sheet music files which come courtesy of the International Music Score Library Project, or IMSLP. The developer also recently announced a partnership with the Piano Teachers’ National Association of Japan which has made more music sheets available for download or purchase as well. So for musicians who are tired of carrying around folders full of sheet music, being able to cram thousands of musical pieces into a single device is a big plus.

The app is developed by Plusadd, a startup which was established in 2010 and has been solely working on this app. It’s CEO is Hiroyuki Koike who is both a software developer and an amateur pianist, and thus in a unique position to create such an application. Since it was first released in late 2010, the app has seen more than 45,000 downloads worldwide, with about half of those coming from Japan.

PiaScore is free, but the company is considering possible business models for the future, and might sell digital sheet music in-app in the future.

Admittedly the iPad might be a little small for reading sheet music from, but the advantages of an app like this are very clear. You can check out a demo of the app in use in the video below, and if you’d like to try PiaScore for yourself, you can get it from the app store.

Last week you may have read news about Fotopedia’s new iOS photo application showcasing thousands of wonderful images of China, as well as its new partnership with Chinese travel service eLong (NASDAQ:LONG). We followed up with the Fotopedia reps to find out a little bit more about how their apps are being received in China, as well as this new eLong deal.

Fotopedia’s most popular apps in China so far have been the Heritage, Fotopedia Japan, and Fotopedia Paris apps. Fotopedia Heritage won the best travel app of the year for China, and interestingly Fotopedia Japan saw more downloads in China than in Japan!

With regards to the eLong partnership, which will see Fotopedia promote eLong’s iPad app from within some of its own applications, representatives could not comment on whether there were any financial aspects to this deal. But it wouldn’t really make sense for Fotopedia to promote eLong’s services for free, so my guess is that such a deal is part of their monetization strategy. It’s worth noting that Fotopedia also has a similar partnership with Expedia as well.

Personally I really like the Fotopedia apps, especially on the iPad’s larger display. We previously wrote about Fotopedia’s fascinating North Korea app that showcases incredible pictures from that country from photographer Eric Lafforgue.

For a preview of what you’ll get with this latest Fotopedia China app, check out the screenshots below.

Today’s launch was much calmer thanks in part to a pre-launch registration system that meant waiting in lines and fighting for spaces overnight wasn’t going to make anyone more likely to actually get their hands on the shiny new device today. As you can see from these photos, the scene today looks nothing like what we’ve seen at previous Apple releases. It looks crowded inside the store, but it’s always crowded inside the store. The huge lines outside are gone.

It’s worth asking how much of this is Apple’s pre-registration system and how much is just a lack of interest in the product itself. I expect the new iPad to sell well in China — they always do — but it’s worth noting that the device’s release is not a trending topic on Sina Weibo, which is a bit unusual for an Apple release. Nor does the new iPad rank as one of Baidu’s top searches now or anytime over the past seven days. Usually the online buzz around an Apple mobile product launch is almost deafening, so now, the silence is quite noticeable. Adding insult to injury, news about Windows 8′s August launch date is trending on Sina Weibo right now instead.

But whether the lack of buzz is a result of reduced interest or a result of Apple’s muted hype machine attempting to avoid more violence is hard to say. We’ll have to wait for the sales numbers, I suppose, but for now at least we know that no one got hurt. For Apple product launches in China, that’s a pretty good way to start.

UPDATE: Later in the day, the new iPad did begin trending on Sina Weibo.

TouristPads is an iPad rental service, which allows business and leisure travelers to have access to pre-installed apps to enhance their holiday experience in Singapore. The iPad comes with 3G connectivity which allows you to connect to location-based, navigation and food apps while travelling, on top of capturing those moments in this little city of ours.

The service is started by three aspiring entrepreneurs, with a passion for travel and gadgets. The startup is entirely self-funded and currently has 20 iPads in its inventory. Just when I got a little concerned about the nasty devils who would abuse the services, Joshua, co-founder of TouristPads assures me:

We state in our terms and conditions, which we will sign in a contract with our customers, that “The Customer must not use the iPad for … Any illegal activities.” I believe we will not be liable under the law for any criminal activity conducted with our iPad, in the same way car rental companies would not be liable for any criminal activity conducted by those who rent their cars.

It is necessary for the rental agreement to be signed, and the hold amount of S$800 is to discourage the loss of the iPad. For minor damages to the iPad, we will levy a fee not exceeding the repair costs of the damage, but we don’t foresee having to repair minor damages. Our iPads are all protected with the new Apple Smart Case (pictured right).

The service is now available, and interested users can reserve the iPads online for S$30 ($24) a day. The deposit of S$800 ($636) will automatically be lifted the moment they return the iPads.

The price seems to be a tad steep on a daily basis, especially when one is able to get a prepaid mobile 3G network card at our major telcos here in Singapore. But the startup hopes to bring about greater convenience and fuss-free service:

With our iPad service, travellers need not bring their iPads along, saving space in their luggage. We also make it more convenient for them as we deliver straight to their hotel or the airport. Also, they are free to download their own apps. After each rental, we run a very strict personal data erasure process to ensure that no personal data/apps remain on our TouristPads.

The Singapore startup is also looking to collaborate with the Singapore Tourism Board to promote its services. For users who are keen to find out more, you can visit the website here.

We were mildly amused last week to that a Chinese developer had created an iPad game entitled ‘Defend the Diaoyu Islands ,’ a title which has the player defending the uninhabited but disputed Japan-controlled Senkaku Islands for China.

Matt Johnson over at MobiSights had a great overview of the game last week, and translated the iTunes description as below. The app no longer can be reached at its original URL, but it can be viewed in Google cache.

Defend the Diaoyu Islands, for they are the inalienable territory of China! Recently, the Japanese government has been saber-rattling, making attempts to seize the Diaoyu Islands and even arresting our fishermen compatriots while selling off fish from the islands. Today, you can vent your anger by trying this game demo, working together to eradicate all Japanese devils landing on the island and turning them back towards their own lands. Defend the Diaoyu Islands!

Sounds lovely, hey?

According to China Daily citing technology analyst Sun Mengzi, the most likely reason for the games’s removal is that it violates Apple’s rule that enemies in a game “cannot target a specific race, culture, real government or corporation, or any other real entity.”

Here are some screenshots of the game below.

The settlement agreement was apparently signed on June 25, but it is not until today that the Shenzhen court where the case was originally filed made it official by reporting to national trademark authorities that the rights to the “iPad” trademark now belong to Apple.

The case has been bouncing around the courts since 2010, but it really heated up earlier this year when Proview attempted to stop the iPad from being sold in China, and successfully got it removed from a number of popular e-commerce platforms.

[via Sina Tech, h/t to @thats_mandarin]

Here’s a very wacky gadget that recently caught my attention. It’s a noiseless USB Karaoke Mic for the iPod, iPhone, and iPad from Japan.

Here’s how it works. You connect the mic, which comes with a sound proof cup that you’re supposed to sing into, to your iPhone’s audio jack. You can plug headphones into the audio jack to listen to while you sing. The songs can come from any karaoke app out in the app store or simply from your own music library.

While I find the idea pretty fascinating, I’m not sure if this would work out well for karaoke lovers, as a big part of the fun is the social experience. Karaoke is widely loved across Asia though, so this solo solution just might be something people are willing to pay for.

The set costs $80. And that’s cheap compared to a home karaoke set which costs at least above $100. The noiseless mic is a little ironic, I thought. People sing so others can listen, and this app defeats that purpose. But I guess for shy folks out there, this gadget would be perfect.

The idea of having a “mobile karaoke system” isn’t exactly new, as our Japan editor, Rick Martin pointed out. He wrote a column at The Japan Times reporting on a similar idea but with a karaoke box with songs preloaded. There are a number of karaoke apps on Apple’s app store as well that you might experiment with if you’re in a musical mood.

[Via Weird Asia News]

Right now — unsurprisingly — it’s not clear. Browsing through the reactions on Sina Weibo, it’s easy enough to find positive and negative comments about the Surface tablets. Many Chinese commenters are suggesting that price will be the deciding factor in whether or not they consider a Surface, but interestingly, I haven’t come across a lot of comments demanding the Surface be particularly cheap; most people just want the price to be “not too insane,” as one user put it.

The device clearly hasn’t made nearly as big a social media splash as the iPad does these days when new information is announced, but then again, it also hasn’t launched yet. Part of the reason for this is almost certainly also the lack of a price, since without one many people don’t know yet whether the Surface is worth paying attention to or getting excited about.

If the price is right, though, the Surface would have some advantages over the iPad in China. Chief among them is that most Chinese desktop apps are Windows only, or close enough. The popular QQ messaging system, for example, does have a Mac version, but it lacks many of the robust features in the PC version. Microsoft’s “pro” surface would run that, and any other Windows applications Chinese users care to throw at it. A more robust QQ may not be enough to convince Chinese users to abandon their iPads, but a tablet that can also run World of Warcraft or CS? That should sync easily with the software most people use at work? That is going to turn some heads.

Of course, the devil is in the details, and how well the Surface really goes over in China will depend in part on the price, in part on whether the things really work as promised, and in part on how Microsoft approaches branding and marketing them (which will be a stiff challenge in the face of Apple’s tablet domination). As nice as the iPad is — or so I’m told, anyway, I don’t own one — it definitely wouldn’t be a bad thing for Apple to have real some competition here.

Here’s a great iPad app from the folks over at Digital Solution in Japan. It’s called DS Anatomy and it provides a 3D digital model of the head and neck musculoskeletal system which can be easily viewed by students and medical professionals alike.

As you can see in the video below from Diginfo News, by interacting with the model on the iPad, users can manipulate it in a number of ways that are not even possible with a traditional model. It can be rotated and zoomed, muscles and bones can be displayed individually, or even made transparent to see what lies beneath them.

As you might expect, such an application doesn’t come cheap and this one is priced at $27.99. The developers note that they hope to have further additions to this app including veins and arteries. They also intend to create apps to illustrate the eating and swallowing process in the future as well.

If you’re a medical student, I imagine that DS Anatomy would certainly be worth the money. And if you’d like to try it our, it’s available right now in the app store.

In the past we have featured other iPad apps which are pushing the health 2.0 revolution forward. Readers may recall Dr. Kevin Lau’s ScolioTrack application, or our Startup Arena participant from back in February, Dr. Pad, from Taiwan.

Weibo user ‘amycc’ has been playing with Siri in Chinese and posted all the screenshots you see here (and more at the source link below). Her tests reveal that Siri retains its sass even in Mandarin Chinese, but that the beta version was also confused by some vague queries and returned an odd error message rather than an answer or a wise-crack. Here are screenshots of the virtual assistant in action:

• Setting tasks and alarms:

• Sending an email (Netease’s 186.com service), but then getting confused by a question about what to eat for dinner and, for some reason, showing a contact’s details. I hope it’s not endorsing cannibalism! Note that Apple’s tie-up with Yelp for restaurant recommendations will be useless in China.

• But Siri often failed, perhaps because it’s in its early beta stage and not just released to the public. In these two screenshots, teasing Siri about loving you caused the weird error message; that again appeared when asking about some good drinking songs:

[Source: @大元宝MM on Weibo, via 36kr - article in Chinese]

BONUS: To get a better feel of Siri speaking in Chinese and to actually hear its voice, here’s a two-minute video of the assistant being tested out. Personally, I’m not fond of the bland and over-bossy accent it has in Chinese, reminding me of the tedious announcements on trains and subways:

Flockwork is the latest game from Shanghai-based ReignDesign, designed for play on the iPad. The dynamics of the game are a little tricky to explain. But to put it simply, you are tasked with caring for a flock of sheep after a somewhat incompetent dog has let them go free. You have to navigate the sheep past an assortment of hazards – like water, fire, barbed wire, or predators – to guide them safely to their pen.

The challenge lies in the control, as you don’t merely control one sheep with your touch, but all of them at once. But by herding them against onscreen obstacles like rock walls or trees, you can change their position so that they match the position they need to be in to fit in their pens. So in that respect, the game is actually a series of short puzzles for you to solve.

I enjoyed this game up for the most part, although I found the ‘fall’ round more frustrating than any game should ever be. I should note that some of the rounds of Flockwork are amazingly quick, requiring only a second or two to flick your sheep in with one or two motions into the pen. And so in some of the fall rounds where lava was involved [1], I found that it was a constant repeat cycle of ‘swipe-f$ck-restart’ which was pretty much the opposite of fun for me. Also, achievement unlocks pop up during the strangest times, for example telling me I have unlocked Fall after it has already been unlocked. And the bonus rounds where you have to collect the stars are unreasonably hard.

As you can see from the level select screen, Flockwork is heavily influenced by Rovio’s Angry Birds. Just as with Angry Birds, you can get star ratings for each level, ranging from one to three. But here the stars actually correspond to how many of the stars you collect in each level. Sometimes they are in plan sight, but in later levels they might be hidden under boxes. There are also Rovio style cartoon animations before the different rounds too, although they don’t get more complex than to illustrate the fact that the sheep have escaped again.

Overall, I think it’s a very well-designed game, and ReignDesign is clearly a very talented team. But I’d probably have liked it even more if they had left the fall round out of it. If you’re going to learn any lesson from Rovio, it’s that people – and especially kids – enjoy knocking shit over carelessly. Flockwork borrowed many of Rovio’s art ideas, but the delicate touch and tolerant temper required for this game is almost practically the antithesis of what made Angry Birds so widely popular. Anyone can knock stuff over. Flockwork takes a little more skill, and a lot more patience.

But bottom line, there’s certainly more than enough enjoyment here to be worth the 99-cent price tag. Also, if you have an iPad 3, you’ll be pleased to know it supports the new retina display. Check it out for yourself over on the App Store.

According to Apple, its new iPad will launch officially in five Asian countries later this month. South Koreans will be among the first to grab one when it rolls out there this Friday (20th), while folks in India need to wait a week longer (27th). Here’s the full list of Asian arrival days for the iPad:

• Friday, April 20th: South Korea, Brunei, and Malaysia.
• Friday, April 27th: India, and Thailand.

In total, 12 countries around the globe are getting official shipments of the best-selling tablet this month. No word yet on when it’ll hit mainland China, leaving consumers there paying the ‘grey market’ rates for iPads brought over the border from Hong Kong – though demand hasn’t been that strong this time round.

Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) announcement did not mention specific localized prices for all the new markets. The US price starts at $499 for the base 16GB model of the “new” iPad in either black or white, while the previous generation iPad 2 has already dropped to $399. The new model was unveiled in early March by the company’s CEO, Tim Cook, who hailed the high-res “Retina” screen and the upgraded A5X processor.

From Rob Schmitz, the man responsible for exposing the now infamous fabrications in Mike Daisey’s Foxconn trip [1], comes an insightful video piece showing highlights from the Foxconn (LSE:HHPD; HKEX:2038; TPE:2354) facilities, including the iPad on the assembly line. You can check out the clip below.

There’s a detailed report as well from last week in which Rob notes his impressions from visiting the factory in Shenzhen.

[A]fter you enter the gates and walk around, you quickly realize that it’s also a city – 240,000 people work here. Nearly 50,000 of them live on campus in shared dorm rooms. There’s a main drag lined on both sides with fast-food restaurants, banks, cafes, grocery stores, a wedding photo shop, and an automated library. There are basketball courts, tennis courts, a gym, two enormous swimming pools, and a bright green astroturf soccer stadium smack-dab in the middle of campus. . . This is not what comes to mind when you think “Chinese factory.

For more from Rob and the folks at Marketplace, check out the special Apple Economy section of their website. I also recommend Rob’s recent appearance on the Sinica podcast from a few weeks back [2].

As always it should be noted that besides Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), Foxconn manufactures for practically every big name consumer electronics maker you can think of, including Acer, Dell, HP, Intel, Microsoft, Nintendo, Samsung, and Sony.

In Japan, there’s a popular phenomenon called purikura, or personalized photos upon which you can add custom decorations and designs. Capitalizing on that spirit is Japanese developer Rocket Ryoko, who has released a fun augmented reality photo application that you can use during cherry blossom viewing if you’re in Japan. Or even if you’re not.

Its application, Sakura Now, superimposes an AR layer of cherry blossoms over top of whatever your iPhone or iPad camera is pointed at. Now ideally if you’re using this, you’ll want the iPhone 4S or the new third-gen iPad. And it might be nice to take a picture near some trees to create the illusion of being among blooming cherry blossoms in spring in Japan.

For the sake of science, I posed for this picture with my plant (his name is Fernando). The default settings are for a light breeze, but by adjusting the wind in the app’s settings, you can control how many blossoms fall from the top of your screen. I turned the wind all the way up to 11. I think I nailed it!

sakura: default level

MAXIMUM SAKURA!!!!

From what I can see on the Rocket Ryoko website, they hope to make money from this free application by offering add-ons, which are still in the works. Their website mentions a dandelion add-on, which would be a nice addition, although I don’t see many people paying for such a thing.

In any case, it’s a fun idea. You can learn more about it in the promo video below. And if you and your friends are attending any cherry blossom viewing parties in the next few weeks, this will certainly help spice up your photos. Although to be honest, the scenery in Japan is so incredible right now that it really doesn’t need much help [1]. There are more than a few scenic spots to check out this season, and you can browse them over on Google’s new Cherry Blosson Guide or by using this map of hanami spots prepared by The Japan Times [2]

[Via Appbank]

We knew the new iPad was meeting a less-excited-than-usual market in China, but are sales of the device flagging across the globe? Certainly Apple’s sales numbers for the new iPad’s opening weekend don’t seem to indicate a sales slump, but according to the China Business News, sales are definitely down somewhere because something strange is happening to Foxconn workers on the iPad line: they’re getting time off. Lots of it.

For instance, one iPad-line worker named Wang in Foxconn’s Shenzhen plant told the paper that so far in March, he had already been given ten days off, an unprecedented number, especially in the days after a big global launch. This might seem like a blessing, but Foxconn workers like Wang are actually upset about it, since it means they make less money (needless to say, no one joins Foxconn for the vacations). With so many days off, Wang stands to make significantly less than his monthly salary — which is based on a six-day work week — this month, but rent and food haven’t gotten any cheaper, which puts Wang and other workers like him in a tight spot.

Of course, it’s possible the increased time off merely reflects Foxconn shifting some iPad work away from Shenzhen and into other factories in China. But in Shenzhen’s Huaqiangbei, a gigantic marketplace that is often the first stop for gray-market Apple products on their way into China from Hong Kong, iPad scalpers continue to report dismal sales in China. “Don’t even mention making money,” one scalper told the China Business News, “I’m just happy if we don’t lose money on them.” Another said that the problem was that the new iPad looks the same as the old one, and that in combination with the ample supply of them coming in from Hong Kong, is making them harder to sell.

So how is the new iPad really selling? It’s difficult to be sure. Apple seems to be quite happy with the worldwide sales, but it also seems increasingly clear that demand in China is not what people may have expected. However, is that because Chinese consumers aren’t interested in the new iPad, or simply because they’re choosing to wait for the official version rather than buying gray-market imports? We’ll just have to wait and see.

[China Business News via Sina Tech, Image source]

Flipboard pushed out the iPhone version of its localized app for China last week – and now the startup is saying that it aims to have five million Chinese users on iOS very soon.

The iPad version of Flipboard’s Chinese edition launched last December, integrating with local social networks Sina Weibo and Renren. That approach was mirrored in its new release for the iPhone.

With that solid base on iOS and a great-looking, well-localized app, Flipboard’s Alvin Tse (pictured right) has told Chinese media that the company’s plan is “five million downloads in mainland China on iOS this year.” Of course, downloads don’t equate directly to users – or even active users – but it’s still a size-able goal that the startup is working towards.

Working With Sina

Flipboard remains a small company with offices, apart from its Silicon Valley base, in New York and London, employing 55 staffers in total. There’s no plan for a China office, Alvin reveals, but says that the team understand the importance of making a localized version of an app for this “completely different market.” Alvin himself has Hong Kong roots, speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese, and is tasked with crafting business development on Flipboard’s Chinese edition apps – picking out content partners and overseeing the right kind of social media integration, such as the way you can tweet to Sina Weibo from right in the app so as to share an article with friends.

The interview revealed that Flipboard has long been working closely with Sina (NASDAQ:SINA), and that Sina CEO Charles Chao once flew to the startup’s main office to talk turkey, and showed himself to be an avid user of Flipboard’s original version (before that Chinese edition came out last December).

Alvin says that Flipboard is still seeking new Chinese content for its app but will not add a source unless they have full permission to do so.

And so the US company might be on the verge of an all too rare social media success in China. We’ll keep you posted if/when that five million milestone is reached. We get the feeling it will indeed happen this year – despite a wealth of clones from major web companies like Netease (NASDAQ:NTES) as well as newcomers such as Zaker.

[Source: Donews - article in Chinese]

Scalpers return iPads to an Apple Store in the US

The new iPad — what a stupid name — hasn’t been released yet in mainland China. But, like all iPads before it, it has found its way here via gadget scalpers in Hong Kong and the United States, who smuggle the devices into the country on the assumption that there will be a market for them. Previously, that has been so true that scalpers can sell the devices at obscene markups and still move product. But with the new iPad, things seem to be different.

The first clue came a few days ago, when the average price of gray-market new iPad imports dropped by 500 RMB ($79). Generally speaking, limited supply and extreme demand drives import prices up, not down, especially in the weeks immediately following the official overseas launch. when customers know the official China version of the device is likely still months away.

Then, perhaps in response to this, a large number of ethnically Chinese customers were seen returning bundles of new iPads to the New York Apple store yesterday. According to China Business News, these people were iPad scalpers who had planned to export the new iPads to China, but apparently for the first time ever, the gray imports from Hong Kong alone seem to be enough to meet the demand in China.

Part of the reason is that the supply from Hong Kong seems to have increased, and another reason may be that Chinese customs is rumored to be getting better at stopping US-based smugglers from getting the devices into China. But there is also a clear lack of interest in “the new iPad” when compared with previous Apple releases. When the device was first announced, I wrote a bit about why it might not hold a lot of appeal for China, but even I didn’t expect that that would actually affect sales. (After all, we wrote the same thing about the iPhone 4S, and that seems to be doing fine).

It will be interesting to see how much of this is lowered demand and how much is the increased Hong Kong supply driving prices down and US competitors out. The real China launch of the new iPad — whenever that is — should give us an indication of how excited people are about it. The norm for launches these days appears to be massive lines of scalpers and violence, so if we see anything less than that for the new iPad launch, then we’ll know for sure Apple’s latest shiny brick is a dud in the middle kingdom.

[China Business News via Sina Tech]

Back in December everyone’s favorite reader application, Flipboard for iPad, made its way into China by partnering with Chinese internet giants Sina (NASDAQ:SINA) and Renren. And today Flipboard is announcing that its app is expanding to both the iPhone and iPod touch in China.

In addition, the Flipboard team is also making content from Chinese social networks, namely the afore-mentioned Sina Weibo and Renren, available to readers all over the world, not just those in China. Users just need to navigate to ‘Accounts,’ and select Sina or Renren from the many social sources listed (see here).

There is even more recommended Chinese language content available if you look down to the ‘Choose your content guide’ option near the bottom (see here), where users can now select a Chinese content guide. This area includes articles from famous publishers like GQ, Vogue, and Cosmopolitan China. For those who prefer video, there’s even a Youku section added.

I find it pleasantly surprising that Flipboard is doing so much for its Chinese-speaking users. If you’d like to try out these new features you can download the Chinese version of Flipboard for iPhone or iPad over on the App Store, or you can simply add Chinese content sources from other language versions as well.

Chinese content guide

Youku on Flipboard

Eager customer, or a potential gadget mule for the new iPad? (Image credit: EPA)

Chinese media are quoting grey importers – those who smuggle gadgets across borders, evading taxes and making a quick profit – as saying that there are already more than 200,000 new iPad models in the mainland Chinese city of Shenzhen. These devices have mostly come in from neighboring Hong Kong, as well as from the US. Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) new iPad launched in those two territories simultaneously last Friday – but has not been given a launch date in mainland China.

Shenzhen borders onto Hong Kong, so there’s the usual foot traffic of smugglers carrying the newest iPads in baggage or about their person. But ethnic Chinese immigrants and overseas Chinese students have been ensuring that plenty are coming in from the US as well, with a noticeable number of queuers at Apple stores in American cities being ethnic Chinese in the business of buying numerous devices so as to pass them on to the grey importers.

How much is this worth to the gadget mules? Those in the US are reportedly netting about US$20 for each iPad they buy and pass on to the smugglers. In Hong Kong, the fee is a lower 80 RMB ($12.65). But that still can represent a very lucrative business for the cross-border carriers, who are often mainland Chinese who would very likely earn less per day doing a conventional job. The rest of the price mark-up that gets passed onto consumers is dictated by the main grey import agents depending on the balance of supply and demand. It’s conceivable that some of the very first smuggled new iPads into mainland China will change hands for as much as 10,000 RMB ($1,580), before the price settles down to a more routine level that’s only, say, 500 RMB above the proper retail price.

For now, with such a weight of grey imported iPads into Shenzhen‘s notorious gadget malls at Hua Qiang Bei – to say nothing of those arriving by air or train into Shanghai and Beijing – prices won’t be too ridiculous for locals who want to buy. If previous models are anything to go by, regulatory approval will delay the official launch here for many months.

[Source: CUTV - article in Chinese]

China Unicom (NYSE:CHU; HKG:0762), the country’s first partner with Apple for the iPhone, has said that it has negotiated with the Cupertino company to allow users to download and update apps larger that 50MB over its 3G network. In contrast, iPhone users in other parts of the world will have to connect to wifi – or go via the iTunes desktop app – in order to snag larger apps on their iPhones or iPads.

The announcement came from China Unicom via its official customer service Weibo page [1], and it concluded by saying (in my rough translation):

… After getting feedback from Apple, this [50MB limit for 3G] issue is resolved, and our Chinese account holders can now download apps [over 3G] with no file size limit. If you still have a problem, please restart your iPhone and try it again.

Sina Tech then tested this, and was indeed able to install a 103MB game – MetalStorm: Wingman – over China Unicom’s 3G network with no warning pop-up or restriction met. But the website also reported that not all users are happy with this development, with some folks saying that it’s just a trap to make people go over their monthly data limit and then get hit with surcharges.

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) recently lifted its 3G app download limit from 20MB to the current 50, after the high-res screen on the brand-new iPad meant that even some very basic apps would be in excess of 20MB in file size. Indeed, this could prove a problem for China Unicom users. If you have, say, just a 500MB per month data plan, then updating even one small app [2] will take you well over your theoretical daily average data level. Too much of such app downloading and updating, and your data plan could be busted well before the end of the month.

We’ll have to wait and see if this back-fires for China Unicom with bad publicity from potential instances of 3G data overuse.

[Source: Sina Tech news - article in Chinese]

Official notice saying there will be no lining up for the new iPad this time. (via Engadget)

With the launch of a “the new iPad” (I’m putting that in scare quotes because I think it’s a stupid name) in Hong Kong comes the temptation for people to form long lines outside the Apple Store overnight so that they can buy iPads and resell them at a premium in mainland China use them for personal enjoyment. But alas, there will be no more lines! Apple Hong Kong has already posted signs that iPad sales will not be first-come, first-serve. Instead, prospective buyers enter a sort of lottery via Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) Hong Kong website the day before the sale, and then if selected they can pick up their hardware from the store in person on launch day. Didn’t enter the online system beforehand? You’re not getting an iPad.

Interestingly, this announcement doesn’t seem to have fazed the scalpers, who are still lined up outside Hong Kong Apple retailers. Apple has explained to them this won’t help them get an iPad, and apparently the Hong Kong police have also asked them to leave, but they stand firm. It’s sort of inspiring, in a very stupid way.

Anyway, if you’re interested in buying a new iPad on day one and you’re not resolved to stand in a pointless line that won’t give you access to the product, you need to visit Apple Hong Kong’s official site tomorrow to enter the lottery. And hey, with all those scalpers apparently standing in line like a bunch of idiots, you might even have a chance of actually getting one. Be sure to thumb your nose at them when you’re walking into the store on Friday!

[Engadget China via Sina Tech]

via Ars Technica

Attention, rock-dwellers: Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) launched a new iPad today. It supports 4G-LTE networks, features a 2048×1536 pixel retina display and a faster processor, a new camera (the camera from the iPhone 4S, basically) and a new voice dictation system — think Siri without, uh, everything about Siri except the ability to dictate. This shiny new toy will launch in Japan, Singapore, and Hong Kong (among other places) on March 16, with preorders beginning today. Unsurprisingly, there’s no word on when we might see the thing in China.

But that’s OK because there doesn’t seem to be anything about the new iPad that’s aimed at Chinese consumers. Tim Cook announced today that Siri now supports Japanese, and so will the new iPad’s voice dictation system when it comes out. But where’s support for Chinese? If it’s coming anytime soon to the iPhone or iPad, no one mentioned it today.

The 4G-LTE support is also unlikely to impress Chinese consumers, since there is no 4G network on which to use it. We’ve written previously about China Mobile’s struggles to bring its 4G-LTE network to the masses, and it’s very unlikely that 4G will be available by the time this iPad comes out in China (even though that’s probably at least three months away).

Of course, Apple can’t control whether or not China has 4G, or when its device will be cleared for launch here. But with the company making so much money in China, it’s getting harder for me to understand why it doesn’t seem to be particularly interested in offering Chinese-language voice support of any kind. What the heck, Apple?

Apple also announced a new and improved Apple TV today, which supports 1080p and looks very shiny. But it’s hard to imagine this having much impact in China, as iTunes doesn’t offer much in the way of Chinese-language video content. Plus, the Apple TV is a device that never leaves your home, meaning it you can’t show it off in public as a status symbol. Scoff if you will, but that’s important to many Apple users here.

I’m sure we’ll learn more about Apple’s new products in the days to come, and perhaps there are some good things we missed along the way, but it certainly seems like Apple could have done a lot more to make this iPad cool for Chinese consumers. Not that that will stop anyone here from buying it, though. I’m sure Taobao sellers are licking their lips and booking tickets to Hong Kong right this minute.

Contrasting screenshots of 360Buy's iPad listings yesterday and today.

Yesterday we first broke the story in English of how Amazon China had quit selling the iPad as part of the Apple vs Proview litigation over the iPad trademark. And now a much larger e-commerce store has also cleared its virtual shelves of iPads: 360buy, the second-largest such site in China. At this rate, Apple’s tablet will be facing a blanket e-commerce sales ban.

Luckily I grabbed a screenshot of 360Buy’s iPad listings yesterday, and so we can compare it with the scene today where every single iPad model has had the price removed and replaced with the notice “temporarily not reporting the price” (pictured above). Who knows how ‘temporary’ it’ll be. On the item page, the checkout button still works, but if you add any iPad model to your cart, it just vanishes when you try to checkout.

The nation’s most-used online B2C retailer, Alibaba’s Tmall, is still stocking and selling iPads.

But it’s not just 360Buy that has bowed to legal pressure to safeguard itself – Gome (HKG:00493), which is tiny in terms of internet retailing but huge on the High Street, has removed iPads from its e-commerce site though has not yet done so from its bricks-and-mortar stores.

Proview (HKG:0334) seems to have a very legitimate and strong – ie: a practical, not troll-ish – claim to using the iPad brand in China after Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) apparently failed to resolves its right to use it in the territory.

Proview is also a manufacturer in its own right – though not an OEM partner of Apple – making old-skool CRT and LCD monitors mostly for sale in developing markets. Judging by the pictures from Caixin (see below), its facilities in Shenzhen are somewhat shambolic. Proview was placed in the third-delisting stage in December 2011 and could be kicked out of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange if it doesn’t have its papers in order by this June. But that doesn’t affect its ongoing litigation with Apple.

In the final picture from Caixin, a worker sleeps in a messy corridor at Proview's factory in Shenzhen.

Two Chinese B2C e-commerce sites, Amazon China and Suning.com (SHE:002024), have removed the iPad from sale in an apparent move to avoid implication in the Apple versus Proview legal battle over the use of the iPad name in mainland China. Today, a search for ‘iPad’ or ‘iPad 2’ or any relevant permutation yields results only for accessories for (or rivals of) Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iconic tablet on both those sites (pictured above).

Just two days ago, an Apple reseller in a city in central China was raided by authorities and had 45 iPad 2 units seized as a part of the ongoing investigation into Proview’s (HKG:0334) claim.

The Chinese site QQ Tech has two screenshots of an iPad 2 listed on both Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) China and Suning, but with consumers unable to buy the item. Note that Amazon has removed the price and ‘buy’ button, while on Suning the checkout icon is greyed-out and the price was also missing:

Screenshots from QQ Tech News showing listings of an iPad 2 on both Amazon China and Suning, but with the checkout buttons disabled.

After a number of searches, we cannot find those same listings (and thereby truly verify the authenticity of the screenshots), and indeed cannot find any iPad models for sale on either of those two sites.

Suning and Amazon China are relatively minor players in the B2C e-commerce space in China. The market leaders, Alibaba’s Tmall.com, and 360buy, still have iPads for sale (see here and here), as does Dangdang (NYSE:DANG), one of China’s earliest consumer electronics online retailers.

Though the Apple-Proview litigation isn’t near a blanket ban on iPad sales in the country, it remains a possibility as that is one move that could be made by the federal Administration of Industry and Commerce (AIC). Proview – which is from Taiwan but has a mainland HQ in Shenzhen – might even make a filing to prevent iPads that are assembled in China from being exported. It’s now up to Apple to foresee what move Proview might make and get itself some time to respond from the AIC.

We’ll keep you updated if any further e-commerce sites also quit selling the iPad.

[Source: QQ Tech news - article in Chinese]

Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) is getting it from all angles right now in China. Concerns about working conditions at Apple suppliers has led to the company requesting a Fair Labor investigation, the lost court case with Proview means iPads are being taken off store shelves and the import and export of iPads from China may be banned, and now Sina Tech is reporting that of the $500 sale price of an iPad, the people who actually made it — the Chinese workers — only get $8.

Of course, the hardware in an iPad isn’t cheap, but it turns out that after hardware costs, Apple gets about $150 for every iPad sold. That’s about 30 percent of the sale price, and it dwarfs the 1.6 percent that Chinese workers get.

In comparison, Korean hardware suppliers apparently take in about $34 for each iPad sold.

Of course, Apple’s Chinese suppliers are still making money, and workers are not slaves — if they’re unhappy with their wages they are generally free to leave. Still, though, a company that makes as much as Apple could push suppliers to pay workers better without risking much of anything. It just doesn’t want to.

For more detail on how Apple profits break down, check out this post — with handy charts — from last December.

[Via Sina Tech]

"My son's gonna love this when I get home... Er, I mean, I'm seizing this as part of our ongoing investigations!" (Image source: tech.ifeng.com)

Government officials in the city of Shijiazhuang raided an unnamed Apple reseller (not an official brand store) over the weekend, seizing 45 iPad 2 units as part of an investigation into Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) “iPad” trademark dispute in the country. This seems to be a one-off swoop (pictured right), and the iPad remains on sale in China as a whole, so there’s no need for iPad-toting CNN reporters to rip out their hair. But there is a chance – albeit slight – of this legal case turning even nastier.

We know that everyone who’s anyone is suing each other in the smartphone and tablet industry of late – but the tiny Proview (HKG:0334) maybe be more of a short-term risk to Apple than Motorola (NYSE:MMI) or HTC (TPE:2498). This Taiwanese manufacturer, whose mainland operations are based in Shenzhen, owns the record and trademark for the iPad name in China, and is demanding US$1.6 billion.

Chinese media say that some sellers in that afore-mentioned city have been spooked by the raid and are hiding their stock of iPads rather than risk having them seized by (not very trustworthy) local authorities. But it’s business as normal for all the official, unofficial, and grey-import iPad vendors across the country.

However, Beijing-based IP and IT lawyer Stan Abrams, who predicted the raid last week, points out that Proview’s case is strong, and different cities across the country might act separately:

Proview has apparently filed an enforcement application with the Beijing Administration of Industry and Commerce (AIC) [and has] a pending appeal to the High Court on a Shenzhen contract-based lawsuit that Proview won at the lower level, and a trademark infringement case that Proview filed in Shanghai.

Since Proview is the legal owner of the iPad trademark in China and, as far as we know, Apple has no good evidence that Proview filed the trademark in bad faith over a decade ago, it certainly looks good for Proview in both cases, particularly the one in Shanghai.

Local AICs [being federal agencies] have the authority to handle intellectual property infringement cases that involve trademark and unfair competition. In the case of the iPad dispute, we are dealing with trademark infringement.

What can the AIC do? It can raid premises, seize documents, equipment, products and counterfeit marks, and it can halt activity and lock down businesses. Once AIC makes a decision about infringement, it can order fines (these go to the government, not the trademark owner), revoke business licenses, and mandate a public apology.

This is a very high-profile and delicate case, so Chinese federal agencies might take a bit more care than normal not to blunder around, terrifying tech companies that employ millions of its citizens. But Apple’s team in China ought to be sweating, as China sure knows how to enforce IP when it’s convenient – ie: when a local company is on the losing end.

[News source: Phoenix Tech news - article in Chinese; via DigiCha]

Now that's patriotic education for the web 2.0 era.

Using tablets (especially iPads) in the classroom has been a dream for educators the world over for some time now, and increasingly, it is becoming a reality. Although it’s extremely uncommon in China, one school — Beijing’s Shi Jia Primary School — has started using Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPads for teaching.

At present, the tablets are used in only one class: Morality and Society. Students use school-provided iPads to do things like create presentations and interact with each other in groups. They’re not allowed to download or play games on the devices, but the school says that the kids have taken to the devices quite quickly and that they seem to enjoy the class more.

That’s important because Morality and Society is another name for patriotic training (read: propaganda). According to teachers, the class is a mix of patriotic education, history, and geography. For example, here are some lesson titles from their current textbook: “Our Fatherland”, “Beautiful China”, “An Ancient People”, “Cooperation of Ethnic Groups as One Family”, etc. There have been some questions as to whether or not it is appropriate to use the iPad — a foreign invention, after all — for this sort of class, but school representatives dismiss these concerns. The iPad is a tool, and there are plenty of other foreign inventions already present in the classroom.

The school is now considering expanding the program to put the devices in more classrooms, but it’s not likely this is going to become a nationwide project any time soon. Shi Jia Primary School is an elite school that caters mostly to middle class and wealthy children — many of them already have iPads at home — and the average Chinese school could not afford to buy large quantities of the devices (the cheapest model on Apple’s site still costs $585 in China)

Still, it’s cool to see technology working for at least a few kids in the classroom. Education, especially lower-level education, is one of the few areas of life that hasn’t really been touched by the internet and technological revolution we’ve seen over the past twenty years, and we hope that in the future more students and teachers will be able to take advantage of the powerful tools modern technology has to offer.

Dr. Pad is a Taiwan-based startup that aims to be “a painkiller for doctors’ headaches.” In essence, it is a mobile application designed to give doctors quick and easy access to medical data on the go. Co-founder Jacky Wang took to the stage this afternoon to explain exactly how that’s good for everyone.

She says that while many of us are living in the smartphone-friendly world of ubiquitous mobile internet, most doctors are tied to desktop PCs to access patient records and other data. This means that when they’re out and about in the hospital, they don’t have access to records, images, and data that might facilitate and streamline their treatment of patients.

Dr. Pad, then, is a multi-featured app that’s designed to give doctors with iPads access to all of that data while they’re on the go. The team behind it isn’t just techies and businesspeople either; the app has been developed in part by medical professionals, and further improved over the past year based on feedback from doctors in various hospitals who were able to use the app.

Because patient confidentiality is important, the app requires doctors to log in before displaying a dashboard that gives them a quick rundown of the current situation with all of their patients. From there, they can access all kinds of useful information from lab test results, medical images, and charts and graphs that show a patient’s progress over time according to variables the doctor chooses.

The team is based in Taiwan because the medical technology market is growing faster in Asia than anywhere else on earth. For the purposes of increasing scalability, the app employs a “freemium” model that allows hospitals to implement it quickly and cheaply. Dr. Pad will make its money later down the road with paid add-ons and other additional features, once they’ve built a significant enough userbase.

I’m no doctor, but it certainly looks like a pretty comprehensive service, and Jacky Wang told us that the company has gotten great feedback from the doctors it has talked to – 95 percent of doctors said they’d recommend the app to other doctors. Giving doctors better, quicker access to patient information seems like a pretty good thing, so as long as the data is accurate and secure, it’s easy to see why patients and doctors alike might get excited about Dr. Pad.

That said, the judges didn’t let these guys off the hook either. They answered some hard questions about where, exactly, their IP was in all of this, and how easy it is for hospitals to integrate the app with the hospitals’ existing systems.

RedPad's main screen

Yesterday, we told you about the RedPad, an Android tablet aimed at China’s government officials and priced at an incredible 9,999 RMB ($1,580). Yesterday, the Southern Metropolis Daily spoke to an official RedPad rep and got the full scoop on the device, and also heard the company’s official response to many of the cynical questions raised by Chinese net users after the device went viral yesterday.

The biggest question, of course, is why the device costs so much. After all, the thing is running Android and boasts modest tech specs; why does it cost twice as much as an iPad? RedPad spokesman Liu Xianri says that what they’re selling is services and information. The hardware, according to Liu, “only costs us 2800 RMB” ($438). The device is so expensive because it is designed specially for work use by government cadres, and is the exclusive provider of some “Red” (read: Communist) resources. “In a market economy,” Liu explains, “Red resources cost money too.”

‘Unlike the iPad, we provide more than just hardware’

Liu says he doesn’t get the iPad comparisons since — according to him — Apple only needs to pay hardware costs to sell it. Of course, that isn’t even a little bit true: Apple spends boatloads of money developing its iOS software platform as well as operating its app store and acquiring new software services (like Siri) to fold into its existing offerings. But that’s what Liu said. He also said “if you install all kinds of apps on an iPad for a year, you’d need 10,000 RMB” ($1,580). But with the RedPad, all the apps are free, as long as you understand that 7,100 RMB ($1,112) of the device’s original cost is paying for the preinstalled apps.

Most of those apps are connected to various provincial and national Communist Party newspapers. There’s also a suite of apps including a calendar, calculator, and slide show manager for office use. To the RedPad’s credit, the Southern Metropolis Daily reporter tried out its handwriting recognition feature and found it to be accurate and speedy. Then again, there are a number of extant Chinese handwriting input solutions for Android; it’s not clear whether the RedPad’s is original or whether it is just using one of those.

Amazingly, Liu also told reporters that part of their strategy was to make the device the most expensive one on the market. His logic is that people think expensive things are good, so making the RedPad expensive establishes that it is the best. Once the product is on sale, the price will be negotiable. Um, OK…

‘Don’t worry, this totally won’t be a misuse of public funds!’

RedPad's offices in Beijing

Part of the reason Chinese net users have been so concerned about the price is that the device is targeted at government officials, who might not care about the price because they’d be buying the things using taxpayer money. To this, Liu responds that RedPad didn’t invent the mobile government office use market, and that currently, government officials are all using iPads. I’m not sure how that’s relevant, given that the RedPad costs nearly double what an iPad costs, but whatever. Liu also stressed that RedPad “wants to compete with the foreign brand [Apple]” and that there would be no forced sales (meaning local governments would not force their employees to buy the device).

Meanwhile, the People’s Daily — which RedPad has taken great pains to associate itself with in its promotional materials — has been busy drawing a clear line between itself and RedPad, telling reporters yesterday that it played no part in the development or promotion of the RedPad, and that their cooperation consisted only of RedPad using some of their content. Liu agreed the two were only “partners.”

Interestingly, another “partner” of RedPad’s is the periodical Internet Public Opinion, which Liu says has given RedPad the exclusive distribution rights to the tablet version of their publication. Readers who subscribe to three years of Internet Public Opinion will even receive a free RedPad. A three-year subscription to Internet Public Opinion costs 3,800 RMB ($595).

Something tells me that this interview is probably not going to help dissuade people that the RedPad is an overpriced, underpowered piece of crap that’s primarily designed as a shiny way for local governments to launder bribe money, but hey, who knows!

[Southern Metropolis Daily via Sina Tech]

totally unidentified iPad owner

Update March 17th: ‘This American Life’ has issued a retraction of the episode which we shared with you (below) back in January, saying that it was ‘partially fabricated.’ You can read more about this on marketplace.org, and TAL has devoted its entire episode this week to detailing their errors.

The This American Life podcast always makes for an interesting soundtrack for my Mondays. I’m a big fan of their story-telling, though it seldom touches on technology, the topic of this blog. But this week was different. This week, TAL tells the story of Apple fanboy Mike Daisey [1] and his quest to find out more about where his favorite gadgets come from.

He traces his iRoots all the way back to Foxconn in Shenzhen, a city he says that looks “like Blade Runner threw up on itself.” Foxconn of course is the manufacturer of not only well-known products like the iPhone and iPad, but also other devices almost every company you can think of in the electronics industry.

It’s an interesting story, that prompts you to reflect on or question the true cost of owning the latest gadget which is almost certainly made in China. Mike’s talk, as presented in this episode of TAL, is pretty dramatic as you might expect. Though I was glad to see that some of his account was fact-checked and examined in the second act of the show.

I own Apple computers, and I do feel conflicted when I hear the many negative headlines about conditions at Foxconn. I guess I’m hoping that the increased spotlight will prompt the company to improve conditions. Will I buy another Mac? I confess I probably will. But I’ll try to push my old Macbook as far as I can before I do.

If you’d like to check out this week’s podcast for yourself, drop on over to the TAL website and give it a listen.

While the original report is from back in July [1], I thought it was worth sharing as it does break some misconceptions about the effects of outsourcing manufacturing to China. The paper makes a number of key points:

• The US benefits most from the success of these products, as Apple keeps most of the profits
• High-wage processes like design, software development, and marketing are kept in the US
• There is “little value in electronics assembly” and bringing those jobs back to the USA would not do very much for the economy

You can check out the distribution value breakdown for both the iPhone and the iPad below. As you can see, the greatest segments are represented by Apple’s own profits and the cost of material inputs.

Distribution of value for the iPhone 2010 - Click to Enlarge

Distribution of value for the iPad 2010 - Click to Enlarge

1. Chinese Teen Girl Offers Virginity for White iPhone

Back in June, a girl was caught offering up her virginity on Sina Weibo in exchange for a white iPhone 4. She made her QQ number available, so that any prospective ‘buyers’ could get in touch, so to speak. You can read the full story here, which includes a short video news report.

Amazingly a similar story emerged back in October of a girl who would go even further than that. According to the Baidu Beat blog, a certain young man discovered his girlfriend’s chat history in which she offered to sleep with a stranger for six months if he would give her an iPhone up front!

2. Chinese Boy Sells Kidney to Buy iPad, Now Regrets It

And if you thought that those girls couldn’t be topped, think again. A misguided 17-year-old fanboy from Anhui province with his eyes set on an iPad 2 decided to sell one of his kidneys in order to fund the purchase. He traveled to a neighboring city where he had the procedure done, and then was paid 22,000 yuan (or about $3500).

It’s a sad story, because this guy is just a kid after all. We hope he’s doing ok. Read the full story and check the video news reports here.

3. Bored With Faking iPhones China Decides To Go Big: Fake Apple Stores

Fakes iPhones are nothing new in China, but we were pretty astounded last July when an entire Apple Store was faked. Yes, an entire store. Complete with the trademark blue employee shirts and the same interior decoration, they actually did a pretty good job copying the real things.

The sign out front is a bit of a giveaway though, as it read ‘Apple Stoer.’ The store was subsequently shut down by local authorities. Read the full story here.

4. Scuffles at Apple Store in Beijing leave one man beaten, 3 others injured

We all look forward to product launches, but this certainly isn’t what you want to see. Just a day after the iPad 2 hit stores in China, and not long after the iPhone 4 went on sale, a ruckus broke out in a long queue outside the Sanlitun Apple Store in Beijing, resulting in one man being beaten and a few others injured. Details are scant, but apparently there were ‘scalpers’ trying to resell their iPhone 4s and iPad 2s, and when tensions overflowed, a store employee had beaten the man. Reportedly a financial settlement was subsequently reached between the employee and the man. More details are in our original report.

5. iPhone Giveaway Backfires for Groupon China

We’ve written more than our share about Groupon’s troubles in Asia, ranging from a fake watch scandal in China, to fake reviews in Korea, to a data leak in India. But there was one incident in particular that saw two of its own Gaopeng employees (which is run by Groupon and Tencent) hijack on online iPhone giveaway in the hopes that they could take the prize for themselves.

They were discovered when the winners were announced both on Sina Weibo and on Tencent Weibo. The only problem was that some people noticed that the same individuals had won on both microblogging platforms. Oops! You can read more about it in our original story from back in May.

Photo via Flipboard blog

Earlier this year you may recall that everyone’s favorite iPad reading app Flipboard was blocked in China. But apparently the GFW ain’t no thang, as the company has made its way into China via big-name partnerships with none other than Sina (NASDAQ:SINA) and Renren (NYSE:RENN).

As Flipboard points out in a blog post:

[Y]ou can already search for and add content in any language to Flipboard. What’s different about the Chinese edition is the fact that the entire Flipboard experience is in the local language, including a curated Content Guide with regionally-relevant content and the inclusion of popular local social networks Sina Weibo and Renren.

I’m not certain what the most recent status of the regular Flipboard app is (is it still blocked?) but this is certainly good news for Chinese fans of the app. In a Wall Street Journal report this morning, Flipboard’s Robin Chan notes that “[b]y working with government-approved content from partners, we think we addressed the issue with the government.”

This Chinese version is Flipboard’s first international edition, and it’s certainly a bold step considering the app’s previous troubles. As co-founder and Chief Exec Mike McCue noted at the time, it opened the door for Flipboard clones to step in in their place (see Zaker for example):

But McCue told the WSJ that part of the reason for entering China first was because these clones created a ‘sense of urgency’ for Flipboard to develop a Chinese edition.

As for Sina, CEO Charles Chao noted that “having Sina content and publication partners available on Flipboard [provides] a new way for publications to reach readers and a new way for our Sina Weibo users to enjoy and share content.” Likewise Renren’s CEO Joseph Chen said “[our] cooperation with Flipboard will further enrich our social network experience and satisfy user demands.”

If you’d like to try the Chinese edition of Flipboard, you can get it for free via iTunes. We’ve included a few of their screenshots below, showing the same great design that made the original edition so popular.

Docomo offers many Android handsets, but still no iPhone

Nikkei Business Online is reporting this morning that Docomo (NYSE:DCM) and Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) have reached an agreement on a 2012 release of a 4G LTE iPhone and iPad on the Docomo network. But when we reached out to Docomo representatives this morning, we were told in a brief statement that the company has “no discussion going on with Apple.”

Currently Apple’s iPhone is running on Softbank and au, with Docomo offering a wide range of Android alternatives, reportedly hoping for the iPhone but with some reservations about issues like volume as well as Docomo’s in-house applications which it likes to run on its phones.

The Nikkei Business piece also said that Apple CEO Tim Cook met with Docomo execs last month, but when we followed up with Docomo about this we were told that there was ‘no discussion last month.’ It should be pointed out that even if there was such a meeting, it might not mean much. There was a similarly reported Tim Cook visit at China Mobile headquarters back in June, and no breakthrough has been made to date to bring the phone to that network either.

As for Docomo, I have my fingers crossed that it will be selling the iPhone next year, but I’m not holding my breath… We’ll keep you posted.

The Infographic of the Day series visually expresses important stories from Asia and the world of technology.

New statistics showing the popularity of various free and paid iOS apps in China show the great importance of localization. And now that China is the second-biggest downloader of free – or freemium – iPhone and iPad apps, it’s even more critical to a game’s success that it comes with Chinese language translations throughout the app and download page.

These stats from AppAnnie also highlight a strong desire in Asia for apps that have a local language name – particularly so in mainland China, Taiwan, and South Korea.

Before we look at the infographics, remember that Apple rolled out easier RMB payments in China this month (these stats are from September, prior to that new development), and so Mandarin-language paid apps should be considered more of a priority from now on.

Global Free iOS Downloads, Revenue

Although China now accounts for 12 percent of all the world’s free iOS app downloads, it accounts for only 2 percent of revenue for developers. But, as I said with the new payments system, this will now slowly change, and freemium might become less of a trend on Apple’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) smartphone platform in China.

Of course, that two percent figure accounts only for direct app revenue, and takes no account of other clever ways of cashing-in on games in China, such as Rovio Mobile with its merchandising push.

Mandarin, Muhfukka, Do You Speak It?

Getting back onto the subject of localization, we can now see very strong demand for local language iPhone and iPad apps in China, with nearly half of all top 25 apps consumed in China being those with Chinese-language names. And so game publishers like Popcap have ensured that its cult titles, like Plants vs Zombies (pictured top), have a decent local name as well.

Major new entrants to China, such as the American 6waves Lolapps – with whom we chatted recently, about its social gaming plans in China – seem to realise this, and have been making acquisitions and tie-ups right, left, and centre in order to get it done right in Asia. Smaller/solo game devs face a tougher challenge though.

There seems to be more of a propensity in western European countries for Apple mobile device owners to not need a local language version, such as in multilingual Switzerland. Understandably, that’s not so feasible in east Asian countries that use different character sets.

If you’re a game developer, this panel discussion on localizing games for global success might be of interest, as it features expert advice from the likes of EA and Tapjoy.

[Source: AppAnnie’s blog]

This app is basically a detailed travel guide within an app – but unfortunately it showcases just two cities, Beijing and Taipei. Nonetheless, I’m pretty impressed by how detailed the information is.

Plus, all this information comes with a map to ensure you know where you’re heading to. Scroll down to my screenshot review:

Choosing your city

Choose between Beijing or Taipei:

Exploring tourist attractions

The side bar has a comprehensive list of tourist attractions:

Tapping on one of the attractions — say, the Forbidden City — will bring you to the attraction point on the map. You can click ‘read more’ to uh… read more about the place. If you like what you’re reading, you can add it as your “My-to-go-place”.

You can also find tourist attractions based on your interest/purpose — say shopping, hanging out with family, or dating.

If time is of the essence, you can go for the package recommendation which is neatly put into chronological order:

Some Thoughts

The app, as I said, is neat. But I do have doubts if foreigners or locals would want to bring an iPad out while they tour around the city (I wouldn’t). Even if they do, I also doubt that many of these folks would want to turn on their data roaming just to access the app.

So while Citipad has good content (which made me realize how much I have missed even though I visit Beijing and Taipei frequently), accessing it on the go feels a bit unwieldy.

A phone version of the app could solve the mobility issue but most tourist still wouldn’t turn on their data roaming. The only way to access 3G cheaply is to get a local SIM card. But for a foreigner, it could be a nightmare to find one of these phone shops unless you have been to the city a couple of times before.

There’s no conclusion to this argument. And that is why a travel guide in book form is arguably still the favorite among travelers.

[Hat tip: Wen Fei Xiang, Toumingti]

Tencent (HKG:0700), China’s social media giant, has thumbed its nose at Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) by releasing a desktop ‘App Assistant for iPhone’ (pictured above) that effectively replaces iTunes. Tencent’s new app syncs iPhones, iPads, and even any iPod Touch with Windows PCs, transferring over your mp3s, e-books, photos, contacts, and apps. As a bonus feature, it makes Apple’s new CEO, Tim Cook, swear like a fisherman in a storm.

The new App Assistant for iPhone was launched as an early beta late last week, and follows a similar foray into mobile syncing territory by the company with its ‘Assistant for Android’ phones, which we looked at back in August.

It’s not clear if Tencent’s new syncing app facilitates jailbreaking and pirating of iOS apps. But the fact that it boasts of easy “one-click installation of ‘.ipa’ files” is a clue that it’s not exactly resistant to pirated apps.

Unwilling to screw up my own device to try out this Tencent app, the main window looks a bit bare. But this is where all the syncing and uploading goes on.

We’ve already seen that phenomenon from the iTools app from a Shenzhen web company that actually guides you through the jailbreak process. Bizarrely, Tencent’s app seems to have been given the ‘iTools’ nickname – as seen on its homepage – suggesting that Tencent (which is often mocked in China for being unoriginal) has lifted the name from the smaller Shenzhen team. Tencent’s syncing products also very closely resemble a longer-standing Chinese app called Peapod, which hooks-up and syncs Windows and Android devices.

iTunes is already offered with a Chinese localisation, and a (limited) official Chinese app store, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped these handful of alternatives from emerging. This is perhaps a by-product of the huge number of grey-import (and, by extension, very likely jailbroken) devices circulating in China, which float freely outside of Apple’s usually very locked-down ecosystem. Indeed, China Mobile (NYSE:CHL; HKG:0941) claims to have just over 10 million iPhone users, despite not even being the Apple-sanctioned carrier in the country.

Although Apple once exhorted people, with a cavalier approach to adverbs, to “think different,” I don’t think this is what the departed Steve Jobs had in mind.

Check out the App Assistant for iPhone on its homepage. It’s available for Windows only.

At Ad Tech Tokyo this afternoon I had an opportunity to check out Qoncept, a developer of augmented reality (AR) technology. Some of our readers may recall Bandai’s snazzy One Piece ARcardass application from a few months back, which they had a hand in developing.

Today’s demonstration was also impressive, and was a good example of how augmented reality can be used for a practical purpose, one that’s more than just eye candy. In the video below, you’ll see how an iPad camera focuses on a figure on a wall, which then comes to life on your iPad, stepping out to give a presentation.

Qoncept also showed me its new Balloon Fishing app, which falls under the less-practical, just-for-fun category. In the demo you’ll see how the app uses circle recognition to transform a cup of coffee into your own private fishing hole. If you’d like to give it a try, its available for free on iTunes. Or to see more from Qoncept, check out its AR showreel.

Owners of iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touches have a fairly new desktop app for Windows called iTools, which can be used instead of Apple’s own iTunes. It’s possibly the first-ever unofficial method of fully syncing-up your Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) mobile devices – and it positively encourages you to jailbreak and snag some pirated apps. Of course, jailbreaking is perfectly legal and can be a gateway to some neat features and customizations, but app developers won’t be too amused by the implications of losing yet more revenue to pirated apps.

Made by a web company in Shenzen called ThinkSky, the iTools app is bound to raise the ire of Apple’s lawyers. The app is now in the early public beta stage, and recently updated to support the newest iOS 5, and the recently-launched iPhone 4S.

The iTool app, of course, could be used legally – in the same way that iTunes can be used for pirating apps, depending on how you’ve set up your jailbroken Apple device. Still, the iTools site gives some advice to users on how to spot a pirated app that’s ready to use, and why they should not pirate/share their own apps (because one’s own email address is embedded into them).

Jailbreaking your Apple mobile device from right inside the iTools app.

Jailbreaking can be done within the iTools app itself. I’m not sure how that’s being done, but the process looks similar to that of redsn0w, using the same method of entering DFU mode (pictured above) to initiate the jailbreak sequence. The Shenzhen-made app also stores your SHSH blobs, which might be needed if you ever have to downgrade a version of iOS for some reason.

Google’s (NASQAQ:GOOG) Android Market has long had lots of alternatives, which are easier to implement given the much more open nature of Android that allows for the sideloading of apps and the use of numerous app stores, such as the top eight Chinese Android app stores I listed before. Web giant Tencent (HKG:0700) has taken it one step further by making a sort of ‘iTunes for Android’ for finding and syncing apps.

iOS, however, is tightly locked down to Apple’s ecosystem. That’s why iTools is almost certainly the world’s first total iTunes replacement.

Inevitably, jailbreaking is a worldwide phenomenon. Here, China’s grey-import iPhones come unlocked and already jailbroken by vendors for the ‘convenience’ of local users.

Try out iTools (Windows-only; and Chinese-language only) by downloading the app from its homepage.

[Source: QQ Tech news - article in Chinese]

Putter King for iPad was just released yesterday. The game was designed by the Tokyo-based mini-golf company of the same name, with development and final artwork completed by Tasty Poison of South Africa. I gave the game a quick run-through, despite all my past mini-golf experiences.

The game features 24 holes that you can play, with three more holes coming as a future update after Putter King’s hole design contest. I enjoyed the Japan-themed holes, particularly the sumo arena and the conveyor belt sushi course. On the other hand, the Imperial Palace course left me fuming — I don’t really want to talk about that one, it was very traumatic…

Check out our demo video below, or if you’d like to try the game for yourself, you can pick it up in the app store for 99 cents. It’s available in both English and Japanese.

While Chinese copycats usually make more headlines, its important to remember that there are some amazing talents in China creating equally amazing work. A 19-year-old teenager, who goes by the name of Peakji, has already developed lots of excellent software, most notably Mammoth 4, an impressive mobile browser which won the top award at Macworld Asia.

As it was made by a senior school student, Mammoth 4 has a very distinctive design and user’s experience. The interface of Mammoth 4 is so concise that you can only see a slide bar in the bottom. Most operations can be done by one finger sliding: switching tabs by sliding the bottom bar, reloading or dismissing tabs, visiting your favorite pages by sliding your finger up.

Mammoth has lots of interesting functions like private browsing mode, an ad-blocking feature, Twitter and so on. We talked to the prodigous young developer to find out more about him and his new browser.

How long did you take to develop the Mammoth browser?

The 4th series of the Mammoth browser was released yesterday. The series began last August. During the period, it kept updating rapidly. In order to guarantee the quality, every major version number is rewritten completely.

The functions of the first version is quite simple, just testing whether users accept the operation mode or not. So it took only a month to launch. The second major version (2.0.0) began to integrate a multi-tab system and launched by the end of 2010. The third major version formed a more complete style. But at that time, I was in my last year of high school. It released in March and it had a lot of flaws. After the collage entrance exam, I devote myself to the development of Mammoth 4. All the codes, designs, and images were reset. This took three months.

Why did you develop Mammoth 4?

The reason is quite simple. Just because I felt multi-tabbed browsing at the time was limited. There was a lot of room for improvement in user experience. So I treated myself as a user, and developed a browser from the angle of a user’s demand. That is the reason why Mammoth is so welcomed widely by users.

From the market, there are three kinds of browsers: Native, third-party paid, and third party free. The native only has basic functions, not enough to serve enthusiasts. The third-party paid browsers are usually developed by small companies, lacking user experience. All depend on advertising, deeply damaging user experience and lacking in personality. So there is lots of room in the market for Mammoth.

What is the most outstanding function of Mammoth 4, in your opinion?

Mammoth 4 expressed my objective completely: convenient + smart + deep.

Convenient: At first many users are overwhelmed by the interface of Mammoth 4. But after a little adjusting, they will find the gestures are convenient. Traditional gestures request users to remember many actions, for example, draw a X or O to trigger corresponding actions. That’s not only hard to remember, but also hard to use. However, the gestures design of Mammoth is based on “leading,” that is to say, as a finger flipping, users can see the results, without having to learn learning complex gestures.

Smart: the managing of tabs is bothersome. So mammoth can analyze a user’s preference to assist the actions of new, cover, turn off the page and other operations. Furthermore, Mammoth can acquire the area of a user’s fingertip to assist in identification.

Deep: The layout of the main interface is extremely simple, almost completely transparent. But when users switch on the menu, they will feel the functions of Mammoth 4 seeing many options, functions, and the code editor. I think most people will like this feeling of surprise.

What are the shortcomings of Mammoth 4, in your opinion?

There are lots of shortcomings on Mammoth 4, especially the limitation of the core. Apple only allows the webkit core browser to launch on the app store. So I tried my best to optimize on the DOM layer. Efficiency in javascript and HTML5 support are still not perfect. Besides the technology, I obsessed over how to let light users enjoy the Mammoth browser. Sometimes too many functions will confuse or even bore the less demanding users. I do not want to give up on any potential user, so the structure of Mammoth will be further optimized.

To get an idea of how the Mammoth 4 browser works, check out the video demo below.

A brand-new report by analytics company Umeng reveals a whole bunch of interesting facts and stats about iPhone and iPad usage and adoption in China, and how iOS is taking off across the country.

We all know that China has a huge taste for Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) products, so it’s good to have updated figures to match to that. This data was collated up to 2011 Q2 from online usage of around 3,000 domestic iOS apps, which Umeng then analysed by device, location, time, and type of apps being used. I’ve picked out seven of the most interesting pages, and broken them down with a translation-cum-commentary.

iPhone model upgrades - First up, here’s the proportional growth in different iPhone models in China, from the start of this year up to the end of June. Last summer’s new model, the iPhone 4, grew to an eventual 83.4 percent (or 83.8, including the later-issued CDMA variant), showing a strong preference for newer models in the country. The new-for-2009 3GS model is already astonishingly thin on the ground here. I’ll be curious to see if the new iPhone 4S sets the same rate of upgrades by next summer – although that’s perhaps more unlikely given its identical form-factor:

iPad model upgrades - The same analysis of the iPad in China reveals keen adoption of newer models as well, but the later release of the iPad 2 – in March of this year – means that the original Apple slate is still out in force. In total, it looks like the new iPad 2 in all its variants accounts for 59.7 percent of Chinese users, with the original iPad on 40.2:

iOS software updates - With so many people here upgrading their Apple devices annually – and with fairly easy updates in iTunes – it’s not too surprising to see the majority of people using the newest version of the software back in June, which was iOS 4.3. That was only released in March, so it had a swift rise – in just three months – to be on 69.3 percent of iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch models by the summer:

Apple device usage by province - Across China, iOS usage is concentrated around the country’s wealthier southern and eastern coastal provinces. Just five areas – Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, and Guangdong – account for 50.5 percent of usage in this survey. Down at the bottom of the chart is the massive but isolated Tibetan region, which has only 0.1 percent of Chinese iOS users:

iOS vs Android; and iOS devices per capita - Following on from that map above, this chart shows adoption of iOS verses Android. It’s interesting to see that Guangdong province, whose people have the most Apple mobile devices, are even bigger fans of Android, Google’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) mobile OS. But, in the other four wealthy regions, more tablets and smartphones are rocking iOS. In general across China, Android has a slight lead.

On the chart on the right, we see that Beijing has the greatest number of iOS devices per capita:

Types of iOS apps used - For the sixth page, let’s look at the time of apps being used. The chart on the left breaks it down to a week, while the one on the right shows the flow during a single, average day:

iPhone vs iPad usage - Lastly, we see that iPhones and iPads tend to be used in China more at varying times of day. I suspect this might be a global phenomenon, as people reach for a larger screen when they get home in the evening and when they’re relaxing at the weekends:

[Source: Umeng; Umeng’s report as PDF download]

One more neat update is that the app now supports Youku Paike, a feature that allows user to record a video and upload it quickly to Youku from their phones. Other minor additions include the Soku search engine, and also Sina Weibo integration for easy video-sharing to the microblog service.

The radial button on iPhone looks innovative but I did find it a little hard to access at first. There’s a small button located in the bottom of the page which may require some practice before you can actually press it correctly at first touch. The radial button has two layers of access features: the first offers search and account details, while the second gives access to different types of content quickly. It does help users to find videos more easily but it takes some time to remember what the icons represent.

Youku explains that this updated version is the product of understanding what users wanted in the previous version. I remember not liking the previous version so I guess this should be a better user experience. The Chinese online video company also revealed that its iPhone and iPad apps have been downloaded 6.2 million and 1.7 million times respectively as of September 24, 2011. Plus, Youku software clients and widgets were pre-installed on approximately 22.9 million mobile phones in China.

You can head over here and here to download either the updated iPad or iPhone app.

Hong Kong artist and investor, Elton Leung, loves his iPad. So much so that he uses the iPad as a sketchbook to record his invention ideas. But the problem is, Apple doesn’t offer a professional stylus for artists like Elton.

There are of course unofficial alternatives. Elton told me that he tried 30 over different styluses but couldn’t settle for one. He explained to me that these styluses are built to point and tap, but not for sketching. They needed a constant pressure for the iPad to recognize the strokes and this isn’t at all ideal for sketching. The short or light strokes of a sketch, as he explained, always lost their first half or were completely ignored. Elton had to retouch every stroke made which was really kind of a hassle.

The artist side of Elton was disappointed but his inventive mind prompted him to build the perfect sketch stylus instead of just grumbling. Of course, it’s hard to raise money so Elton decided to ‘crowdfund’ the project using Indiegogo. He explained:

After months of prototyping and changing of design, I finally found the key to building a super responsive stylus. I want to share my stylus to all the iPad users but the cost of production is too high for me to absorb. So I started a crowdfunding project to gather production funding for my stylus — XStylus.

With 27 more days to go, Elton has already raised about $9,400 at the time of writing. He needs $40,000+ more to get this project going. Elton’s offers are pretty good too. By pledging $25 for the project, you get to receive a XStylus Touch if the project goes through. So far, there are more than 350 funders for his project. Catch Elton’s campaign videos below, including one where he showcases his stylus in action. It does look pretty neat, especially if you’re an artist like him.

XStylus Touch campaign video

XStylus artist demo

Most successful international apps have a group of Chinese imitators. The success of magazine-style news-reading app Flipboard has brought with it many such Chinese “brothers,” such as Fruit, Netease reader, and perhaps the most popular of them all, Zaker. To commemorate its growing acclaim this year, it’s time to give it a mini-review.

Zaker is made by Dooland, a web company founded in 2007, and has separate versions for iPhone and iPad. Like Flipboard – which got blocked in China back in May of this year – it carefully grabs news and interesting articles from numerous sources – from microblogs such as Weibo, blogs, news sites, and magazines, and updates in real time. Users can add their own sources via RSS and Google Reader.

Zaker app for iPad.

As a reading app, Zaker has done much to improve the reading experience. Pages are turned with the same motion you would use to turn pages in a real magazine. Also, Zaker makes use of social networks such as Sina Weibo to allow you to share what you’re perusing.

When you login to Zaker, it’s a bit like a Twitter or Weibo app, with vertical scrolling to browse content. You can click on any link and read the news or watch the videos directly in the app. Clicking on the screen in the upper right corner lets you send a new tweet (to Weibo, I mean). You can favourite, retweet, and comment on any tweets you like inside Zaker, making it into a sort of satellite social network. Also, when you write and send your tweet, you can directly use the camera to take pictures.

Zaker app gives first-time users a neat demo.

Chen Chi-he, the CEO of Dooland, believes its advantage lies in the content. About 300 newspapers, 800 general news websites, and many magazines have cooperated with them in agreeing to aggregate content. Talking to Chinese tech site Hexun, he said:

Copyright risk is what we questioned about Flipboard’s model, so we have to consider that fully by establishing a good relationship with the content side [...] We will try to combine with e-commerce, LBS, and games. But at this stage, what we should do first is build a user base.

In China, on a subway or bus, you often see people reading while commuting. The market for such readers will surely only get bigger here, especially as Apple and its iOS gadgets grow in popularity in China. Perhaps Zaker will lead the reading revolution here.

Here’s a video of the app in action on an iPhone:

But if Samsung has indeed copied/borrowed its designs from Apple, it certainly looks as though that was a good idea. The company’s expected year-on-year smartphone growth for 2010 to 2011 is about 190 percent.

We noted earlier this week that Huawei’s new Honor smartphone bears a pretty striking resemblance to Apple’s iPhone as well. Perhaps Huawei was as much inspired by Samsung’s success as with Apple’s initial design ideas? Assuming you can get away with it, following Cupertino’s lead looks like good business.

[Via TUAW]

via Sina Tech

Yesterday, the 3G iPad 2 finally launched in China (the wireless version has been here for a while already). We joked yesterday there might be a riot at China’s Apple stores — after all, there was the last time an iPad was launched here — but it looks like there was no need to worry about that. Apple’s 3G iPad seems to have met with a cold reception here.

The photo on the right is of the Apple Store in Beijing yesterday. If you’ve never been there before, this might look crowded to you, but trust us, that’s how it looks on a normal day. Usually when there’s a new product launch, people are lining up out the doors and there are huge crowds pressing in against the shop from all sides. It looks a little like a zombie apocalypse, and if you see it, you know some Apple thing just went on sale in China.

So why isn’t the 3G iPad 2 getting the same treatment? Sina Tech seems eager to suggest that Apple’s magic is gone now that Steve Jobs is out as CEO, but that’s not the reason at all. Actually, there are a lot of reasons why the 3G iPad 2 got the cold shoulder on launch day in China:

• It wasn’t really a product launch. As we pointed out yesterday, Apple hasn’t really been treating this like a new product launch. The 3G iPad 2 wasn’t even a featured product on Apple’s website, nor were there any huge marketing campaigns for it. It seems like the hype machine was switched off for this one, which makes sense because….
• The 3G iPad 2 has actually been out for months. Of course, it wasn’t officially for sale here, but it’s been for sale in other countries for a while now, which means gray-market 3G iPad 2s have been available in China for just as long. Anyone who really wanted the 3G version probably bought a gray-market import long ago.
• It’s too expensive. The 3G version costs more than the wireless one, and 3G plans are also expensive. If you live in the US, you’d probably cry if I told you how little they cost in comparison to your inflated wireless bill, but Chinese consumers are used to paying just a few dollars a month for pay-as-you-go phone service, and the prospect of 3G data packages with steep up-front price tags is not always appealing.
• Not Jailbroken Yet. Some consumers may be avoiding the 3G iPad 2 for a while because they’re concerned the new China version of the device may not be jailbroken yet. A huge number of Chinese Apple users jailbreak their iDevices for use with China Mobile’s network because the devices are only sold officially through China Unicom, which isn’t as popular a wireless provider.

Of course, there are also a bunch of cheaper copycats alternatives now, but personally I don’t think that’s the issue. The iPhone 5 is coming soon — Apple will reportedly unveil the new device on Oct 4 — and I’d be willing to bet quite a bit of money when that hits the streets in China, we’ll see big lines at the Apple Stores again even though there are a number of cheaper competitors.

Apple products, after all, have always been slow to the market and expensive in China. People go nuts for them anyway because the branding is so expertly executed. The products — iPhones, iPads, MacBooks — have become status symbols here, and cheaper alternatives are only going to make them more attractive to large swaths of the Chinese audience. The marketing machine appears to be sitting out the 3G iPad 2 launch here, but you can bet it will be back in full swing by the time the new iPhone drops. If there are still no lines at the Apple Stores then, feel free to blame Tim Cook. But I highly doubt that will be the case.

Designed by Apple in California. Assembled in Brazil. We’re more used to seeing the name China at the end of that phrase, but that’ll change very soon as Brazil is now ready to inaugurate its first Foxconn factory to make Apple’s iPad. It marks the end of China’s decade-long dominance of making Apple hardware, from humble iPods to huge iMacs. Brazil-made iPads could well hit shelves by December.

But this is not the start of a shift away from China – at least not yet. Foxconn, the Taiwanese OEM that runs the mainland China plants that also produce Apple’s gadgets, is using Brazil as a supplement to the output from its Chinese factories. An astonishing 20 million units iPads are reportedly going to be sold this quarter – which leaves room for both BRICS nations.

The Brazilian minister of science and technology, Aolizio Mercadante, told the local portal UOL:

At first many doubted, but it will be the first time that the company will produce iPads outside Chinese territory. We are taking a big step for digital inclusion in the country.

In future, China’s role is not as safe as some might think. Rising labor costs, and endlessly awful conditions at the plants, make the gadget’s time on Chinese soil the most controversial and difficult part of the production process.

Apple first started getting global flak for conditions at its Chinese suppliers back in 2006, after the success of the iPod put the Californian company in the spotlight. In 2007, Apple decided to start annual audits of its outsourced companies. But, despite their apparent best intent, miserable surroundings, punitive punishments, and abusive Chinese/Taiwanese OEM bosses remain in place. Furthermore, toxic n-hexane leaks have caused severe respiratory infections for workers in Suzhou (who remain uncompensated by Apple); and cancer-causing chemicals have seeped into the water table and sickened locals in one nearby village.

With the start of a new era in Brazil, consumers who champion responsible and happier workplaces will be hoping that we don’t see a repeat of ongoing abuses in China; and that the working environment in Brazil can (finally) push forward some positive changes here.

[News source: UOL - article in Portugese; via MacStories]

India’s Competition Commission of India (CCI), which has been constituted to protect the interest of consumers in India and prevent any anti-competitive practice in the market, has ordered a probe on Apple. It states that the Indian subsidiary of the Cupertino-based tech giant is allegedly limiting the availability of its products to a select number of service providers in India.

Explaining the need for a probe, CCI’s Director General said to PTI that they have found prima facie evidence which makes the case “worth investigating further.”

Previously, the commission was asked to probe into Apple India, based on a complaint filed by a customer under section four of the Competition Act, 2002. It asserted that Apple is using its dominant position to curb customer choice by limiting the availability of iPhones and iPads in India to a limited number of service providers, besides its signature stores.

It had further raised objection that iPhones could only be serviced in Apple service centers which were charging high servicing rates, and consumers could only download “software from the i-store” (we assume they mean the App Store).

While I am not an expert in law, there’s something about this complaint which makes me ponder its validity.

In India, iPhones are currently being retailed through telecom operators such as Airtel and Aircel. However these phones are completely unlocked, i.e. the device is not locked to any specific carrier and consumers may choose any network operator after purchasing the phone.

This was the exact reason why Airtel and Aircel launched a reverse subsidy scheme along with the phone, which offered a 100 percent money back opportunity by either discounting the monthly rental on a postpaid account or crediting the user’s prepaid account on a monthly basis with the same amount, over the next two years.

This strategy was created by operators so that it could prevent consumers from jumping onto another network, since India is predominantly a prepaid market (96 percent) with a very high churn rate. So I am not quite sure on what the complainant means by “select number of service providers” in his complaint.

If we come to Apple’s supposed market dominance in India, the company hasn’t disclosed any official sales figures of its iOS devices in India, but it is quite clear that these devices haven’t excited Indian audience as much as the company would have liked. This is partly due to the comparatively high pricing and partly due to late availability — although I should note that Apple is trying to making amends on both fronts lately. I think it is quite safe to say that iOS devices don’t even enjoy a significant market share in India, let alone a dominant one.

Finally, the service center complaint is the strangest of the lot. Apple, like every other electronic company, has designated third party service centers, besides its own Apple centers. So this claim seems baseless to us.

Of course its pretty much common knowledge that if you opt for an unauthorized service center to save couple of bucks, you will run the risk of ruining your phone, let alone voiding the device’s warranty.

[Image Credit: Flickr user Ivan Walsh]

At the Foreign Correspondents’ Club in Tokyo today, Japanese company Metamoji gave a short presentation about its recently launched 7notes app. It’s a handwriting conversion application that despite still being very young has already reached a number of significant milestones.

The iPad version was the top paid application in the Japanese App Store for a month. It’s now in the fifth spot. And the iPhone version was the second top-grossing app in the app store at one point. The new English version ranked in the top ten in 21 countries, with downloads from over 80 countries.

Metamoji cited a huge gap between computers and human devices. The company’s CEO, Mr Ukigawa, explained that when the iPad came along they decided to change their application development to focus on the iPad. He referred to the poor user experience of the iPad’s software keyboard, which many feel is not the best way to input text. Many find it hard to type fast. The company’s 7knowledge subsidiary for smartphone and tablet apps then developed this 7notes application.

Kaz and Hatsuko Ukigawa of Metamoji

Handwriting conversion can be handy in certain situations, and the 7notes app appears to work very well. The demos that I saw this afternoon showed quick conversions, with great accuracy too. Even when the user has no time for conversion, they can just keep writing and come back for ‘post-processing’ conversion later on.

There are free versions in the App Store (iPad | iPhone), but it does not include the handwriting conversion feature. A natural question to ask here is what good is the free app without the conversion feature? The answer lies in the prediction engine.

When writing on the software keyboard, the app gives suggested words that you can tap before it finishes. You don’t have to write out the entire word. Of course, in the premium version, the predictive engine is especially useful. It remembers the previous input, so if you start writing a sentence you’ve written before, it will present that as a clickable option.

Interestingly, the handwriting can be manipulated like digital font, with editing and features like wrap, font size, color, bold, and underline. You can mix text and images, and you can do what the company describes as ‘social doodling’ by writing and sharing. Users can send notes to Twitter, Facebook, or email. And like any good note-taking app, you can also store your notes in Dropbox or Evernote.

Overall I think that the app has a lot of very cool innovations. Would it fit anywhere into my own personal workflow? Maybe not right now. But this software is completely new, and I’m sure that once there’s more feedback from users, then future iterations will be significantly improved. The company is working on a Chinese prototype as well, so we can watch out for that in the future too.

Here’s a short video demo of the app below (apologies in advance for the occasional camera shake). If you’d like to try out 7notes for yourself, please check it out in the iTunes store (iPad | iPhone).

And yet, the 3G tablet is most definitely coming. Yesterday afternoon, Sina Tech posted a screenshot showing that China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) has already approved a W-CDMA 3G device for Apple that has the same product ID number as the AT&T 3G iPad 2:

The screenshot shows that the permit was issued by MIIT on August 29, and will be effective throguh August 29, 2014. That’s further evidence that we’ll probably see the official launch of the 3G iPad 2 quite soon.

Since China Unicom is the only Chinese carrier with a W-CDMA 3G network, we can safely assume the 3G iPad 2 will be coming only to China Unicom, or at the very least will be released first through China Unicom. That’s no surprise, as Unicom has been Apple’s partner for all of its 3G device launches to date.

A few weeks back I was playing around with Sega’s Genpei Taisen Emaki on the iPad. It was lots of fun, so I was delighted to see recently that the company had also come out with an English version, aptly named Samurai Bloodshow.

The game is a sort of Plants vs Zombies style tower defense game, although the art and the game play are far different. The battle field looks like an ancient Japanese scroll, which actually unrolls as you pan to the right.

When you meet enemy samurai, the ensuing fight is loads of fun with one or the other destined to die in a Tarantino-like shower of blood. But because the graphics don’t aim to be realistic, it doesn’t come across as overly gory — at least it didn’t to me.

If you’d like to see how it looks, you can check out my video demo of one of the early rounds. Although judging from Sega’s trailer, the later rounds look like they’re going to get crazy!

Photo: Venture Beat

According to a report from Digitimes, Amazon will ship its new 7-inch tablet in October, supplied by hardware maker Quanta Computer out of Taiwan. The report also stated that a 10-inch model will to go into mass production at Foxconn in Q1 2012, the Taiwanese manufacturer best known for producing Apple’s iPad.

While so many other manufacturers fight it out for the number two tablet position behind the dominant iPad, Amazon’s entry will certainly be intriguing given that it has digital distribution of content nailed already.

As prices of the Amazon’s Kindle lean closer and closer to zero, one has to wonder what its new tablet offering will cost. Will there be ads served on the home screen so that consumers can buy at a lower price? Could there be a discount for Amazon Prime members?

The tablet wars get more and more interesting by the day. Stay tuned! Who knows what tomorrow brings.

[Photo: Venture Beat, KK]