Chinese Netizens Tune in to Apple Keynote, Hope For Unblocked iCloud

Will iCloud come to China unimpeded?

At 1am on June 7, 2011 (Beijing time), diehard Apple fans in China were staying up late for Apple’s WWDC keynote. As expected, Steve Jobs introduced the new Mac OS X Lion, iOS 5, and iCloud. And although Apple fans will have to wait until July to see Lion, and until the fall to see iOS5 and iCloud, the new features and concepts have already become a hot topic of discussion — particularly in China.

As Apple gains popularity in China, more Chinese people are now following the company’s every move. WWDC was no exception. Sina’s Weibo Live made an WWDC keynote live broadcast page that included a brief introduction and pictures.

As of this morning nearly 9 million Weibo messages on Sina Weibo had mentioned the event, propelling it into the microblog’s list of hot (or trending) topics. Of course Chinese users are excited about the new products and services, but they also have a few concerns.

Apple China's home page

First of all, will Apple introduce iCloud to China? While MobileMe was not brought to the country, the forecast for China still looks ‘cloudy.’ Apple’s China home page now features the new cloud service (pictured right), and this is a reassuring sign for many.

Next question: Will iCloud be blocked by China’s great firewall, like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube etc? Will Chinese fans have to ‘fanqiang’ (climb the wall) to access iCloud? We’ll find out this fall.

One Sina user voiced his concerns:

Roughly translated excerpt: “iCloud might be useless in China considering WIFI and server restrictions.”

Even if iCloud is not impeded by the great firewall, some are still afraid that Apple will apply some sort of digital rights inspection on iCloud storage. Music piracy is still very prevalent in China, of course. Will Apple block the IDs of those who store pirate contented in iCloud? Many are holding their breath to see what will happen, such as this Weibo user: