China May Have to Wait a Long Time for the iPhone 4S

You remember the iPhone 4S, right? That phone that Apple launched a month ago in the US? The one that’s preorders sold out in ten minutes in Hong Kong? Well it’s still not available in China.

Of course, that’s no surprise, given that Apple’s products take so long to come out in China because they’re held up by regulators. Despite the increasing importance Apple places on China and despite its search for new talent to deal with regulators, things with the 4S are still going slowly.

Specifically, mobile phones need to be approved by a phone-testing department that belongs to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) before they can be given a permit that allows them to access the internet. Before they get that far, though, they must be inspected and approved by two other government bodies. According to this Sina Tech report, the iPhone 4S hasn’t been delivered to MIIT yet, which means that it’s still in the early stages of the approval process.

And that means, according to Sina’s anonymous inside source, that there’s no way of knowing when the iPhone 4S will appear on the market here.

The good news, I guess, is that the MIIT sources say their process is relatively quick, and that they could approve the device in as little as eight working days once it’s delivered, although they don’t know when that will be. It’s fairly remarkable that after so many device releases, Apple still doesn’t seem to have made any progress in streamlining the process.

In the absence of iPhone 4S handsets on the mainland, Apple’s most dedicated customers will once again flock to Hong Kong where — as usual — the devices are available earlier and will cost less. On the one hand, Hong Kong almost certainly won’t be able to supply enough phones to sate the mainland’s demand for new Apple products. Then again, though, there are a bunch of reasons why the iPhone 4S ought to attract fewer Chinese buyers than any previous iPhone, and net users weren’t exactly thrilled at the announcement of the new phone, so who knows!