I'm fairly certain Apple is indifferent to any country where the carriers think they can run the whole show. If those countries want to stay in the stone age where carriers try to bleed users to death with charges for everything, that's up to them. There are a number of illegal iPhones in S. Korea and users can download free apps to their iPhones through iTunes and surf the web using WiFi. It saves those users from having to pay outrageous data rates charged by the carriers. If the carriers don't want to give up control and keep S. Koreans from surfing the internet as much as they want, then that's too bad for them.
Agree with Constable Odo. Apple can assault the Korean telcos without even officially selling a single phone. Just sell boatloads of iPod touches. It totally circumvents their business model and just makes their artificial app store and wifi limitations look silly.
I'm fairly certain Apple is indifferent to any country where the carriers think they can run the whole show. If those countries want to stay in the stone age where carriers try to bleed users to death with charges for everything, that's up to them. There are a number of illegal iPhones in S. Korea and users can download free apps to their iPhones through iTunes and surf the web using WiFi. It saves those users from having to pay outrageous data rates charged by the carriers. If the carriers don't want to give up control and keep S. Koreans from surfing the internet as much as they want, then that's too bad for them.
Agree with Constable Odo. Apple can assault the Korean telcos without even officially selling a single phone. Just sell boatloads of iPod touches. It totally circumvents their business model and just makes their artificial app store and wifi limitations look silly.
http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?no=385082&rel_no=1
Hopefully the same thing will happen in China.