- In the wake of the recent launch of its Wophone Smartphones, China Unicom recently revealed that the company plans to push the launch of tablet PCs and connected TVs based on its own-developed OS built on a Linux core, dubbed Wophone, as part of its efforts to expand the market presence of its Wophone OS, the Sina News reported on July 28. Meanwhile, it is learnt that China Unicom's executives have been in talks with Apple in order to bring the Apple 3G iPad 2 to China. Further details regarding the release timing of iPad 2, however, remain unclear. According to the Bloomberg, the 3G iPad 2 already passed the 3G certification, pending for the approval from relevant domestic policies and regulations stipulated by China's MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology). The Wi-Fi (Wireless-Fidelity) only iPad 2 began on sale in China in early May and was quietly sold out. In related news, the 3G iPad 2 is already available in China's grey market.

Following the earlier announcement made by China Telecom regarding its possibility to become the second distributor to sell the Apple iPhone at year-end 2011 other than its peer China Unicom, it is learnt that should the plan go as planned, China Telecom is expected to begin selling Apple's latest iPhone based on CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) technology, dubbed iPhone 5, at some point in October 2011, the Sina News reported on July 28. Switzerland's telecom operator Swisscom claimed that the iPhone - which is likely to feature a A5 CPU (Central Processing Unit), more memory capacity, and a different form factor including a possibly slightly larger screen size - is due to hit the US market around September 5, with the global launch in several selected countries one month later, according again to the Sina News. In addition, it is reportedly that China Telecom is currently working on the drafting of the corresponding subsidy strategy for the upcoming iPhone 5 as China Unicom was suffering from a loss of up to 3.17 billion RMB (US$495.3 million; US$1 = 6.4 RMB) in 2010 due to high 3G phone subsidy rebates, with a maximum rebate up to 86%, according to the same source.