"Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad", a new piece on the notorious tech manufacturer Foxconn by David Barboza and Charles Duhigg of the New York Times, was translated into Chinese and published in Caixin, one of the leading news weeklies in China. They've compiled and translated a list of the reactions by Chinese readers to the piece, which split along the usually lines of tacit acceptance and finger-pointing. more ›

We told you earlier today how the iPhone 4S release was halted in Beijing after scalper scuffles. Now watch the store get pelted with eggs. Hilarious. Watch the report from Reuters after the jump... more ›

This week's episode of massively popular US podcast This American Life zones in on Apple, Foxconn, and the workers that assemble one of the the most ubiquitous device brands on the planet. more ›

Apple fans rejoice! The iPhone 4S official arrival in China is slated for January 13, dispelling all prior rumors of other release dates, Apple's latest smartphone will also flood the markets of 20 other countries, including Senegal, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica and Bolivia. more ›

An explosion took place last weekend at a Shanghai-based Apple factory, making it the third lethal incident at an Apple factory in only 15 months. The incident has left roughly 60 people injured and is currently under investigation by Chinese authorities. more ›

As with other companies that have seen their logos and trademarks hijacked by Chinese companies, Apple now risks losing control over selling its iPad tablets in China, after a Shenzhen court ruled the multinational tech-giant guilty of copyright infringement. more ›

iPad news-reading application Flipboard is partnering with Sina Weibo and Renren for its debut in China, its first overseas destination. Here's why more ›

A 46-page report from the IPE shows the results of five months of research and field investigations on pollution emission from Apple's factories, revealing that the company has been seriously encroaching on local communities and their surrounding environments. more ›

Roughly 1,000 factory workers left their work stations and blocked a highway this week to protest extreme working conditions at their factory which produces parts for Apple and IBM in Shenzhen. The protest is the latest in a growing series of labor disputes in China, highlighting a need for truly independent trade unions amid worker fears over the future of China's economy. more ›

Apple's iTunes platform now allows customers in the People's Republic to pay for their mobile apps and music purchases with their Chinese bank cards. However, instead of paying for each purchase as you go, you'll now have to first top-up your iTunes account in pre-set amounts of 50, 100, 300, or 500 RMB. Payments via Alipay or Union Pay are also not currently available. Steven Millward of Penn Olson dissects Apple's move:

The move is also designed to combat piracy of iOS apps in China, which has been thriving under the previous inconveniences/restrictions. Just this week we saw a major Chinese web company, Tencent (HKG:0700), launch a shanzhai iTunes app that helps you avoid Apple’s tightly-controlled ecosystem, and there’s the Chinese-made iTools desktop app that assists in the jailbreaking and adding of pirated/cracked apps. more ›

Okay, so you're trying to seal the deal with some fatherly big boss-types in the clubhouse after a few rounds of golf. They want to know if they can take a peek at those luxury housing development plans you've been cooking up, but they can't all just crowd around your little tablet computer like a bunch of craven children, right? And they definitely can't pass it around from one person to the next, what ludicrousness. So what do you do? Looks like the new Lenovo Thinkpad Tablet has you covered. more ›

'Today we have got two from Canada, they're 11,000 yuan (S$2,183) each. If you're interested, you need to come straight away,' a salesman at a mobile phone shop at Hailong market told AFP. She said it was a 16GB model, the least expensive in the range. In the United States, the same phone is sold for US$199 (S$252) with a two-year contract. more ›

With the iPhone 4S being released today, it's only a matter of time before the first arrive on China's gray market, where Chinese will rush to bask in Apple's latest creation. However, those early adopters with sub-par English skills may not be as enthusiastic after having a few minutes to play around with Apple's newest gem, Siri. more ›

Seen on a poster outside a store selling Android mobile devices in Suining, Sichuan province: "Steve Jobs has kicked the bucket. Why would you still be buying Apple?"
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Pan Shiyi, real estate tycoon and president of SOHO China, posted the following tweet on Weibo earlier today, "The Board of Apple should decide right now to mass produce a new iPhone and iPad under 1000 yuan, and allow more people to afford Apple. This is the best way to commemorate Jobs." more ›

Steve Jobs' keynote addresses were the main platform that he engaged with the wider world. Standing with his ubiquitously talked-about ubiquitous black turtleneck, Jobs would unveil the next object of immaculate tech perfection to a rapt audience of adoring listeners. Tuesday's keynote for the iPhone 4S was the first post-Jobs product reveal, and it still feels quite surreal to see someone else now telling the world of the next iteration of iProducts. more ›

When news of Steve Jobs' death hit Weibo this morning around 7:45am, the Chinese weibosphere absolutely exploded with tributes, quotes, videos, news, and photos. We logged on around 9am to find a big black bar across our Weibo homepage informing us of Jobs' death, directing us to this page, which has received almost 50,000 comments. The page also links you to other sites where you can memorialize Jobs, take surveys about him, and discuss his influence on the digital world. more ›

Shanghai's new Apple Store on East Nanjing Road (which we've been prattling on about for over a week now) opened its doors to the public at 9am this morning, and we aren't exaggerating when we say we haven't seen Chinese people this giddy about something, ever. Since we're rather China-centric at Shanghaiist, it's par for the course to compare random social phenomena to some previous kindred thing from the dark murk of bygone Communist epochs, and we'll be a running dog if the assembled crowd weren't the happiest, most hopped-up Chinese people Shanghai's seen since Liberation. more ›

The largest in China, the new East Nanjing Road location is the third Apple Store in Shanghai, and the fifth nationwide. Replete with the same products and accessories available at most Apple Stores worldwide (variation does occur: the iPad 2 3G was just released in China today, trailing other markets by six months), the new Nanjing Road Apple Store will feature plenty of personal attention from its in-house staff, so that a visit with the royal blue-shirted Apple Helpers will mean anyone who hasn't already swallowed the Mac Gospel will be ready to click around their new OSX desktop with a measure of familiarity. more ›

In Guangzhou's Liwan district (荔湾区), a 16-year-old girl was suffocated to death by her mother, after the two had an argument regarding 5,900RMB. The girl, surnamed Xie (谢), had asked for the money from her mother to buy an Apple computer. The argument reportedly escalated into a fight, whereupon the mother tripped her daughter and then sat on her back while pushing her face towards a pillow on the ground. The mother said that she pushed her daughter's face into the pillow because her daughter was cursing at her, and that she called the authorities after her daughter stopped breathing. And so the specter of filicide, one of the most significant (and saddest) trends of 2011, can claim another victim. more ›

According to Apple's China website, the opening date for Shanghai's third Apple Store has been confirmed for this Friday morning at 9am. You can find the store at the corner of East Nanjing Road and Henan Middle Road, and normal operation hours will be between 10am to 10pm every day of the week. more ›

The devout Apple faithful will be making their pilgrimage on September 22nd to Beijing's China National Convention Center, for what will be the first ever Macworld expo to take place in China. And though other reports state that this will be the first expo outside of the US, Macworld has taken place before in Tokyo, London and Paris. more ›

Created by Italian developer Molleindustria (other games include deconstructions of McDonald's and the oil industry), the most unsettling mini-game in the app is "Suicides", in which players thumb a pair of rescuers holding a fireman's trampoline left and right, in a bid to save Foxconn employees bent on jumping off of a building to meet their makers. more ›

You can start lining up now, Apple Borg devotees! Word on the internet street says that Shanghai's third Apple Store, located at the tourist-trap section of East Nanjing Road, will open before China's National Day on October 1st, and even possibly as soon as next week. Perfect timing for the Golden Week hordes! more ›

A few links to start out your day. Jordan Pouille has some interesting photos that offer an intriguing glimpse of life in "iPad City" in Sichuan, which employs hundreds of thousands of workers to make Apple's extremely popular product. more ›

Tencent, the Chinese Internet giant that is known for its instant messaging software QQ, has apologised for describing Apple's new CEO Tim Cook as a "sufferer of homosexuality" ("同性恋患者") in a recent article on its content portal. more ›

Steve Jobs, British Petroleum, Jacques Cousteau, Obama and ALIENS...this video has it all. Seriously dudes, whoa. We had no idea iPhones were alien tech. Sure, they kind of resemble the Obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey, but we'd expect alien phones to at least drop our calls less, no? more ›

This just in! Ever since that mysterious Forever 21 sign was spotted over on Nanjing Dong Lu, we've been wondering just what exactly they've got in the works over by the Bund. Lo and behold, Nanjing East is planning something called a BIG BRAND SHAKE UP! Whereby they plan to make their strip equally as popular with the young and fashionable as their Nanjing West counterpart. Here's what you can look forward to: more ›

Last month, international media had a field day when an American blogger in Kunming discovered a fake Apple store that showed an unusual level of fidelity to the original. But as anyone who's been to an electronics market in China knows, this isn't exactly news. However, there's a new well-conceived copycat concept in Kunming that's caught our attention this week: none other than Swedish furniture-for-lazy-people giant IKEA has received the royal shanzhai treatment! more ›

It looks like the scourge of suicide at Foxconn continues unabated: a 21-year-old Foxconn employee fell from the sixth floor of a factory dormitory in the Longhua district (龙华) of Shenzhen on the 18th. Foxconn is of course the infamous manufacturing giant that produces iPhones, iPads, Xbox's, Playstation 3's, and not to mention products for other clients like Dell, HP and Nokia. It is the third suicide this year, following incidents in January and May, and the 18th since the beginning of 2010 (other sources [in Chinese] have the number lower, at 16). more ›