Chinese Consumers Scoff At The State-Run Media's Heavy-Handed Swipes Against Apple

Tim Cook has said that China will soon become Apple’s biggest market, but the government is not as besotted as Chinese consumers.?China’s state-run media has taken several swipes at Apple this month, moves which may be?part of a (heavy-handed) public relations strategy to pave the way for locally grown operating systems as the Chinese government seeks to move its IT industry away from Western software. But if popular response to the anti-Apple articles is anything to go by, Chinese consumers and their iOS devices won’t be so easily parted. Earlier this week, People’s Daily, the Chinese government’s official newspaper, published articles calling Apple’s customer-service practices arrogant.?The People’s Daily article followed a story earlier this month by official government press agency Xinhua, which blamed Apple for an increase in high-interest loans taken out by students to buy “fancy electronic products, most Apple devices.” And just a few days prior to the Xinhua story, China Central Television’s investigative program “3.15″ criticized Apple’s warranty practices, saying that the Cupertino company discriminates against Chinese iPhone owners by offering shorter guarantees than in other countries, using refurbished components, and refusing to honor after-sale obligations. China observer Gordon G. Chang wrote in a Forbes opinion piece that “executives in Cupertino should get worried that the 3.15 show is not a one-off.” What’s at stake for the Chinese government is its efforts to decrease dependency on foreign software by upping the profile of locally developed operating systems.?Apple is just one of several foreign tech companies targeted by the Chinese government. Earlier this month, for example, China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a white paper declaring that China is?too reliant?on the Android smartphone operating system (though it?overstated Google’s power in China). The Chinese government is?building its own Ubuntu-based open-source OS?in partnership with Canonical and Chinese developers. The Linux-based OS, called “Ubuntu Kylin,” is set for release next month, and a China-specific version of Ubuntu Touch for smartphones and tablets may also be in the works. Most of Huawei and ZTE’s handsets are Android-based, but both Chinese companies are working on their own smartphone operating systems. Huawei Device CEO Wan Biao told Reuters last September that the company is “devoting resources into coming up with a phone operating system based on our current platform in case other companies won’t let us use their system one day.” Though ZTE’s operating system was built with Mozilla, it’s also meant

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