China Unicom is the only authorized and official carrier of the iPhone 4 in China, but apparently, that doesn’t mean they are content to tow Cupertino’s anti-jailbreaking line: recent advertisements for the carrier indicate that they are more than happy to jailbreak an iPhone or iPad for customers for a price.
Translated, the circled portion of the signage reads: “Supported Service: Free SIM-trimming, jailbreak, installation of more than 10 hot apps.”
How odd. Leaving aside why China Unicom would jeopardize its relation with Apple by selling jailbroken iPads and iPhones, why are they being so cheerfully helpful in allowing their customers to migrate to other networks.
We suspect that this is ultimately about censorship and warez. The promise to install “ten hot apps” is the tip-off there: by offering to jailbreak customers’ phones, China Unicom can profit from their own customers’ desire to install apps not only without paying for them, but which also haven’t been censored for the local market.
[via 9to5Mac]
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
