Beijing
Tim Cook's China photo album
March 29, 2012: 5:49 AM ETIt's hard for Apple to keep his meetings secret when he's photographed at every turn
Cook at an iPhone factory. Photo: Bowen Liu/Apple Inc. via Bloomberg
The quality of the photos coming out of Tim Cook's China trip improved significantly when Apple (AAPL) assigned a professional photographer to document its CEO's travels.
We know, thanks to press photos and amateur snapshots popping up in Chinese social media, that Cook met with China's vice premier and Beijing's mayor, stopped by two Apple Stores and visited the headquarters of China Unicom (CHU) and China Telecom (CHA) -- but not, so far, China Mobile (CHL).
But it's through a pair of official Apple handouts that we learn of his visit to Foxconn's new iPhone factory in the Zhengzhou Technology Park -- sending the not-so-subtle message that Tim Cook cares about every worker (his words) involved in the manufacture of Apple products.
Perhaps now we know why Steve Jobs never set foot in a Chinese factory. Would he have agreed to be photographed in a bright yellow rain coat and matching pastic hat?
A few more photos, official and otherwise, below the fold.
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What was Apple CEO Tim Cook really doing in China?
He didn't fly to Beijing just to pose with shoppers at an Apple Store
Thanks to a quick-thinking customer who spotted him, snapped a couple photos and posted them on Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblogging site, we learned Monday that Apple (AAPL) CEO Tim Cook was in Beijing, at least for a few hours.
Leaving aside the iconography of an Apple CEO setting foot in the world's largest market for iOS devices, MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Mar 26, 2012 2:44 PM ETPosted in: Apple, Beijing, China, China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom, Dan Butterfield, iPhone, Tim Cook -
Overwhelmed by crushing demand, Apple halts Friday's iPhone 4S launch in China
Retail fail: SWAT teams move in after fights break out among rival gangs of scalpers
There may be no graceful way to launch an iPhone in a country of 1.3 billion that has caught what one analyst calls "Apple fever."
In a frightening parody of the snaking queues that greet the launch of new Apple (AAPL) products in the U.S., thousands of would-be customers massed outside the company's stores in Beijing and MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 13, 2012 5:23 AM ET -
Thousands of Chinese queue up in the cold for the iPhone 4S
Massive crowds gather at Apple's five stores in the world's largest mobile phone market
UPDATED with amazing photos from Beijing by Feng Li via the Mercury News.
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Penn Olson's Steven Millward reports from Shanghai that crowds several city blocks long have formed outside Apple's (AAPL) stores in Beijing and Shanghai hours before the scheduled release of the iPhone 4S Friday morning.
Although China Unicom (CHU) will begin selling the device for MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Jan 12, 2012 11:43 AM ET -
Shangpin knows Chinese luxury consumers' secrets
The rapidly expanding Beijing-based startup sells luxury goods to affluent Chinese consumers. What it knows about them could become the envy of established luxury brands around the world.
By Reena Jana, contributor
FORTUNE -- Despite global economic turmoil, the Chinese luxury market is still expanding at a dizzying rate -- by 16% in 2010 according to McKinsey. Not surprisingly, Shangpin -- a new Beijing-based, members-only e-commerce site -- is growing dramatically too.
The MORE
Sep 14, 2011 3:03 PM ET -
Startup, dropout: The China tech IPO boom is only beginning
By Bill Powell, senior writer
Investors are pitching the Zuckerberg-Gates-Google model of college-kid startups at China's prestigious universities. And the kids are into it.
FORTUNE -- IPOs from Chinese tech companies -- in e-commerce, social media, mobile applications for tablets and smart phones -- in just about anything in the so-called TMT (technology,media, telecom) universe have been coming with such relentless frequency that they're hard to keep track of, especially from afar. So MORE
Jun 2, 2011 12:51 PM ETPosted in: Asia, Beijing, China, Google, Initial public offering, Qiming Venture Partners, Stephen Bell, United States -
Apple settles with victims of Chinese iPad 2 scuffle
A line-cutting fracas that broke a window and injured four is reportedly "resolved amicably"
It turns out that the clearest account yet of the incident Saturday -- described by some observers as a "riot" -- that left blood and broken glass outside Apple's (AAPL) flagship store on Beijing's Sandilun Road was published Monday in the People's Daily, the official organ of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party:
"According to reports, MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 9, 2011 4:21 PM ET -
Crowds, scalpers greet iPad 2 in China
By the time doors opened at Beijing's flagship store, the queue was 1,000 customers long
Remember all those iPad 2s purchased in the U.S. for re-sale in China's gray market? Their sell-by date arrived early Friday, when Apple authorized sales of the iPad 2 began at the company's four Chinese retail outlets and the China Apple Store online.
As a crowd estimated by a security guard at roughly 1,000 lined up outside MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - May 6, 2011 11:43 AM ET -
Wikileaks: US suspects China in Google hacking case
The hacking incident that convinced Google to remove censorship from its search results was a Chinese Government-sponsored effort according to a Chinese contact in the American Embassy in China.
The report briefly cites "government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws recruited by the Chinese government." as the source of the Google (GOOG) intrusion which was aimed at enemies of the Chinese state, including Falun Gong members abroad. As the New MORE
Seth Weintraub - Nov 28, 2010 5:20 PM ET -
iPhone chaos in Beijing
Apple's flagship store was shut down briefly after scalpers tussled with the other customers.
The Chinese blog M.I.C. Gadget tells a bizarre story of Apple (AAPL) temporarily lifting its two-iPhones-per-customer limit Wednesday, a policy change that opened the door to gangs of scalpers that quickly took over the store.
"This is crazy," writes Chris Chang in slightly fractured English. "The real customers and the iPhone 4 scalpers had a fight in MORE
Philip Elmer-DeWitt - Sep 30, 2010 2:55 PM ET
