Hong Kong

The Louisville bottleneck

My iPhone 4S was making swift progress until it landed in Kentucky

Like more than a million Apple (AAPL) customers I ordered a new iPhone last Friday. Since then I've been been tracking its movements on UPS. I watched leave the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China, Saturday afternoon. I saw it pass swiftly through Chek Lap Kok, Hong Kong. I watched it jet across the Pacific to Anchorage, Alaska, where it arrived MORE

Videos: Apple ends fiscal year with 7 store openings - update

It may actually reach its goal of opening 30 new stores in the last quarter of fiscal 2011

This will be a big weekend for Apple (AAPL) retail, with seven grand openings scheduled on four continents over two days. The new stores, according to ifoAppleStore:

IFC Mall (Hong Kong)
Nanjing East (Shanghai)
Westfield Hornsby (Australia)
Centro Sicilia (Italy)
New Haven (Conn.)
Metrotown (Canada)
Le Chesnay (France)

Videos of huge crowds and over-excited staffers have already started to pop up on YouTube, including the first one MORE

The MacBook Air lands in China - and takes off

Greeted with long lines and stock outs when it arrived in Hong Kong this week

In a note to clients Friday, Ticonderoga's Brian White reported that the new MacBook Air -- which was launched in the U.S. more than four weeks ago -- was greeted with long lines and stock outs when it finally arrived in Hong Kong this week.

Not only did stores run out of certain MacBook Air models, but MORE

Inside the Apple iPad factory

The site of Friday's explosion was massive 8-building complex thrown together in a record 70 days

When a polishing workshop blew up in Foxconn's new factory complex in Chengdu, China, it was an English-language website operating, as they put it, "outside the Great Firewall of China, temporarily," that broke the news and provided U.S. media outlets with videos, photos and regular updates.

On Saturday, the website -- M.I.C. Gadget -- posted a background MORE

Apple preps for global iPad 2 stockouts

Unable to fill U.S. orders, it will make the device unavailable in 25 more countries on Friday

Last week, for reasons I'd rather not examine too closely, I spent the better part of an hour waiting outside an Apple retail outlet in center city Philadelphia only to be told, 50 minutes before the store was scheduled to open, that its promised overnight shipment of iPad 2s had not arrived.

It was an MORE

Google: China is messing with Gmail

The search behemoth accuses the communist state of tampering with, but not completely blocking, users of Gmail in China.

The Guardian reports that China and Google (GOOG) are at it again.  Google is now accusing China of  tampering with access to Gmail from within China. Customers and advertisers have increasingly been complaining to Google about their Gmail service in the past month. Attempts by users to send messages, mark messages as unread and MORE

Inside the iPad 2 gray market

By Sunday, the new tablets were selling in China for up to 105% over their sticker price

The staff manning the huge crowd that mobbed Apple's (AAPL) Fifth Avenue Store Friday estimate that as many as half the iPads sold that day were being bought for re-sale overseas.

It's a familiar pattern. In September, the New York Times ran an investigative report detailing how Chinese customers were lining up to buy pairs MORE

Why Alibaba's CEO had to go

Alibaba says the fraud perpetrated on its users is minor and immaterial, fiscally, to its investors. But top leaders still fell on their swords to save the company's reputation where it really counts.

By Bill Powell, contributor

For several years now, the Internet firm Alibaba-Taobao has been one of the
 most prominent Chinese companies on the planet—thanks both to its
 success and to its brash, charismatic founder and chairman, "Jack O' (Yun)
Ma, MORE

Launch videos: 'Middle of the night give me a silly line to buy iPhone 4'

You don't need a translator to follow Friday's 17-country launch of the iPhone 4

One of best things about the movie Babies -- a documentary look at the first year of life in four very different countries -- is that you know what the parents are saying to their children even if you don't understand a word.

It's the same these days with the overseas launches of new Apple (AAPL) products. See MORE

Android beats iPhone in China

According to April Admob numbers, Android phones outnumber iPhones in Mainland China.

Google's new subsidiary, Admob pushed out its latest smartphone analytics numbers today and there is a bit of an Android surprise from Mainland China.

The numbers Admob got in China were: 725,358 iPhones and 882,384 Android phones.  That's about a 20% advantage for Android.

What do these numbers mean?  Well, if you add in (surprisingly high) iPad and iPod touch numbers, iPhone OS MORE