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Apple 'indifferent' to releasing Korean iPhone?

updated 09:40 am EDT, Tue April 14, 2009

Korean iPhone progress


Apple has little active interest in releasing a South Korean iPhone, claims a regional news site. Telecoms Korea cites KTF's VP of handset strategy, Won-Do Lee, who comments that while his carrier is in negotiations with Apple, progress appears to have stalled in part because of a lack of motivation on Apple's part. KTF has objections of its own though, Lee observes.

The iPhone 3G is, for instance, no longer state-of-the-art, which means that KTF will likely have to wait for a new iPhone in order to have a strong competitor for local phones from the likes of LG and Samsung. Of greater significance may be the newfound weakness of the won against the US dollar, which means that even a stripped-down iPhone could become too expensive relative to other options.

KTF is meanwhile negotiating with Finland's Nokia in order to bring over some of its smartphones. South Korea has effectively been closed to foreign cellphones for years, because of regulations requiring native middleware. While the regulations have been altered, it may take some time before foreign companies gain some of the traction domestic corporations have enjoyed.


by MacNN Staff

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Comments

  1. JulesLt

    Fresh-Faced Recruit

    Joined: Jul 2005

    +5

    Nokia?

    While Nokia make some decent devices, they generally cost as much, if not more, than the iPhone.

    The other question is, of course, what 'state of the art' means - Korean phones tend to be ahead in terms of features, but as an application platform, the iPhone OS remains state of the art.

  1. Salty

    Professional Poster

    Joined: Jul 2005

    +2

    LG Sucks!

    LG is a joke of a phone brand they constantly break, I'd NEVER buy an LG product after having sold them. The fact is one of the best selling LG phones that they ran a story about recently doesn't even have 3G. I'm sorry I don't care how many random standards their devices support until they start doing it WELL you can't call those things state of the art.

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