China Unicom is contacting with related companies and regulators in a bid to make China-oriented iPhone mobile phones be compatible with the Wi-Fi and homegrown WAPI standards.

Months ago, China Unicom inked agreements with Apple Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) on the introduction of the sparkling iPhones into the Mainland China. Due to various reasons, the first array of iPhones available in the Chinese market does not support the Wi-Fi function.

Cost-free WiFi hotspots are far from prevalence in China presently, thus, the lack of WiFi applicability will not worsen iPhone users' 3G experiences to a large extent, believed an industry watcher.

According to the earlier report, an insider from a Chinese company responsible for the research and development of iPhones disclosed that although the first array of WCDMA iPhones to hit the Chinese market has no Wi-Fi function, his company is developing iPhone samples with the function and meanwhile support the Chinese WAPI standard. Based on current progress and timetables, 3G iPhone supportive to WAPI will be rolled in future.

source:tmcnet