Iphone, China | featured news

Apple's China sales rose at a healthy clip in its latest quarter, but the numbers belied growing concerns as the bonanza in high-end smartphones started winding down.

Thousands of workers went on strike Friday at a Foxconn plant in China that makes Apple Inc's iPhone 5, paralyzing production of the smartphone, rights advocate China Labor Watch reported.

Five people in China have been charged with intentional injury after a 17-year-old sold one of his kidneys to pay for an iPad and an iPhone, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Apple's iPhone was a hot seller in the company's first fiscal quarter of 2012, but that's nothing compared to what one analyst predicts we could see in just a couple of years' time. Morgan Stanley thinks Apple's efforts in China could pay big dividends by 2013.

Angry customers and gangs of scalpers threw eggs at Apple Inc.'s Beijing store Friday after the iPhone 4S launch there was canceled due to concerns over the crowd's size. Apple reacted to the outburst by postponing iPhone 4S sales in its mainland China stores to protect customers and employees. The phone still will be sold online and through its local carrier.

His mother's suspicions were aroused when her son returned home with an iPad 2 and an iPhone, and Zheng, who was left with a deep red scar from the surgery, was forced to admit what he did. She took him back to Chenzhou to report the crime, but the contact numbers the kidney agents gave Zheng were not working.

Taiwan's Foxconn Technology, a contract maker of the iPhone, insisted its treatment of workers is world class after a female employee became the company's eighth worker to commit suicide.

Apple's iPhone is making its long-awaited formal debut in the world's most populous mobile phone market, without a key feature and at higher prices than widely available black market models. Apple's local service provider, China Unicom Ltd., hopes the iPhone will give it an edge against giant rival China Mobile Ltd., the world's biggest phone company by subscribers.

Chinese worker Sun Danyong was responsible for handling the prototypes of one of the world's hottest products — the iPhone. When one of the gadgets went missing and his company began investigating him, he jumped off his apartment building and killed himself.