According to TechRadar, iPhones for official release in China are to have their WiFi facilities disabled. Apparently it is because the authorities would rather that people’s internet access is monitored and controlled through one centralised source. I think this is a shame.
Aside from my view on the monitoring and controlling, I really don’t think this makes technical sense. First because people already have access to iPhones that have been imported from other countries and there is no sign that these will become illegal. Secondly, access will still remain from other devices to the the WiFi hotspots that iPhone users will be denied. These hotspots will be connected to the internet through a normal Chinese ISP which will surely be running the same great firewall software that the authorities will want to run on the mobile network’s servers.
If you are the kind of person who needs to avoid this or don’t want to be tracked, surely you will opt for an imported iPhone without the WiFi disabled, or some of the numerous other mobiles that do have it and you can buy in China. Also, what extra do they really get from restricting people to the 3G internet? Will there be extra monitoring or restricted access? If so, won’t people just wait to go home or pop into a web cafe to post or access the data they cannot on their iPhone. Surely in this kind of restricted regime, you have to block all access or none. The people who need it, will always know of the easiest method to get access and use that anyway. In the mean time, the majority of normal users will suffer significant loss of functionality just to try and prevent what is ultimately impossible to restrict.