Apple news from China this week

Apple have announced that the iPhone 4s will be launched in 22 countries in the next stage of the huge 4s release, set for China on Friday 13th January.

"Customer response to our products in China has been off the charts," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "With the launch in China next week, iPhone 4S will be available in over 90 countries making this our fastest iPhone rollout ever."

The full list of new countries to be able to get the iPhone 4s is Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Bolivia, Botswana, British Virgin Islands, Cameroon, Cayman Islands, Central African Republic, China, Dominica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Grenada, Guam, Guinea Conakry, Ivory Coast, Jamaica, Kenya, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritius, Niger, Senegal, St. Vincent and The Grenadines, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos and Uganda.

Unicom has been the exclusive iPhone carrier in China and there has been no suggestion that this will change.

In further news from China, Apple lawyers have contacted a Chinese toy company, ‘Inicons' to request they seize trading 1 ft models of former Apple CEO, the late Steve Jobs.

Tandy Cheung, Inicon boss, said before receiving the letter from Apple, 'Apple can do anything they like. I will not stop.'

The models are set to retail at $99.99 from February this year and are 1ft and built on a 1:6 scale.

Apple's laywers said, 'Mr Jobs has not consented to the use of his name and/or image in the Product.'

With Chinese company boss Cheung stated after taking legal advice that he believes there is no such copyright against a ‘normal person' claiming Jobs is not a celebrity and that he is not a product and that Apple have no claim over him.

Even id sales do go ahead on that basis should it be true then the company should find they will suffer problems using the 2 Apple logos that the figures also apparently show. The company claims they have already stopped taking pre-orders and the figure can be seen selling on e-bay for over the retail price.

In 2010 Apple stopped the sale of unauthorised Steve Jobs bobble-head dolls made by a different company in China.

If the InIcons model does get to be sold, buyers will get 'One realistic head with two pairs of glasses, one body and three pairs of hands' plus a complete Steve Jobs outfit - poloneck, blue jeans and trainers.

The small figure will also come with a stool and a backdrop that reads "One More Thing" – an example of the trademark phrase Jobs used to announce his new gadgets.

Is all of this enough of an advance for the iPhone user? Probably not- as for most of us the exciting release of a new iPhone only marks the beginning of a long and speculative wait for the next.

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