Apple Thoughts: China Unicom Gets the iPhone First

"The iPhone now has an official ticket to China.Mobile phone operator China Unicom plans to start selling two versions of the iPhone in China in the fourth quarter of 2009, under a three-year deal, an Apple representative confirmed Friday morning."

Not that this was any big shocker, what with all the rumors flying around for weeks, but China Unicom officially will get the iPhone. They haven't released pricing, but have admitted that there will be subsidies and no revenue sharing. What is interesting to me is that they will have their Wi-Fi disabled due to Chinese regulations. The reason? From what I've been reading it's due to the dreaded VOIP threat cutting into the revenues. This isn't an exclusive deal either, as Apple is still in negotiations with China Mobile, even though talks have stalled over issues with the App Store. No Wi-Fi, what a pain that would be, sounds like unlocked iPhones will still be popular if that is the case.