Leaving for Nanning.

Wel, just read the news about the bomb scare. I can't imagine this not affecting my trip to some degree. In any case, I'm all ready to go. Hope to see some of you in Nanning. There is a Halloween Party the day I arrive. So that should be interesting.

See you on the other side.

Tim

Well, I'm here in Nanning. Got all settled at Franks place. Weather is perfect today, not hot, not cold. Aside from the construction going on one floor above, all is great. Met up with Ida Yin today and did a little shopping. Still getting used to the time difference. The darned Iphone's I brought are not working for some reason, but I got a lead on a person that may be able to help.

be well

Tim in Nanning

Timmy,
Glad you made it okay. Isn't Nanning great? What kinda of phone problem are you having? There are a lot of phone shops in the downtown area. There is a street that runs in front of the Mingyuan Hotel that has a lot of phone shops. Don't rush into anything and have a great time. Enjoy yourself.
Danny

Thanks Danny. I visited several of those shops today but none could handle the iphone. But I have a friend of a friend that may be able to help. The problem is the phones did not get properly unlocked in the states. if I were there I could fix the problem, but since I'm here, I don't have the resources to fix.

What do you mean do not rush into anything? You mean don't jump into bed with the first Chinese woman I am attracted to?

Timb

Hope you havin fun over there. What do you think about Nanning? A great place isn't it!!

Danny

Nanning seems great. The air quality in some areas isn't great. Good Variety of food here. Green Mountain was a nice getaway from the city. Making some plans to see Guilin, perhaps Yangshou. Last night went to the seafood market, that was an interesting experience.

Overall I'm enjoying my stay.

Tim

Glad you are having a good time, Tim . Check with Eileen for some good deals to Guilin if you have not already. Take the breath -taking Li river cruise to Yongshou; stay the night there at least and enjoy the famous evening outdoor show, plus take a small bamboo river raft cruise in a small tributory of the Li . (just you two on the raft plus the pole pusher--very romantic)

Steve(kilnman)

As usual, I am getting in the conversation late. School has tied me up some, glad your enjoying the city. I miss it a lot. Here I am , an hour away by flight and can't get there.

I have several invites to come down and probably will make it down soon.

Have a great time.

Clif

Tim, How did you make out with your Iphone? It may be a little late for this trip but if you have ATT you can always send them a request by email. They may send you an unlock code. That should be all you need for a most other phone manufacters. How are things in Nanning? Having a great time?

Danny

Just had a thought. Go to an ATT store in Nanning. There is probably one there and get the info from them.

I talked to the ATT people before I came over. They wouldn't even talk to me about unlocking it. They said it was an apple thing. Having supported the iPhone for apple, it may be true. They were stickers about unlocking it. And now that they have the phone for sale here, they are even less likely. Having said that, if anyone finds a way, please let me know. I have a 3Gs that is an expensive iPod right now.

Clif

It would be nice to hear how Timb resolved his problem. That way we would have a first hand experience of what to do. I am pretty sure that on the old forum there were several Iphone users in China.

I was doing some reading about Iphones bought in one country and used in other countries. It sounds like the rules differs a little. Some countries require all phones be sold unlocked and others countries do not. Some countries say it is not illegal to sell an unlocked phone( unsubsidized) but the carrier is not obligated to unlock it. This sound like this is the case for ATT and the US. Apple has a special software program to unlock their phones but will not ( this indicates it that it is not an hardware issue). I wonder why they won't do it?

To get US ATT Iphones in China to work it sounds as if most users will either unlock their phones themselve using software available from the net. Or they will find the phone shops in China that will do it for them for fees around 100-150 RMB. To find those shops, it is done by word of mouth or to go to shopping areas that deal heavy in Electronics or phones. There must be some of those shopping areas for Electronic in Guangzhou. Hope this gives you some info.

Danny

Yeah, will be looking for one of those shops.

Clif

Admin wrote:I talked to the ATT people before I came over. They wouldn't even talk to me about unlocking it. They said it was an apple thing. Having supported the iPhone for apple, it may be true. They were stickers about unlocking it. And now that they have the phone for sale here, they are even less likely. Having said that, if anyone finds a way, please let me know. I have a 3Gs that is an expensive iPod right now.

Clif

It's not an Apple thing. I purchase a LEGALLY UNLOCKED iPhone in Hong Kong. It can be use anywhere in the world that uses GSM. I use it in the US with T-Mobile [I use it as a phone only]. ATT has a monoply for now, no one knows what the future will be for the iPhone. There are some excellent Droid phones that are IMHO as good as an iPhone. BTW, my iPhone has the extended AppleCare here in the US. Just my 2 cents.

All I can tell you is what the rules for operation were when I worked for Apple supporting the iPhone. There are different rules for different countries. The rules we operated under were what Apple and ATT used for the US. And that was NO UNLOCKING.

Clif

Right now, I'm just using my iphone 4 with the World traveller data plan. The other 3Gs phone I brought apparently is not unlocked properly to work correctly. I am using a cheap local phone to make calls for right now. My phone needs are minimal.

I might look into a future local plan for china if things work out here, but It might just not be necessary.

- Tim

Hey Tim, how much longer will you be in Nanning? I am still here working in Suzhou until Nov. 19, then I'm free until Nov. 27 when I go back to USA.

As for the phone issues, my wife finally got lucky and had a friend that has a cell phone shop at the mobile phone market and got my 2 Black Berry 8130 Global phones unlocked for 40 RMB. It took them 3 attempts. I gave up initially and got me a Nokia E63, which is a copy-cat Black Berry look-a-like and functions much better than the two I have. I get free e-mail, internet browsing, texting, Quick Office, Adobe, MP3, Radio, Audio Alert that announces the caller ID from my contacts list, Voice Command calling, Camera, Video, 2 dictionaries (English and Chinese with Pinyin), bluetooth to connect to bluetooth enabled printers to print file attachments, etc., etc. Bought it at Gome for 1600 RMB and my mobile monthly with China Mobile is 50 RMB ($7.50 USD) for nationwide coverage, plus I pay another 150 RMB ($23 USD) for talk minutes and texting, usually every 2 months. For international long distance, I have the infamous 17900 calling card for 100 RMB ($15 USD). Had it since July and use it constantly to call the USA and haven't run out of minutes yet. I get charged 0.25 RMB per minute ($0.04 USD).

On my US mobile phone, I leave a voice message letting people know I am out of the country and if they need to get a hold of me to call my number in China or send me an e-mail. I get e-mails instead. I try call forwarding, but they do not offer it for numbers longer than 10 digits. Actually, it's better that away. If it's an emergency, all those that need to contact me immedaitely, have all of my contact numbers in China.

Snyder

Hi Tim, Looks like you came up for some air. Hope your trip to Nanning and China was a good one. When you get a chance I hope we get a chance to hear what you thought about Nanning.

I did some research on the internet about the iphones. It does appear that apple can unlock the iphone (after the original sell) and also they do sell to some distributors in some countries the Iphone already unlock. The second link below will show you a list of what country/distributor does what. The first list explains a process that a distributor does to unlock Iphones that they chose to do. Here is the link:

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Here is a list of the country/ distributor:

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The method above is the "official " way to get the Iphone to take multiple vendor's sim cards.

The other way is get the iphone to take mutiple vendor is to get it unlocked and to have it jailbroke. While those process are different I believe they are both required. I believe that the phone needs to be first jailbroke to "unlock" the phone. There are people who do this for a business. And there is also software available to accomplish the same thing. The problem being is that you have to have the right software matched to the iphones software version. In China there may also be an issue whether you are using a G or GS type service ( this point is not really clear to me).

Another point that I wanted to mentioned is that about 5 months ago it was reported in the news that it was not illegal to have a phone unlocked in the US (by the owner). The question is finding someone who will unlock the phone for you. A friend of mine return to the states from Japan with a Japanese Softbank locked iphone. He went to both the apple and the att store and they both were not willing to help much except to say that he had to get the phone jailbroke somewhere. Two months he went back again and both store seem to want to help out a lot more but for some reason they were unable to get the phone to unlock. I wasn't there but I suspect that they were trying the jailbreaking route. So Clif, my friend also has a iphone that can only be used as a itouch/PDA/WiFi which-a-do-hicky-ma-bob. If you find a solution please let us know.

Danny

Doc, I'm heading back to Nanning tomorrow the 13, and will probably be there in the afternoon. I'll be there on the 14th and most of the 15th, flying out the evening of the 15th.

don't have time to digest all the phone stuff, I'll have to work on it before my next trip.

Tim,

Have a safe trip. I hope you enjoyed visiting Nanning and were able to see and do as much as you could, as well as meet a lady.

Take care and look forward to your posts on FB.

Snyder

Clif, I was just wondering are you stiill the adminstrator for the FB account on Nanning? I don't recall seeing any notification of any change but then again I don't visited it that often. Hope things are going well for you in Panyu.

Danny

Tim, Have a safe trip back to the states.

Well, I'm back. Got to see much of Nanning, some of Guilin and Yangshou, and some of Wuzhou.

Photos for those that are interested.

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Tim,

Very nice photos. Thanks for sharing.

Snyder

Great stuff Tim.

Clif

Tim:
The photos ( and thanks for sharing) reminded me of the same things I took a few short years ago when I was in your stange of developing a relationship.

Glad it worked out well with Ida.

steve(kilnman)

so far, there isn't a place in GZ that I can get service with my iPhone. I have contacted my friend in Texas and we are discontinuing the service for the iphone based on lack of service. I am still trying to find the best way to unlock it. If I can't do that, I will probably try to sell it over here and buy a Lenovo Le Phone. Looks and feels about the same as an iPhone. Still looking at the situation.

Clif