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Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

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Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#671

Post by vatueil »

dirtyid wrote: post #373
djohnston wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

by couldn't compete, i assume you mean, "didn't want to hand over all their IP to CCP, who would in turn give it to the native competitor", right?

No by couldn't compete, the OP probably means western tech companies do a remarkably poor job of understanding the Chinese market and frequently gets out innovated. When Google first entered the Chinese market, Google PinYin input lifted data from Sogou Pinyin because they couldn't get basic input prediction right. Baidu RankDex predates Google PageRank and was referenced by Larry Page when he submitted patent for Pa…

Baidu would certainly like to think so, and has said as much on occasion, but do the facts really support the claim that Google left China primarily due to competition rather than ethical or security concerns?

Despite continuous friction with the Chinese government, Google's share of the search engine market in China had grown to over a third before it decided to pull out: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703465204575207...

Google hasn't pulled out of other markets where it faces strong local competitors, such as Yandex in Russia, and it remains popular in Chinese-speaking markets outside of mainland China such as Hong Kong and Taiwan. That the developers of the Google Pinyin input tool were found to have copied data (something other companies in and out of China have also been guilty of from time to time) is hardly evidence that Google in general was not competitive.

Ironically, the fact that under Pichai a return to China was seriously contemplated would suggest that financial reasons alone can't explain the original decision to leave.

Similarly, YouTube wasn't forced to pull out of other markets where it faced competition. Also, YouTube was frequently blocked by Chinese authorities even before Google decided to pull out: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703465204575207...

Competition may explain in part why Google hadn't conquered the Chinese market before it left, but conflict with the Chinese government, in the form of official censorship as well as illicit hacking, would seem to be the main reason why Google pulled out of China but not elsewhere.

Unless of course learning to comply with such demands and intrusions is included under "understanding the Chinese market".

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#672

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

spats1990 wrote: post #588
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #569

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point we have to accept that if the Chinese were coming over the hill with nothing but chopsticks we’d still lose. When that happens you don’t want to be on the PRC’s most wanted list.

>nothing but chopsticks The Yellow Peril/Asian horde trope. Charming.

Hmmm, I didn't mean it like that.

Coulda been any nation with 1.3+ billion, with their stereotypical eating utensils.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#673

Post by qwerty456127 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #489
IIAOPSW wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

De Jure nationhood is a stupid game that ignores facts on the ground in favor of politicians vision. It is predicated on a fallacy that "legitimacy" is a vital resource and that those already in the nation club have a monopoly on it. At this point calling groups "countries" and calling other groups "terrorists" is better understood as the geopolitical equivalent of a curse word and/or a propaganda trope. -Order of Ma…

> Order of Malta. De Jure recognition, no territory or population to speak of. Basically a forgotten joke country left over from a bygone era. Almost no one, including the Order itself, considers the Sovereign Military Order of Malta a country; it's the usual textbook example of a sovereign entity that is not a state/country by those who see it as sovereign (a point on which there is considerable dispute, despite the…

I actually wish there were more sovereign orders like that. Any group of people sharing common values and resources sufficient to make sense this way should have a right for sovereignty even if they don't own any land whatsoever, let alone when they have legitimately bought some. Sure there should be limits on what they are allowed to do (e.g. they should probably not be allowed to assemble nukes at a member's farm) but these should be applied by means of the same procedures like with recognized nations.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#674

Post by Galanwe »

frankacter wrote: post #661
Galanwe wrote: post #657

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see, I just checked, mine has the ZP region (Hong Kong & Macau), so that would explain why I still have the Taiwanese flag.

I can't verify this part first hand, but they indicate in the article that before the 2018 model iPhone XS was released, the region code of Hong Kong was “ZP,” but it was changed to “ZA” after the newer model iPhone XS was released. So users with newer devices would be impacted.

I managed to find a colleague with a newer iPhone, with ZA in the model, and Hong Kong as Region. The flag appears when language is set to English but disappears when language is set to Traditional Chinese (Cantonese). The conditions to have the flag disappear are not that widespread though, but the news is indeed real :-)

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#675

Post by vatueil »

vatueil wrote: post #671
dirtyid wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No by couldn't compete, the OP probably means western tech companies do a remarkably poor job of understanding the Chinese market and frequently gets out innovated. When Google first entered the Chinese market, Google PinYin input lifted data from Sogou Pinyin because they couldn't get basic input prediction right. Baidu RankDex predates Google PageRank and was referenced by Larry Page when he submitted patent for Pa…

Baidu would certainly like to think so, and has said as much on occasion, but do the facts really support the claim that Google left China primarily due to competition rather than ethical or security concerns? Despite continuous friction with the Chinese government, Google's share of the search engine market in China had grown to over a third before it decided to pull out: https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1000142405274…

Too late to edit, but the correct URL for the second link is: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/25/china-blocks-y...

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#676

Post by qwerty456127 »

IIAOPSW wrote: post #486
qwerty456127 wrote: post #427

The whole "unrecognised country" nonsense should begone. Everybody knows Taiwan is a distinct country (and does a reasonable job of being a decent country for the people living in it, it obviously is a better country than a number of completely recognized ones) yet it still has "limited recognition". How about recognizing the facts rather than virtual reality of politicians' imagination? Banning an entire country is…

De Jure nationhood is a stupid game that ignores facts on the ground in favor of politicians vision. It is predicated on a fallacy that "legitimacy" is a vital resource and that those already in the nation club have a monopoly on it. At this point calling groups "countries" and calling other groups "terrorists" is better understood as the geopolitical equivalent of a curse word and/or a propaganda trope. -Order of Ma…

I would rather put being able and willing to secure human rights and functional social-economic framework on the controlled territory among the criteria for recognition.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#677

Post by qwerty456127 »

howtofly wrote: post #666
Thorrez wrote: post #645

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everybody knows Taiwan is a distinct country" is referring to people, not to governments. Just because a government doesn't recognize a country doesn't mean the people under that government don't recognize the country.

Theoretically, a government should represent its people, which should be the foundation of democracy. If that foundation were broken, it is far more worrisome than these China/Taiwan/HK events. I suggest fixing it ASAP. For example, the op can protest to urge his/her government to recognize Taiwan as a country, which will be "a beautiful landscape" as described by Nancy Patricia Pelosi.

> Theoretically, a government should represent its people, which should be the foundation of democracy. If that foundation were broken

Well, in many countries it absolutely is. And there is no way to fix this.

And even if a government was really elected legitimately and chosen not to recognize Taiwan I doubt this meant the people didn't know Taiwan is a de-facto independent country and actively wanted to keep it unrecognized. To be honest I myself have only found out Taiwan recognition is limited a couple of years ago. I always knew there is such a country and never knew about its diplomatic problems.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#678

Post by [deleted] »

dkersten wrote: post #575
busterarm wrote: post #537

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wasn't arguing that, I was just calling out the parent for saying ISIS didn't use terrorism as a tactic. Nice whataboutism there though.

> I was just calling out the parent for saying ISIS didn't use terrorism as a tactic. Where did they say this? I don't see anything about ISIS not using terrorism as a tactic, just that if you recognize ISIS as a state, you get called a terrorist sympathizer. Besides, plenty of countries use terrorist tactics when at war, unfortunately.

[deleted]

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#679

Post by GRiMe2D »

foray1010 wrote: post #667
Galanwe wrote: post #647

Can anyone actually validate that this news is true? I live in Hong Kong and have the latest iOS updates. I still have the Taiwanese flag... same for all my colleagues, both on personal and work phones.

I am from Hong Kong, I can confirm that Taiwanese flag is not displayed in original Emoji keyboard (still appear in third-party keyboard like kaiboard). I am using HK region apple id and latest ios version

Also I can confirm. Friend of mine was in China and bought iPhone XR dual sim. And now lives at hometown – Moscow, Russia. Russian interface, Russian region is installed. But Taiwan flag is completely missing: in chats, web and keyboard.

Re: Apple Hides Taiwan Flag in Hong Kong

#680

Post by baud147258 »

Swizec wrote: post #101
pradn wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inside Microsoft, there's a whole database of geopolitically-sensitive issues that have been accrued over the years. You can see all sorts of border disputes and differences in language that you had to take into account when working on global products. On a related note, now you have movies with different scenes in China. https://www.syfy.com/syfywire/the_extra_looper_scenes_y https://kotaku.com/why-many-in-china-hat…

At least 30% of my enjoyment of Venom came from it being set in SF and me going “Hey look I know that corner!” or “Wow we’ve been to that restaurant, they totally used a different place for that shop front!” Seeing your town in a movie is incredibly rewarding. Just like a musician is basically required to shout “Hello $PLACE” at some point during a performance PS: for the downvoters, that’s what the linked article ci…

A good chunk of the latest Mission Impossible movie was this for me with Paris, especially with places where I've walked around, like the seat of the ministry of finance along the Seine. Of course the path taken didn't make any sense, but that wasn't much of an issue.
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