Looks like Australia is not the only country missing out on the iPhone. It has been well publicised  that Apple had been in close talks with a China Mobile to take the phones into Asia. Today it was announced that those talks have failed.

It is not like this was unexpected though. Reuters noted a while back:

“Analysts had expected talks to fail at least initially, predicting that both parties would eventually lock horns over revenue sharing and a plethora of technical difficulties. Experts said last year that the iPhone would have to navigate a spate of technical, content and fee issues unique to China, including a standard revenue-sharing agreement that China Mobile would be sure to dislike, before any launch could proceed.”

At least China can always depend on the cheap iPhone knock-offs that CECT manufacture. (yes, sadly the image on the right is a real photo of the CECT el-cheapo)