Apple announced to integrate Baidu at WWDC

Mon 18 June 2012 08:30, Qin Hu

At the recently opened Apple’s World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple announced that it will integrate Baidu into its web tools on the iPhone. In addition, other updates related with Chinese elements were also shown during the conference.

Nothing can be more exciting for Apple fans than WWDC last week. Tickets were even sold out less than two hours after going on sale. Just goes to show you how popular Apple’s events are! WWDC tickets have sold out quickly in recent years. In 2010, tickets sold out in eight days and less than 12 hours last year.

More and more Chinese people are joining the iPhone frenzy right now. According to Apple’s sales between January and March 2012, it sold over 6 million handsets in China, pushing its smart phone share in the country up to 19%, compared with 8% last year. This sales data indicates that China is a crucial market for Apple. Apple knows this fact, of course.

In order to expand and gain more market share in China, Apple intends to add Baidu for search options in Safari, and the news was announced during the WWDC this year. Baidu as a search engine is more popular than Google in China. However, it is not integrated into iOS, not even on the iPhones sold in China. This part has been noticed and Apple is working closely with Baidu now for the further integration between iOS and Baidu.

Other integrations of Chinese elements are updated Siri for Cantonese and Mandarin speakers. In addition, the new Siri will connect Chinese domestic Location Based Service (LBS) for supporting relative apps, like looking for surrounding shops, friends, etc.

Furthermore, iOS 6 will support video sharing sites Tudou and Youku, and micro-blogging service Sina Weibo.

All these new features will provide more convenient to Chinese users, and probably boost another sales peak in China :)

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