According to a report from yesterday, it was suggested that China was thinking of banning Apple products from being used by the government. This means that while Apple products will be sold in the country to regular folks, its use in the government would not be allowed, similar to how China’s government banned Microsoft’s Windows 8 from being installed on government computers.
While it does sound like China is starting to crackdown on companies and products not from China, it seems that the earlier report could have been made in error. According to a newer report (via AppleInsider), Apple’s products weren’t banned, instead they were excluded from a list of devices that government bodies were considering.
This list is apparently filled with energy saving products that have been approved for purchasing using public money, and Apple’s exclusion could have been the result of a filing error. It is unclear if it really is a filing error or if Apple had somehow not managed to meet the energy saving requirements by the government bodies, but according to a person familiar with the matter, this is far from a formal ban.
This explanation seems to be a lot more innocent and simple compared to the earlier report, which seemed to suggest that the Chinese government was paranoid that Apple’s products were a cause for security concerns.
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