The iPad is now gone from many an authorized Apple retailer in Tianjin as well, after earlier reports that the iPad had disappeared elsewhere in China, including Shijiazhuang.
Apple’s tablet, though, is still available for sale online, and in nearby Beijing (around 30 minutes by train from Tianjin), the two city Apple Stores haven’t seen supplies cut back as of late. But elsewhere in the country, the spat over the iPad trademark between “everyone’s favorite fruit company” and Proview Technology, basically a step away from total collapse, has meant that the latter has gotten extremely pugnacious. It has even decided to get China Customs involved, in attempts to ban the import and export of the iPad.
Unfortunately, when two giants (or a healthy giant and an equivalent on its last legs) fight, consumers lose. In Tianjin’s main business street, Nanjing Road, a majority of Apple authorized resellers have either stopped selling the iPad, or have converted their sales ops “underground”. You won’t see an iPad in the open, but if you ask — you might be surprised…
