huetsch

The A1530 actually falls back to 3G and then 2G depending on the part of Beijing. I don't really understand how that works, but the 3G is also much better than the 2G, which is pretty awful.

One very painful thing about the A1530 is that the 4G connection gets broken (and thrown back to 3G or 2G, depending on location) whenever a call comes in or you make a call out. You then have to manually reconnect to the 4G network. I don't really understand why this is. Maybe the voice data is being sent over the 4G network during a call or something? The China Mobile people told me explicitly about the problem. 4G has only been available since the 18th, so haven't had that much time with it, but coverage seems decent.

iPhone 5s's bought in Hong Kong (model A1530) work on the LTE network. The iPhone 5s's previously sold in the mainland, however, will not, as they lack the right chipset for receiving a TD-LTE signal. I'm guessing China Mobile will just be selling the A1530s.

McDonalds and KFC do deliver in major Chinese cities. The biggest difference is the cost structure. Chinese cities have a very high population density, which makes delivery much easier. They also have relatively cheap labor (although this is changing). And people here ride electric scooters, which are much faster at navigating big cities than cars. McDonalds in Beijing charges a little less than $1.50 USD for delivery.

I've been skeptical of Google-branded hardware ever since my Nexus One stopped working due to a non-functioning power button. I find myself associating "beta" with their stuff - that's fine for software but not so much for physical goods.

Did you hesitate before sending this out due to the fear that such a letter might itself push the market closer towards a vicious cycle?

This series has been some of highest quality material I have seen in a long time regarding entrepreneurship. PG's writings are pretty good too.

Anyone have recommendations for other writings covering similar topic material and with a similar signal-to-noise ratio?