With disappointing sales and sundry lawsuits, Apple's position in China has long been wobbly. In April the Cupertino, California-based company recorded a 26 percent sales drop in the Greater China region. This comes on the back of the tech giant's mounting legal woes in the country, including the shutdown of iBooks and iTunes Movies and the copyright lawsuit against the iPhone 6.
Despite these, China remains an important market for Apple, one that is too crucial to ignore. In a report, Tech in Asia editor C. Custer discussed key things Apple must do to win back the Chinese market.
First, the upcoming iPhone 7 must adopt a new look that would distinguish itself from old iterations.
"What's the point of buying the latest and greatest iPhone if everyone who looks at it thinks you just bought a year-old iPhone 6?" wrote Tech in Asia.
Storage space is also a pain point for the iPhone line that Apple must address. In China, where the country's most popular app WeChat is taking too much space, memory capacity is quite important.
The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that the tech company is looking into making 32GB the minimum storage for the iPhone 7. This bodes well for consumers who do not want to shell out extra dollars to boost their handset's storage.
Apple must also welcome competition against local China makers in the midrange segment if it wants to up its game.
"People will probably always be willing to pay a bit more for the Apple brand, but in a market where teens expect to buy a decent smartphone for US$150, Apple may want to consider making its low-end model even lower-end," Tech in Asia wrote.
Aside from creating a new look, the next iPhone should also roll out new features. There has been rumours that the iPhone 7 would be ditching the headphone jack and adopting a dual-lens camera. A waterproof handset could also be on the horizon, according to Macworld.
Lastly, Tech in Asia noted that naming the Apple's next handset "iPhone 6se" is not a good idea.
"This...would not play well in China, as it merely reinforces the idea that this isn't really a new phone, just another offshoot of the boring old iPhone 6," said the tech news portal.
Apple is set to launch the next iPhone iteration in September per tradition.