It must be said that Apple's appeal is truly powerful. Although after the iPhone Duo was released, everyone complained about its lack of innovation, that it was all copied from Huawei, and that its value for money was not high and it was too expensive.

But looking at the data after its launch, it still sold explosively. In just 3 days, it captured over 120,000 orders, ranking 5th on all bestseller lists, surpassing all domestic flagship phones...

Because of this popularity, many bloggers conducted teardowns, and problems were discovered upon teardown.

After tearing down the China-market iPhone Duo and then the US version, the blogger found that the China-market iPhone Duo differs significantly from the US version, and after analyzing these differences, concluded that the China-market version's cost may be 800-1,000 yuan lower than the US version.

As a result, many netizens believe that the China-market version of the iPhone Duo is somewhat cutting corners and is clearly fooling Chinese consumers.

So where exactly has it been stripped down?

According to the blogger's teardown, there are mainly three areas: first, the lack of a satellite communication module; second, the lack of a 6GHz Wi-Fi antenna; and third, the absence of 25W wireless charging-related RF components. It is claimed that the hardware cost of these three parts may be as high as over 100 US dollars, which is around 800-1,000 yuan.

So does this count as Apple cutting corners? If you look at the specs alone, it seems so, but when considering the environment, it really isn't, because even if you installed these configurations in the China-market version, they couldn't be used due to policy regulations.

First, Apple cannot use satellite communication in China, is not allowed to use 5GHz Wi-Fi, and does not support 25W fast charging, only 15W fast charging.

So for Apple, since they can't be used, they naturally have to be cut. Would it make sense to spend money installing configurations that can't be used and ultimately won't be enabled? Would Apple be that foolish?

In fact, it's not just Apple's iPhone Duo. In the iPhone 18 Pro series, there are also some differences between the China-market and US versions, such as the lack of mmWave, no support for 25W fast charging, no satellite communication, no 6G Wi-Fi 7, no AI, and so on...

Different countries and regions have certain restrictions on the functions that phones can use. It's not that whatever functions a phone can develop can be used; they must match local usage scenarios and so on.

Apple's versions worldwide all have slight differences, so theoretically this is not corner-cutting. It's just that under policy-permitted conditions, Apple made cost trade-offs. That's all. What do you think?