According to market research firm In-Stat as many as 400,000 unlocked iPhones were running on China Mobile’s cellular network at the end of last year.

Apple sold 3.7 million iPhones in 2007, and more than 10% of them are in China according to In-Stat which attributed that information to China Mobile. Somewhere around 1 million iPhones are thought to have been unlocked, and 400,000 are in China.

Apple does not want the iPhone unlocked because the company has signed lucrative revenue-sharing deals with its carrier partners that don’t apply if an iPhone is unlocked from its respective network.

In-Stat said Chinese consumers want smartphones with multimedia features and Web browsing, and the iPhone fills that need nicely. And they’re willing to pay for it: 20% of smartphones sold in China last year went for RMB4,000 ($533) or more.

Apple had at one point discussed the iPhone with China Mobile although Steve Jobs says there was just one meeting although there were rumors galore that China Mobile had rejected an offer.

The iPhone looks set to open up new areas of technology. As in creating a band — sort of musical — using collective iPhones.

On iBand there is a claim: ‘We’re playing with iAno, PocketGuitar, iPhoneSynth and BeatPhone. . . .The development of instruments for the first handheld device that let’s us create pocketsized music are important to establish this scene.’

Following that lead there is an item on PocketGuitar which lets you strum on an iPhone.
There is a YouTube with someone playing the piano on an iPhone. Yes, just one octave but pretty damn impressive.

iPhoneSynth does much the same thing but is not as sophisticated but you can see the keyboard on Flickr.

BeatPhone turns the iPhone into a drum set. Endearingly the site allows the user interface is pretty damn ugly but they are working on it.

So bet on it there will be an iPhone band making recordings within the next few months. It will probably be called The Beijing iPhone All-Stars as a tribute to the first rock group in China.

I have seen the future and it is frightening.
Source: CNet News and research.