Apple's roll-out of its latest iPhones landed with a thud in China, the company's biggest foreign market, despite a new effort to court the country's consumers.
underwhelmed：感到乏味的，未留下深刻印象 roll-out：首展，推出
In a signal of China's importance to Apple, the Cupertino, Calif., company held its first-ever launch event the country on Wednesday. But Chinese journalists present at the event, which featured no live speaker or new China-specific information, were underwhelmed.
The event got off to a rocky start, as a scrum of uninvited camera crews and reporters temporarily blocked the entrance to the elevator bank that led to Apple's offices in Beijing's eastern financial district -- a situation Zhang Lihua, a reporter with the Hangzhou Daily, called 'awkward.'
scrum：扭打，混乱 awkward：尴尬的，棘手的
'Lots of people were hopeful they could come take part, because this is the first event,' Ms. Zhang said.
Helen Liu, a journalist with Lifestyle Magazine, said she thought everyone wanted to have more direct communication with Apple. Instead, they were presented with a video of Apple's flagship event in Cupertino, which had concluded several hours earlier.
After the video, reporters were given a chance to play around with the company's newest products, the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5c, which Ms. Liu said would help enrich coverage in China. In particular she said she saw some features that were likely to grab the eye of Chinese consumers.
'All Asians like gold, so I think [the gold-colored iPhone 5S] will sell very well,' she said, adding the red iPhone 5c would also be popular due to the Chinese preference for the color, which signifies good fortune and happiness in addition to a certain political party.
Beijing Evening News reporter Jia Zhongshan said that he thought the iPhone 5c, available in a range of bright colors, would be popular among Chinese youth, but bemoaned the price of the supposedly more affordable device, which will be sold for 4,488 yuan ($733) in China.
bemoaned：惋惜，叹息
The high price of the 5c, barely less than the 5,000 yuan it costs to buy an old iPhone 5, also went over poorly with Chinese social media users, many of whom had been expecting Apple to finally cater to the middle of the market.
'Getting an iPhone is like finding a girlfriend,' wrote one user of the Twitter-like Sina Weibo microblogging service. 'You go to find out after you [get out of university and] and start working -- it's not that they are out of products, it's just that the demands and price are very high.'
Other microbloggers were already sending out requests for traveling friends to help them buy the 5c in Hong Kong, where the phones are not subject to Chinese taxes and therefore sell more cheaply.
Part of the logic behind Apple bringing the iPhone to market more quickly in China this year, according to analysts, is to avoid some of the problems that have come with Chinese consumers buying products brought into China from other markets.
In what might be another symbol of Apple's falling status in the country, a long satirical portrayal of the product launch also spread around Weibo. The graphic, which takes images from the product launch and adds wry subtitles beneath, at one point implies that the fingerprint security function was designed for Chinese men to ensure their wives don't find out about the affairs they're having.
At another moment, the post mocks the colors Apple decided on for the iPhone 5S:
'China is the most important market for our company. You all know China has many rich and trashy people, so we made the iPhone 5S particularly in colors that would appeal to the rich and trashy,' read the fake subtitles underneath images of the three phones, with the new gold-colored phone at center.
trashy：垃圾的，碎屑的