—iPhone coming to China: China Unicom may be close to signing a two-year exclusive deal with Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) to sell the iPhone, according to a Merrill Lynch analyst, Reuters reports. Cynthia Meng wrote in a research note that they expect Apple products to be available in conjunction with the Unicom’s commercial 3G launch starting Oct 1. A Unicom spokeswoman told the wire service the two sides were still in discussions. The exclusive would come as a surprise given that China Mobile has also confirmed that it was in talks with Apple at one time.

—AT&T pre-order sales: AT&T’s Mobility chief Ralph de la Vega told CNBC this morning that pre-orders have exceeded all expectations, and total “100s of thousands.” Unfortunately, those people may have to wait awhile to activate their new device. AppleInsider reports that Apple’s iPhone activation servers are buckling under the the masses, who are attempting to activate their new handsets. Apple warns that “Due to the current activation volumes, it may take up to 48 hours to resolve your issue.”

—The S stands for speed, right?: Not so fast, Pali Research analyzed both the speed of the new phone and that of the new 3.0 software update. It found that the Palm (NSDQ: PALM) Pre consistently loaded YouTube files more quickly and that the quality of the YouTube clips on the Pre was much better than the iPhone. Pali also compared an iPhone with the new 3.0 Software update and a 3G iPhone without the 3.0 software update to see which one was faster. In tests, “the 3.0 software update seemed to slow down the 3G phone.”