Chinese Pirates Copy iPhone, Make Improvements 716
An anonymous reader writes "Popular Science notes that manufacturers in China duplicate many well-know products. This includes the Apple iPhone, imitations of which are rolling off the assembly line already. That might actually be a good thing for some users, who might enjoy the user experience of China's own miniOne. 'It ran popular mobile software that the iPhone wouldn't. It worked with nearly every worldwide cellphone carrier, not just AT&T, and not only in the U.S. It promised to cost half as much as the iPhone and be available to 10 times as many consumers.' The cloned iPhone uses a Linux-based system. 'The cloners hire a team of between 20 and 40 engineers to begin decoding the circuit boards. At the same time, coders start to develop an operating system for the phone with a similar feature set. (The typical cloner either uses off-the-shelf code, writes something entirely new, or modifies a publicly available Linux-based system.)' Using the iPhone as an example, the PopSci site walks through the process of making imitation technology."
Brilliant! (Score:5, Insightful)
Doesn't that describe just about every single software project that anyone here has ever done? We either use something we already have, hack some other code into doing what we want, and then write new code as a last resort.
Sometimes I am astounded by the brilliance of the observations that are posted on the front page.
Clones aren't clones, just cheap rippoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
I want one if it's cheap, and if I get the source, but that's because I can stand sucky interfaces to be able to fiddle with the source.
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Say what you like about Apple, there should be some rewards for innovation.
I remember when it used to be Japan (Score:5, Insightful)
Beware complacency.
Re:Cool! (Score:3, Insightful)
Can you explain why?
Isnt the ability to make a similar product cheaper the sheer essence of capitalism?
Arent all those les afaire capitalists complaining about arbitrary limitation of the market forces?
Pirates? (Score:5, Insightful)
The company in question, Meizu, has been working on this product since before the iPhone was launched and is planning to base the it on Windows Mobile 6. Some have said that Apple "ripped off" LG's touch screen phone but, it could be like this situation. One product inspires another. The only difference is the popularity of the product doing the inspiring.
Sure, its a clone but, not a rip-off. Thats the way tech goes. You make a good product & people will emulate and attempt to improve it.
BTW, I do own a Meizu MP3 player & wouldn't trade it for an iPod. http://http//en.meizu.com/product_m6.asp [http]
Re:Pirates? (Score:2, Insightful)
Wait, in a few years they will change it to "terrorists".
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Isnt the ability to make a similar product cheaper the sheer essence of capitalism?
Arent all those les afaire capitalists complaining about arbitrary limitation of the market forces?
Also, if you will note, twice the mention knockoffs that are inferior:
"These clones bear our name and address," David Blackburn, the company's CEO, told the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission. "The label . . . contains our catalog part number and the initials of a calibrator, as well as a final tester."
Now, how does selling a counterfeit under someone else's name fit in to your view of capitalism?
The Chery QQ demonstrates more than just the skill of modern cloning. It also illustrates the danger. Easy-fit doors and rearview mirrors aside, there are differences--scary differences--between the Spark/Matiz and the QQ. As news of the copycat car spread last year, a German automotive club conducted and videotaped a comparative crash test between the two vehicles. When the Matiz hits the barrier, the front end crumples. The rear of the car bucks upward and then thuds back to the ground. An impact chart shows serious yet nonfatal injuries to both the driver's and passenger's head and legs (the chart distinguishes impact with color: the redder the deadlier). The Chery hits the obstacle at the same speed. The rear end of the car lifts higher than the Matiz and begins to rotate. The driver-side door pops open. Hood, engine and roof crumple into the passenger compartment. The frame buckles, bringing the vehicle flat to the ground. On the impact chart, the driver's head, neck and chest are brown and red: not survivable.
Re:Clones aren't clones, just cheap rippoffs (Score:1, Insightful)
You're amusing.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Clones aren't clones, just cheap rippoffs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Company makes product.
China copies product.
Company notices China's version is almost as good, and contracts with them to make their product at a fraction of the cost.
???.
Profit!
A reverse in the "original vs. copy" saying (Score:5, Insightful)
For a long, long time, you could often only distinguish between the original and the "cheap" copy by looking at quality. A real Rolex usually beats the crap out of one of those cheap imitations in reliability, accuracy and longevity. A real shirt of some brand was usually much more resilent and had better seams than the rip offs.
This changed dramatically in the last few years. Especially in the electronics market.
Electronics vendors want to grab you in their stranglehold of vendor lock-in. They want you to use their, and only their, accessories, or at best some that they approve (and get royalties for). Add DRM and the need that they must not allow you to use your tool in the way you want and you know why the copy is actually "more" what you want. They already ignore trade laws by copying the brand, how much do they care for DRM? And on top of it, they certainly don't care about vendor lock-in, since, well, why should they help the company they copy?
Now the quality argument has been eroded away as well, since yes, the copies are made in cheap sweatshops in China. Guess what? SO ARE THE ORIGINALS! There is no quality argument anymore for brand vs. copy.
So we have two tools which are essentially of the same quality, but one wants to limit me while the other one doesn't care as long as I buy the thing. Question for 100: Which one will you buy?
I'd much prefer a cheap clone to an iPhone (Score:2, Insightful)
Indeed. And that's a very GOOD thing, everyone building upon the work of others.
Pity that the west isn't into that. Instead we're into branding.
If the cheap clone were Linux-based then it wouldn't matter if it wasn't as slick as the iPhone, because we could improve it.
And it wouldn't matter if the hardware were somewhat slower, because we could optimize the kernel and libraries to make up for it.
In any case, where do people think that Apple get their components? Almost entirely from the far east
But those same good components are not Apple exclusives, they're available to anyone wanting them --- if they were exclusive to Apple, an iPhone would cost a grand or more.
Kudos to China and to all those focussed on making things instead of on branding.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Capatalism doesn't diallow this. Your trying to attach notions of innovation with capalism but it's not an inherent part. Look at the free wheeling capalism at the turn of the century. Or even the capalaism of the US ve Europe. MAssive technical espionage and stealing of ideas, designs, machines etc...Even as little as 25 years ago with the massive cloning of the IBM PC. The Theft of ideas has always been a part of capalism.
Re:I remember when it used to be Japan (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Copy, copy and copy. Whatever someone did on this planet, acquire it and copy it.
2. Churn it out cheaply and flood the market with cheap imitations. Yes, they were cheap. And unreliable. Ask anyone who was shopping in the 60s for electronics parts what he thinks of Japanese electronics.
3. Use the money generated that way to crank out highly qualified workers and engineers.
4. Improve the original design, make it smaller, more reliable and faster.
5. Flood the market with high quality and still cheap electronics.
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Clones aren't clones, just cheap rippoffs (Score:4, Insightful)
We needn't fear being copied... (Score:5, Insightful)
Quality? (Score:3, Insightful)
Then, what is wrong with making obvious fakes? As long as the consumer is fully aware and there is no deception, no faked trademarks, etc. What is the problem? I wouldn't drive a Chinese car quite yet or use an unapproved drug or related product, (like the toothpaste), I am certainly game to learn HOW they do it.
In yet another case, its profitable to over-produce 'authorized products' and sell them. Does it matter if your 'designer clothes' came from a fancy retailer on High Street or resold at 1/10 the price elsewhere? Remember they came from exactly the same source in this case. Hint: I'm not stupid.
People the world over tolerate Microsoft. Has Microsoft __ever__ made an original product? Isn't it strange to think about that for a second? Whats wrong with a Linux based phone that looks like the BSD based iPhone? I doesn't appear to have an 'Apple logo', something the end-user can add if it helps. Its a completely different product. Maybe it works better? Chances are it will break in half a year, but at a fraction the price: Who cares? If they've fixed the rough edges of the iPhone, like easy to change batteries, some sort of API, it may be preferable to many. The ones I've seen locally come with source and an API and cost about half the US price of iPhone, in Europe. AFAIK, it legal as long as you don't program it to do something illegal. (such as jam GPS or intercept calls that are not yours) Yes, its illegal to lock a consumer to a single provider or a single choice if more are available.
It appears today, the most profitable business plan is to base a product on an existing concept. Designing completely new products (like I do) has its challenges and risks. Usually it fails, but that one in five that wins, makes everything back and $millions more, at minimum. So China, like Japan in the 40s and 50s, is at the "Microsoft stage". Eventually they will, like Japan, think for themselves. Japanese products are quality, and China is likely to follow. There is no business plan in forever 'cloning' existing products. What if 'PC hardware' was only IBM clones? Fortunately companies do move on to survive. So do nations.
Re:Pirates? (Score:2, Insightful)
You couldn't be more wrong, pirates are those guys who steal treasure from ships, at sea.
Not even a person robbing a train is called a "pirate", he's called a train robber
Pirates and IP violation have nothing in common, it's just a demonisation term, invented by the RIAA, stop acknowledging it.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
The key issue here, I think, is one of honesty and decency. Have a look at some typical products developed in the capitalist West: MacDonald hamburgers, most cosmetics, most 'health' products. MacDonald meals are full of fat, sugar, soy powder and other 'goodies' that are basically ruining the health of the nation because they are being power-sold to our children through TV - this is certainly very capitalistic, but is it right? Is it 'deceny and honesty'? I think not. Cosmetics companies try to convince you that using their products will make your skin younger - which can't be called anything but a flat out lie; and the same can be said about all these dubious health products, which at best have no effect, or worst are harmful. Very capitalistic - you make as big a profit as possible no matter what - but fundamentally dishonest and indecent. Seen from this angle I think ripping off somebody and counterfeiting their product fits right in.
There is another facet to this that is always ignored when people complain about China, namely the cultural difference. We in the West have got used to the idea that copying the work of others is wrong (although it has not been this way for long - I remember that The Lord of the Rings was in the beginning copied and sold in the US without permission from Tolkien). In China there is a long tradition for copying great masters, certainly in arts, but also in other matters. After all, if something is good, why not? I am not saying that this excuses making illegal copies, but that's the way it is. 2000+ years of habits don't die overnight.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:3, Insightful)
Here is a link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_wall [wikipedia.org]
The assumption that the clones of IBM were not legitimate or that anybody that clones the iPhone is inherently cheating is completely incorrect. Anybody that opens an iPhone up and reads the logic, who then uses that to duplicate the iPhone completely would be opening themselves to lawsuits. Using the Chinese wall method, has been found many times to be a legitimate form of reverse engineering.
That is how capitalism works, somebody has an idea, and sells it, somebody else finds a way of duplicating it for less money and endeavors to drive the first guy out of business. Just because what we have now is so bastardized from capitalism, doesn't mean that the definition should change.
Reverse engineering / Chinese wall is simply a more abstracted way to copy and use someone elses ideas. I agree it's pretty much a intergral part of capitalism.
Samsung vs Sony? (Score:2, Insightful)
How long before consumers choose iClone over iPhone?
Re:Patent, schmatent -- supply and demand wins (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not that it'll get stolen---it just won't sell.
-=rsw
Does it come with or without lead? (Score:2, Insightful)
Is this just another delivery vehicle for poison? another method China is going to use to aff load their toxic waste on other locations?
Was the assembler a 4 or 5 year old? were they whipped or beaten to meet their quota?
are the knobs make from endangered shark fin?
Is the default background screen a shot of the massacre at Tienemen?
just curious about yet another thing we're supposed to be impressed with the chinese for. nothing to see here, move along.
Re:China: cleverer and more numerous (Score:3, Insightful)
For all their failings, I believe that the things the US ostensibly stands for - liberty, equality and the belief that you can achieve anything if you work for it - are a good role model for the world. I feel a little nervous about a world where the US has allowed stupid leaders to bleed away all their power and we have to find another buttress against the casual cruelty of China and a resurgent Russia.
Peter
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
Right, because capitalism = greed. There is nothing "capitalistic" about stealing. Your definition of "competition" apparently also includes illegal activity. Laissez-faire economics does not say "the government should allow businesses to operate under whatever pretense they like." Here's its actual definition, from wikipedia: "It is generally understood to be a doctrine that maintains that private initiative and production are best allowed to roam free, opposing economic interventionism and taxation by the state beyond that which is perceived to be necessary to maintain individual liberty, peace, security, and property rights." (emphasis mine)
Nowhere in that definition do I see "allow businesses to cheat, steal, or engage in other illicit activity."
Except it's not--nice try at a straw man, though! You almost got it. Nobody (not even free market anarchists) asserts that "regulation" encompasses basic property and security law. It is not considered "regulatory" when the government arrests a businessman for killing a businessman from a competing firm. Nor would it be considered "regulatory" if the government punished one firm for stealing another firm's ideas outright. (Note that I don't consider reverse engineering to be stealing, but there is a healthy debate surrounding that issue.) So, you're 0 for 2.
Why do you think Chinese goods are so much cheaper? The Chinese economy has posted record gains year after year, and they have staggering amounts of foreign investment. They continue to industrialize at a breakneck speed. Under any capitalist society, their currency's value should have skyrocketed by now; if anything, they should be dealing with inflation problems because their economy is growing so fast. But they're not, because they keep the value of the yuan artificially low, essentially dicking the rest of the world over in the process. That is why Chinese goods are so cheap. Japan and S. Korea experienced similar booms, but their products got more expensive as time passed, because their currencies were determined by the free market. China's essentially cheating, but due to their size and their strategic importance, there's not much we can do about it.
Re:I remember when it used to be Japan (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, that's gonna break in 1-2 years as well. Then you buy the next cheap crap thing.
China is actually dead on target with their manufacturing. People want cheap crap, not quality products.
Re:Cool! (Score:5, Insightful)
But then, the less you know the easier it is to be certain.
The GP refers to "property rights" as if that concept applies to knowledge. The problem with that assumption is, as any econ textbook will tell you, "property" has two defining qualities - it is excludable and rivalrous. Knowledge is neither and so his whole premise that cloners are somehow violating the principles of pure capitalism is completely without merit.
Pay up (Score:2, Insightful)
I think you should all pay Newton $5 every time an engineer usesF=ma. Bah!
Re:Cool! (Score:3, Insightful)
Pirates? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Chinese Fakes (Score:3, Insightful)
It has been my experience that the general philosophy in China with regard to just about everything is, "If you can get away with it and not get caught then there is nothing wrong with it." There is still loyalty to one's family, but the rest has given way to a general pragmatism born of generations growing up in an oppressive and amoral society which glorifies wealth above all other achievements and encourages exploitation and corruption (not officially per se, but by ineffectual and spotty enforcement). I suppose that in China if one does *not* cheat in a desperate attempt to get ahead then there are ten other people competing against you who have no such qualms. You may be killed if you do get caught, evidenced by the recent events surrounding the former head of the Chinese equivalent of the Food and Drug Administration, but what are the alternatives? Live an honest, but poor, brutal, and short life *or* cheat, get killed if you get caught, and take as much as you can while you can? It is not difficult to see why the cutthroat Chinese businessmen are not concerned with intellectual property laws, they are playing for much higher stakes than that already.
Re:Cool! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cool! (Score:3, Insightful)
I'll give a shred of credit for the iPod simply because they were the first to get it to market, despite the rather obvious detail that it wouldn't be long before somebody else did it anyway (Creative being the likely choice). After all, it's just an MP3 player (which already existed in heavy numbers) remixed with a hard drive.
Apple lays claims to being the first to put together numerous graphical elements and tools in their OS. Unfortunately for them, there's not a single one of them I've seen or heard of that can't be traced to existing first in the Linux camp, or even a few from MS. Just like the Mouse, Apple is taking credit for other people's innovations.
As for the iPhone, Apple simply copied the multi-touch display that was already being made a topic of much discussion for several years prior, combined it with the (external) look & feel plus the memory elements of the ipod (along with far too many of it's major flaws), and mashed all of that up with a GUI that looks and feels strangely similar to the MS Windows Media Center garbage (or at least any common place photo editing app with slide shows).
I'll give credit to Apple for the work they put into the iPhone in terms of man hours, design expenses and the marketing research, but let's not confuse that with innovation. Cloners don't owe Apple anything on that front, and frankly, they don't appear to be cloning much more than surface design elements and fairly marginal elements of the internals and the base feature set (all things that many companies frequently copy "legally" all the time). Even before the iPhone was visible in any way publicly (including the patent applications), not a single feature of the iPhone didn't already exist in other phones on the market. Apple just spent the money tying it all together and decided to declare themselves brilliant for doing so...sound like the Segway, err "IT" to anybody else?
redefinition of lost (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Patent, schmatent -- supply and demand wins (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway compare China to India, right next door. It's a very large market, but only 60% the size of China's. People are much, much poorer, believe me it's not like China where every urban motherfucker sports a $200+ cell phone. And yet India, with stronger IP laws than China, has a vibrant film and cultural industry, a fairly large (and rapidly growing) skilled labor pool, and can actually support locally-oriented industries.
Obviously that's a simplified breakdown - but saying "all 1.4 billion Chinese people are poor and could never afford to buy anything that isn't a bootleg" is even simpler, to the point of being nonsense.
Re:Cool! (Score:3, Insightful)
When was China ever fascist? Ok, you should make a case for Qin Shi Huangdi, but he was uniting a empire after all. China was imperial until the early 1900's, then chaotic and nominally governed by chief warlord Yuan Shikai (but he was more military despot than fascist dictator), then went into the civil war of PRC vs. GMD, then came the Mao years (please don't tell me you think Mao was fascist!), then the modern Chinese capitalist government. Yes, I say capitalist because although they call themselves Communist, they aren't in any way anything but capitalist. China as a culture is so capitalist that it turned communism into capitalism!
Re:Pirates? (Score:3, Insightful)
Pirates copy DVD's
Pirates hijack seafaring ships. You're thinking of copyright infringers. The people ripping off iPhone devices are probably patent and trademark infringers. Totally different things.