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Chinese Pirates Copy iPhone, Make Improvements
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."
Like 10g nano clones with FM transmitters.. Or tons of other items, most at much lower cost then in the rest of the world.
But you cant get them here. ( and i bet the quality is pretty poor too )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
iGroan.
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
Capitalism puts the smack down on the hippy dippy Apple company once again!
Blar.
Will it kill my cat?
Why am I on Slashdot? I'm bored. Why am I bored? I'm on Slashdot.
Anyone have one want to find someone with an iPhone and give a side by side comparison?
Video Production Support
"The typical cloner either uses off-the-shelf code, writes something entirely new, or modifies a publicly available Linux-based system"
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.
They are using "free market" ideals against us! What are they trying to do to us by making things we want, less expensive and less restrictive? But there's one thing the Chinese can't duplicate! That "Apple Logo" (tm) that makes me feel smart, warm and cozy every time I buy one of their products. At first, I found myself wanting to buy anything with an "i" in front of the name, but then I realized I was just being an iDiot (tm). Now I look for the Apple mark on it before I buy because then I know I will be happy... just look at all those happy people dancing! It's because of Apple right?
Open Source is an adequate response to the Cloner problem. If we can all make it, because its designed to be make-able by all in the first place, then there is no worries with the economy issue.
At this point, the question becomes: how fast can we all shift to an open/cloner form of economy, with local resources and local markets being properly managed in competition with the way they manage things in China? Answer that one, or at least have some sort of scope for the horizon, and maybe things will just get better and better for those of us who want nice, fast, cheap, easily reproducible hardware, for interesting uses
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
There is always a differance, you won't get the same hardware, it will be slower. You won't get the same software, it will be badly integrated with the rest of the phone. And most importantly I'm not sure we will ever see the sourcecode, and this is the bad thing. These phones won't sell that much, but if I ever get my hands on one I would love to have the Source code, ... I've talked with chinese firms it's hard enough to get it right when you have a contract.
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.
"Using the iPhone as an example, the PopSci site walks through the process of making imitation technology"
How long before Apple hits Popular Science with a DMCA takedown notice?
My #1 reason I am against the idea of patents and intellectual property is because it is proven time and again that the market of demand and supply is the most justified market in terms of what is good for consumers and producers.
I am inspired repeatedly by what I see in China. We are going this Christmas again, to be wowed by the explosion caused by freedom and true capitalism (uncluttered by regulations and taxes). I am happy to call myself a Pirate, one who has no care for copyright, patents or trademarks. They're useless old mercantilistic protections for corporate-State entities that wish to monopolize something for a long period of time.
Individuals who invent do so because something else inspired them. If that inspiration was a product that was lacking features, then they showed the original inventor the shortcomings of their invention. If someone releases a product cheaper or with more features than your product, you must move forward to beat them. Competition drives innovation, not monopoly IP protection. So what if you spent 5 years designing something new? Just having an original product doesn't guarantee success -- you need finances, marketing, customer support and repair facilities. It is a combination of all these things that will bring you success, with the R&D stage merely a blip. Who comes up with an idea first may be lacking all the other needs for a profitable product.
For my own creations, I designed moralIP which is my view on how to morally protect designs. I never copyright or patent my writings or inventions -- and even if others steal them, my market base grows with new people interested in what I have to say, or what I've invented. That's the unseen hand of the market at work, and I love every minute of it.
I spent alot of time in China working in the CE industry and this does not suprise me at all. The local culture is that to copy and improve is natural and not illegal.
:"In 2006, NEC, one of the 25 biggest consumer-electronics firms in the world, went public with the results of a two-year investigation. The company had been receiving complants about products it didn't even make: DVD players, cellphones, MP3 players. Investigators from International Risk, a private security firm employed by NEC, ultimately uncovered a shadow version of the company operating out of corporate offices in China, with ties to more than 50 manufacturing facilities. "On the surface, it looked like a series of intellectual-property infringements, but in reality a highly organized group has attempted to hijack the entire brand," says Steve Vickers, the former Hong Kong police inspector who was in charge of the investigation for International Risk. Executives had their own NEC business cards and e-mail add-resses. They had marketing plans and distribution networks in place. Some "company" facilities even had electronic signs bearing huge, lighted NEC logos. Most bold of all, the bogus NEC actually charged the manufacturers it worked with royalties on its designs. The investigation led to raids last year on 18 of the manufacturing sites and the seizure of nearly 50,000 fake products. Yet the factories themselves are still operating, just not using the NEC name. The ringleaders of the scam have yet to be caught; like the Samsung copiers, they are thought to still be making fakes."
9 767.stm
s eize-entire-brand/2006/05/29/1148754904830.html
d s/
However that had not stopped Chinese firms using our own IP systems against us by patenting just about everything they can get their hands on and then seeking money via the courts.
In a very real sense, they are having their cake and eating it as well.
My favorite story was the fake NEC firm and thats also mentioned in TFA
I suspect the biggest problem was trying to persuade them that they had been breaking the law in the first place.
For more information on Chinese patents see..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/693
For more information on the fake NEC firm, see
http://www.smh.com.au/news/biztech/slick-pirates-
To see some fake chinese brands..
http://www.hemmy.net/2007/04/29/chinese-fake-bran
It used to be the case that good programmers were relatively scarce and that if you had a good CS degree, you could be guaranteed a good job. Now, China and India are packed to the gunwhales with programmers and other technology people who are just as capable of producing cutting edges technology and willing to work at a fraction of the cost.
This must be true in other modern disciplines as well. How are the Western economies ever going to compete, once the East gets properly established?
Peter
It looks to me like Apple has raised the bar of what we expect from a hand held device. The fact that someone is making a better(?) one is no surprise. No one could run a four minute mile until Roger Bannister did it. then suddenly everyone was doing it.
Insert Generic Sig Here:
If you were an old fart like me you would remember when exactly the same criticisms were said about the cheap Japanese rip-offs that were flooding the market and undermining domestic products that were simply superior in every way. The very idea that Japan would, or could, become world class was laughable, just ask the British motorcycle industry - or the US motor industry
Beware complacency.
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
so... can the average consumer replace their own battery in this new phone?
Here's info about the Meizu M8 phone from back in February. It runs Windows CE and NOT Linux AFAIK. http://www.meizume.com/showthread.php?t=720 Recent press release here: http://www.meizume.com/showthread.php?t=2774
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
TFA is mostly about China's counterfeit industry rather than an iPhone clone in particular. The iPhone clone of interest though is the Meizo M8 miniOne. Loads of pics online if you google it.
If the thing runs on Linux and uses other GPL code, can we expect that RMS and the EFF will be hounding the miniOne developers
to comply with the GPL and release the source code and allow the device to run modified code?
The article didn't tell me where I could find the source for the GPL code used on the device.
Yes, this is truly wondrous and all that jazz, but... will it blend?
nuke China now?
The title of this story is misleading and the story is as well. Pirates copy DVD's, not create new consumer electronics products.
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
I think I think, therefore I think I am.
It is interesting that the number dialed in the video on the P138
613 599 5555 is an Ottawa Number.
Atlas stands on the earth and carries the celestial sphere on his shoulders.
It's about the Chinese cloning industry. Only a small part of the artical deals with the iPhone. What is it with the iPhone fixation?
I remember reading an article where China had released a GM car copy even before GM had released it.
And what sort of support would you get for this phone or it's service?
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance - it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel Boorstin
Given China's recent record, I expect them to be painted with lead paint, filled with propylene glycol, have a case that falls apart, and kill people horribly when it crashes.
But let's all keep buying these unregulated, untested imported products because, wow, look at the savings!
Has anyone commenting on this even bothered to look at the video of the product on the last page?
To suggest that this product is "better" than the iPhone is ridiculous.
It just looks like a roughly-made copy of the iPhone design running linux.
The interface is crummy and hardly a copy of the iPhone beyond the background graphic and a copy of copied icons.
No multi-touch, inconsistent interface, really looks like something thrown together.
They will eventually just clone Steve Jobs. I mean its an essential part of the i-brand experience, no?
Oh, sure the first versions will be of low quality - arrogant, angry, prone to bouts of outrage, hubris, violence.... posing a danger to all those around him..... but in time they will improve and eventually make a better Steve Jobs than the original.
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Will anyone in the US be able to legally purchase and use a miniOne? Obviously people can and do buy large amounts of fake Louis Vuitton handbags, but you don't need to subscribe to a third-party to make use of the handbag. US cell phone companies will have to recognize and allow the miniOne into their cellular networks. Won't Apple lawyers have something to say about this? I'm not at all certain the miniOne would pass legal scrutiny.
Slashdot: Playing Favorites Since 1997
I've had a Chinese iPod Nano clone in my hands. It works fine. It's ugly, with a cheap-looking finish and a fake clickwheel that's really just 5 buttons. The power and data interfaces were USB, not Apple's iPod type. BUT
It had a bigger screen, supported video, had a built-in FM radio, handled most audio and video formats, and...
it had apple logos and names all over it! More and bigger than the real iPod. Who's going to stop them?
By the way it sold for 40 dollars equivalent in China.
Frink: N'hey hey! Ahem, n'hey, so the compression and expansion of the longitudinal packets cause the erratic profits -- you can see it there -- of the neighboring telcos.
[a girl raises her hand]
[sighs] Yes, what is it? What? What is it?
Girl: Can I phone with it?
Frink: No, you can't phone with it; you won't enjoy it on as many levels as I do.
Someone done stoled my miniOne.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Never underestimate the power of infinite cheap labor. My Dad was navigator for a squadron of Recon F-4s (RF-4s - sheep in wolf's clothing) that flew night missions in vietnam. Their job (occasionally) was to take pictures at night of the Ho Chi Mihn trail. The fighter/bombers would bomb the road during the day. The VC would literally drive trucks down the bombed-out road at night. They would have a crew with shovels in front and behind. One crew filled in the craters, the truck would driver over, one crew dug out the craters. If you flew over the next day, the road still looked "bombed out". Infinite cheap or free labor is a powerful thing.
meh
The iPhone is basically a box with a big touch screen. The iPhone design has so few distinguishing features that it's hard to see which parts of the design Apple could claim a trademark on. Furthermore, Apple wasn't even the first to ship such a phone, LG was.
"Piracy" means violating either copyrights or trademarks. So, if they put an Apple logo or some unique graphical design on the phone, that would be piracy. If they copied Apple code, that would be piracy. It seems unlikely that they did either.
They might run into some patents, but patent infringement isn't usually referred to as piracy. Furthermore, the only really novel functionality on the iPhone is multitouch (technology Apple didn't invent but bought), and I seriously doubt the clones even bothered with multitouch.
So, this kind of cloning is probably not piracy. And given the many limitations of the iPhone, this kind of cloning is a good thing for the consumer. Even if they were the same price, I'd want one of these Chinese phones because it sounds like a better phone to me.
Asia is so far ahead of the USA in wireles technology.
No multi-touch.
No finger flip.
No iTunes compatibility.
No coverflow.
No Safari.
And, oh yeah, it's vaporware.
-- Boycott Shell
If they have used GPL software, where can I download it? Should it not be available from this company?
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
I can imagine ordering one of those phones and you get it home and the thing doesn't work. You open it up to find it filled tainted cat food, the black paint has rubbed off on your hands. You might want to wash those before you eat.
Well....can't say as I'm surprised.... China does (as the article makes clear) copy quite a lot of western technology. As it also said though, they put it out to a much larger market, and it's usually cheaper.
Sometimes it almost looks like China is "taking over the world", which seems to be kind of true in a way...they have advanced rather quickly in the past few years, and it doesn't look like they'll slow down anytime soon. I always knew that there was quite a lot "made in China" but I never really realized until I read that article how much they actually copy (and sometimes improve) what is designed in other countries. The part that scared me the most was the bit about how badly the QQ performed compared to it's "parent" in a crash test....
I did think the part where they said that "In the south, one cloning operation didn't just copy a technology company's product line--it duplicated the entire company, creating a shadow enterprise with corporate headquarters, factories, and sales and support staff." was pretty amusing....
I'm not sure what "badly integrated" means. Isn't the iPhone inherently "badly integrated" with itself because it lacks cut & paste? No cut & paste means the iPhone doesn't even qualify as a "smartphone" or "feature phone", period. Guess what feature one'll find on the Chinese iClone? lol
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
The copy is better than the original.
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?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
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.
/sigh
... that's the hotbed of technology these days. Apple merely defines the specs, controls the integration, and marks up 10000000000% profit ....
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.
I remember a fake-ass "iPod" which a friend bought in China.
The box it came in had a huge apple with a ridiculously patriotic "stars and stripes" theme on it.
Seriously, that thing was weird as hell.
On a side note:
"The typical cloner either uses off-the-shelf code, writes something entirely new, or modifies a publicly available Linux-based system."
Is there some mysterious fourth option I am not aware of which makes this sentence necessary?
I mean you either use something that is for free (or steal it from the foreign devils), or you write it from scratch, or you buy it.
Well, they can clone an iPhone or whatever. Already bugs and security holes are being found in iPhone. And AAPL would fix it and a security patch will be issued. Who is fixing bugs in the iClone? What if it lets people intercept the calls? Who is going to make the repairs? Suddenly when it dies with all your contacts and music and files, you think iChina is going to be there? Half the value AAPL provides is not in the iPhone.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The new fragrance from Calvin Klein.
Russia is the same way. For example, Kiev Cameras are just Hasselblad clones.
When Ballmer claims that Linux is like communism, he may have a point. Before you mod me as a troll, consider that it is a clone (copy) of Unix and that KDE/Gnome rip off so many features from Windows its not even funny. How about some true innovation?
Weezul wrote; Isn't the iPhone inherently "badly integrated" with itself because it lacks cut & paste?
John Gruber, of daringfireball.net, makes the argument that "it's good that the 1.0 iPhone shipped without them", even though he wishes this functionality were present.
If the US government were really interested in a competitive economy rather than merely protecting incumbent crony corporations, this Chinese competition would face even stiffer competition from American corporations knocking off stuff, too.
We could tell that the US government was interested in that competition, and not propping up incumbents with IP protectionism that only cripples American (and close economic allies like Western Europe and Japan) competition's chance to compete, if the IP controls like flimsy but unending patents and copyrights were discarded in favor of growth.
Not only would American competitors to these Chinese knockoffs benefit, but of course the consumers would benefit from the lower prices and innovations. Since consumers are most of the economy, along with the labor we sell to corporations, our economy would benefit.
Or, we can just let China eat our lunch, while we prohibit ourselves from fighting back.
--
make install -not war
I'm waiting for OpenMoko to launch. That seems like a device with a little more thought put into it than this clone. The guys in the article just seem to be interested solely in responding to Apple with a quick knockoff to make a few bucks.
I like music
Typical pirates, creating Linux phones that are unlocked, were easily updated with custom apps (or OS's), and have no DRM.
That kind of freedom cannot be tolerated in our fine democracy.
--
If pirates write software that clones functionality of other products, then my company is a pirate ship. Apple is a pirate ship. Microsoft is a pirate ship.
arrr
Laugh it up funny guy. By the way, that coke you're drinking... Thats right, as a joke, I went pee-pee in it.
This looks like a lawsuit waiting to happen.
LG will now have to sue both Apple & the Chinese
company for copying their touch screen phone.
Good programmers are still relatively scarce. Crappy programmers who can hack together some inefficient and unreadable code abound. India and China are packed to the gills with sub-par "developers" who can rarely do anything except copy the works of others. They hardly ever develop anything past a incremental, generally superficial improvement. China can copy cutting edge technology and manufacture it with other copied components. The last time they were innovative was sometime around the invention of paper and gunpowder.
Western economies won't be able to compete unless some sort of tariffs or sanctions are raised. Unfortunately, western people don't have any respect for quality, just price.
...so much as crippling ourselves. The iPhone has some obvious flaws. Not engineering ones, really. Not things that couldn't've been overcome by the engineers at Apple. But things enforced by the telecoms. The phones are deliberately damaged. The Chinese ripoff is carrier independent. Allows people to write their own applications. And it's probably easier to use it like a general purpose machine, too. There is no technical reason why Apple could not do these things. But, because of corrupting influence (I suspect the pure-evil, anti-free market attitude of the telecoms), the iPhone doesn't have them. Americans are deliberately making inferior products. No wonder there are issues competing.
If your theory is different from practice, then your theory is wrong.
So that is the definition that you use for a smartphone, can cut and paste? So therefore my Motorola E1000 is a smart phone, since it can cut and paste?
If you have ever held a real Apple device, and compared it to the Chinese rip-off, you will see what badly integrated means!! (hardware wise, at the very least)
Sorry, the only thing I like cheap is my women.
Sir, you truly are, a weasel.
I like the miniOnes "MADE IN CHINA" buyed with yuanes.
I hate the iPhones "MADE IN USA" and the dolars.
I hate the PS3 "MADE IN JAPAN" and the yenes.
The Linux "MADE IN CHINA" is very good in 3 quarters of the world.
The Windows Vista "MADE IN USA" is very bad in 1 quarter of the world.
It appears China is where Japan was, post-war. There is a market for the 'cheapest product possible', but personally I'd rather pay twice, say for a quality motherboard without on board "Realtek" garbage. In general all products from China seem to be a bit shoddy. Give them a few years and things may change dramatically. I'm referring to 'authorized products' here.
...
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.
You forgot to add 'Lame.' for full Slashdot iWhatever meme-compliance.
C'mon, people, we have to work together.
Japan was NOT ripping off. They had low costs cars that Americans were buying, but they were not rip offs. They then focused on quality. Personally, I admire the country for what they did. They pulled themselves up by their boot straps.
China is a WHOLE different matter. They are flat out stealing. But that is by design. The chinese gov pushes this and as long as American and European countries allow this, it will get worse. You are correct about complacency, but the real issue is Americans (and EUers) who accept this cheap junk. Want to stop it? Quit buying it. As of a month ago, I quit buying Fischer-price because they do not check their toys (I have a 3.5 y.o. and a 10 m.o.). For the last couple of years, I refused to buy any fish from china. I know that most of it comes from American waters, but the problem is there quality is very low.
And these days, we have to worry about espionage. On a project that I was working on, we had a "Taiwain" native who wanted to invest into the company. Most importantly, he wanted control of some hardware that we had, and wanted to sell it to mainland china. Since it was under gov. control, there was NO way to allow this. And yet, he was still looking at ways to take it to china. Another individual applied for a job with us, and her resume looked interesting until I saw that she was chinese citizenship. With that, we could not hire her. Once I explained that we were developing equipment for the DOD, NSA, and CIA and could not hire her, I started getting phone calls and emails every day. Needless to say, not a chance.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The article says Meizu bases miniOne on GNU/Linux, you say MS Windows Mobile... references anyone?
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
Pirates rob people on the high seas through threat of violence and bodily harm. CD copiers and file sharers are, at most, infringing on copyrights (and even that's debatable in many cases).
When we call copyright infringement "piracy," we're lending huge greedy corporations more legitimacy than they deserve.
And they still manage to increase their economy by 10% or more each year? I knew these IP restrictions had something to do with it.
Where is that guy who'd die defending what I had to say when I need him?
All you apple worshipers were rhetorically asking how the iPhone could get any better? Well.... now you know. Half the price. More apps. Any network. Sounds good to me!
Depends where you live, but still off-topic anyway. The worst parts of my large US city have free wireless broadband to help the poor keep up (as if poor people have computers?). The worst parts of S. Korea use donkeys to pull their plows and don't have electricity within 100 miles. How is that "so far ahead"?
Really? And here I thought they'd use option four, "Pull some source code out of thin air". o.O
Sorry, just had to make fun of that particular piece of non-information. :)
I study literature, and at least in that realm copying was a two-way street. Dickens lost gobs of money to American editions of his work while Melville, Clemens, and others lost gobs to copying in England. There were no copyright agreements, so there was flagrant copying. In fact, our nations were at war with one another off and on during the nineteenth century. It might be best to not cry over spilt milk.
In China.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Google wuhan auto and you'll see why this is no surprise. I can't find it on the web for some reason, but when I was there in the 90s there was a GM plant. Or something labelled that, along with Dongfeng-Citroen.
It was certainly going on in the 70's and 80's where video arcade game manufacturers used to resort to wiping IC numbers off chips to try and prevent it.
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
If one were to RTFA, one would realize that this is not, in fact, the phone of which the article writer speaks. Rather, it's that P168 thingy that a friend of his had gotten his hands on.
While you're at it, check out the other phone they mention in TFA http://www.htctouch.com/ . It's somewhat different from the iPhone, and probably lb for lb not the same functionality (like you have to press a button to rotate the screen rather than flick the phone uncomfortably hard), but independently of the iPhone, their website demonstrates a very impressive product.
so nyeah.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
That's the true cost of cheap manufacturing in China: The Western world is giving them their IP for free. Pretty soon the west will be strangled and wonder "why". If China decides to stop selling steel to the US, say goodbye to your cars. That's right! Your entire INDUSTRY runs on Chinese parts and processes! Globalization will strike back.
Not 'les afaire', but laissez-faire. It's French.
A look back at the pc history may be worthwhile, without copying it would be quite a different world today...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_PC_compatible
I live in China and China while very productive in certain areas, also have major draw backs. From the outside it looks invincible, but the reality is different. We can think even alone, they can not. We are individuals, they are not. They are borks. They work without perspective to the sound of the drum set by none. They are not creative, but HYPER productive - Hive mentality. I was home in EU for a month this summer. Almost everything I bought to bring back to China was made in China. This is because the stuff you get in china is 3.rate, made for the Chinese market. They do not understand the concept of quality and are not willing to pay for it, why should they, they are not use to have anything, so even crap is better. A TV that have loud background noise:" But the picture is fine, so there is nothing wrong with it". A microscope where the lines is off focus:" Not a problem, you can still see really small things". A program that crashes the PC 4 times a week:" Not a problem, just reboot". But all this leads to problems, since it impeads development and original research. If the western world focuses on know-how and cutting edge they/we will come out on top. However, we must stop this idea that we can "make stuff better than them" because we can not. China can do electronics, but so could Japan and Taiwan 25 years ago, China is just SO much bigger so we feel it more. Electronic is so ... last century, we can not beat them there. CS (sorry to say it here at slashdot) is like cave painting when talking innovation. Move to biotech, nanotech, material science, hardcore physics and you have a population of 1.3 billion just looking at you like you are the freaking Yankee in King Arthur's Court.
STDK
MiniOne = iPhone-like
+ removed DRM (stupid Digital Rights Management)
+ removed tons of Apple's licence
+ removed embedded unremovable-battery forever (imagine it for an ininterrumptible supply to the micro-spy-for-CIA)
+ removed call-to-Apple-center
+ removed AT&T monopoly
+ removed unique ID of the apparatus
+ removed detector of unauthorized battery supplier
+ removed propietary Apple's OS
+ removed Apple tradermark-logo
+ removed unwanted Apple's sings-songs
It "removed" translates to CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP MiniOne!!!
Say what you want, but some people can probably remember when Samsung made cheap Sony knock-offs as their line of business. Now they're innovating and many consumers (like myself) would chose a Samsung over a Sony.
How long before consumers choose iClone over iPhone?
libertarian: (n) socially liberal, financially conservative; neither left, nor right.
and can I get a side of noodles?
I wish I was clever!
I read about the car, and thought 'Neat'. Then I read about the safety and thought 'Ouch'. But, then again, if the car is a part-for-part copy, what's the difference in safety? Perhaps in a US-style market the difference in safety would be a factor, enough of a factor to make the copied car pony up to safety?
But the iPhone copy troubles me the most. They copied that device in very little time, and making some assumptions, are offering a good product at a much better price.
That doesn't seem right.
Imagine an alien archeologist excavating our societies in the distant future. One team digs up an iPhone from America, and the other digs up the copy from China. Both go into the museum. Do the aliens even know or care that one is a copy of the other? Both devices are electronic-super-phones that people of the age used. Roughly equivilent.
And if they can't see the difference, I wonder about our own values because we do. We see that difference A LOT. Why is that? What are the benefits in participating in it? The drawbacks? Is it worth it?
If no one is around to explain the difference, it largely disappears. That being the case, was there ever really a difference at all?
Neat thoughts this morning...
Looks like they've done a pretty good job! http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/coolest-mock_up-evah/gu y-creates-iphone-from-scratch-even-better-than-the -real-thing-288136.php
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
how about PCB's?
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.
How easily we forget things like the faulty capacitor espionage clusterfuck.
ditto
1985 Marty: What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan.
1955 Doc: Unbelievable.
Korean products went through the same thing in the 1990s. Anyone remember how crappy Hyundais were when first introduced in the U.S.? Last year they topped the J.D. Power initial quality survey for non-premium brands, coming in third behind Porsche and Lexus (though apparently they weren't able to hold it in 2007). And of course Samsung and LG are now household names in the consumer electronics market. I would suspect the Brits from the 19th century experienced the same thing with American produts.
All that remains to be seen is if China follows the same path as Japan and Korea, or if it's going to be like "made in Taiwan" which has never quite become a cachet of quality, remaining more a mark of cheapness.
"you won't get the same hardware, it will be slower. You won't get the same software, it will be badly integrated with the rest of the phone."
TFA actually says nothing about the clone other then it exists - there is no review of the product. The article is 5 pages long and the clone is really only mentioned on the first page.
If the parent has links to an actual unbiased review from someone who has actually used the product I would love to see it.
The article and the parent post are complete fluff.
Even more to the point, the summary states quite clearly (no, I didn't read the article) that some of these phones use Linux. How this could be considered theft or "copying the internal workings" of the iPhone is beyond me. It's pretty clear these guys are just making look-alikes in most cases.
Accusing them of theft should probably, you know, make some sort of allegation of exactly what is being stolen. For the record, I think there's prior art on phones, cell phones, cell phones with nice displays, cell phones with web browsers, cell phones with EDGE, cell phones with Bluetooth, blah, blah blah, blah blah blah. Remember, "Apul iFone" won't count as trademark infringement in most places outside of West Virginia.
Kudos to China and to all those focussed on making things instead of on branding.
I just love my Chinese made and branded Brackbelly!
I just wish that it was made without lead paint...
And that it wouldn't keep texting me quotes from Confucius every 2 minutes...
And its battery is great at first, but 2 hours later, it wants another one.
And when you're put on hold, instead of hearing "your call is important to us" you hear "Seinfeld, party of 4".
And when I check the calendar, the date says "Year of the sucker"...
You left out patent, copyright,and trademark in the above. Amazing how when one has something to lose, the big three make an appearance.
Does capatalism "diallow" a spellchecker?
Yeah, I notices a web browser was sorely lacking as well.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Oh shit I just put my Iphone and the clone next to each other and don't know which one is the original, aargh.
But seriously, although I understand that many chinese inhabitants cannot pay for an original iphone it does not make it right to clone such a product and make money of it. Especially when the original inventor does not get its fair share of the profit. However we do live in the real world and this was to be expected.
"How long before Apple hits Popular Science with a DMCA takedown notice?"
About as long as it takes slashdot to read and understand the document mentioned.
OK, I'll bite, because I was imagining this very discussion when reading the article...
I'm sure we can agree that "capitalism generally refers to an economic system in which the means of production are all or mostly privately owned and operated for profit..." (thanks, Wikipedia!). However, you can't build a better mousetrap without seeing the original mousetrap, to wit. This discussion of capitalism HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ownership of IP, patent protection, trademarks, etc., which is what your argument is about. Our government, long ago, put in rules about ownership of product ideas through trademark registering. (thanks government regulations!). Not sure how much that's going to be enforced in China (or any other country) unless that country will agree and will enforce it.
Many countries do have similar IP protections, but there are some subtle (but significant) differences. For example, IIRC, in Japan you can "patent" something there even if it hasn't been created, which has caused some products patented in the US to be in infringement in Japan, allowing Japanese manufacturers an advantage for producing it there or requiring royalties for the US company to sell it there.
Again, I'm not trying to make an argument about whether brand ownership and copying is/should be legal. The point is that these companies, like it or not, are practicing pure, unfettered capitalism, although via an informal market (outside of regulations). They are making products for a profit. They are even improving on prior models. The entire point of the article, is that these products are evolving from cheap knockoffs ("Adicias" vs. "Adidas" in one example) to, in some cases, having an established manufacturer partner with these copying manufacturers to produce official products (the Chrysler/QQ example). And Japan and Korea both are prime examples of other markets where this has occurred. Whether it will eventually happen in China remains to be seen, given the negative press on some of their production methods (see pet food & toothpaste).
Who put this thing together? Me, that's who.
Animoog.org
miniOne? Why didn't they call it the "wePhone"; they are communist after all.
The article states, "...there's virtually no high-tech Western product that China's cloners can't copy. Pretty soon, you might even prefer their work". The improvements are noteworthy but just that, improvements.
So your beratement of the poor schmuck is not quite correct (though it is well deserved.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Dawn, I wish could have worked on this project. Imagine, "Off Site Hand Held Software Development", while taking the automated transportation to the PHB's lear; Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet.
From TFA:
"She thumbed through a few pages and smiled. 'The phone? Mr. Wong? Oh, that may not be possible,' she said. Silence. What about our e-mails, the conversations, the invitation? She was struggling to be polite. It isn't customary in China to be forced into an outright yes or no. 'Come back,' she said, 'maybe in September.'"
Can something that doesn't exist actually be better than something that does?
"Very capitalistic - you make as big a profit as possible no matter what - but fundamentally dishonest and indecent. "
Except there's no such thing as pure capitalism any more than there's a pure political system.
"Seen from this angle I think ripping off somebody and counterfeiting their product fits right in."
The only advocates of this position have never been stung by the act of counterfeiting.
"After all, if something is good, why not?"
I wonder if you'll continue to feel the same way when people get injured and killed due to counterfeits? And even if nothing so dire happens, there's always the issue of a inferior products and the loss of reputation let alone waste of money.
"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."
They do when people start dying emass. Historically the greatest pain has caused the greatest change...until people's memory starts failing them. Then it's right back to business as usual.
Where is my published post here like it CENSORED here by Slashdot?
... ... unremovable battery (imagine it as uninterrumptible supplier to micro-spy-ware of the CIA) ...
miniOne = iPhone-like
+ removed
+ removed
+ removed detector of unauthorized battery supplier.
+ removed
This "removed" translates to CHEAP, CHEAP, CHEAP miniOnes!!!
lulz.
Americans used to "pirate" Gilbert and Sullivan shows back when they were popular. Now that Americans are net exporters of IP rather than importers, the tune has changed.
I think you should all pay Newton $5 every time an engineer usesF=ma. Bah!
This is all just my personal opinion.
Since this phone is not the same as the iPhone, has different code, mmore functionality, how are these Chinese "pirates"?
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Where does the neocon-fascist-leaning U.S. fit in your world view? Dubious elections Business collusion Constitution suspended
The memory of father of statistical sampling is revered in Japan because he led them out of the 'schlock' era into the "Toyota" era.
China has not quite made the leap, but once they realize it, and the why of it, look for the rapid criminalization of what is fundamentally a criminal activity: IP theft.
That won't happen until enough people have died from using substandard crap though. Sad but inevitable. Specially as the Chinese don't really value life as we did. (Since Iraq, all bets are off. We're riding on our own coat-tails, and sadly, we're not quite making it.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
The MiniONE is going to run on Windows CE 6.0, not Linux.
Anyone can "stand up for what they believe", but it takes a very brave individual to change what they believe. - Loundry
Sorry to burst your fanboy bubble that clones are crap. They're almost always better.
The batteries are usually standard types, instead of having wierd shapes for customer lock-in and using proprietary connectors. In the case of clone cellphones, in most cases a standard Nokia battery will fit.
Any gadget where the original has access restrictions usually doesn't have them on the clone, or has a simple key-sequence to bypass them. Clone makers usually make more pro-consumer gadgets (because that's a selling point, as they can't sell on hype), not gadgets that favor the content producer or other vested interests.
It's very common to find region and copy restrictions disabled on clone equipment, and so they're purchased in truckloads after word of mouth advertising spreads the word on forums. And so it should be. After all, they're often better for the consumer because of this.
Except by the fanboys of course. They continue to pay more for less, because they're morons, and can't see beyond the ends of their brand-faithful noses.
http://www.meizume.com/showthread.php?t=720
Apple may rue the day they decided to delay the iPhone in markets other then the USA. By the time they make it th Europe and Asia, those markets might already be saturated.
Have gnu, will travel.
If I put a Chinese knockoff iPhone into a Chinese knockoff Blendtec blender, will it blend?
Apple perhaps should hire some thugs to rough up the cloners. If you clone below the law (they copied the case style), then retaliation can also be below the law. They don't have to hurt anybody, but they could hire "harrassers" to follow the employees around, call them names, not take showers, make fun of their kids, interfere with their TV, block their driveway, etc. You can hire 4 thugs for the price of one in the 3rd world. Hacking, cloning, and programming may be cheaper there, but so is thuggage. Take advantage of that.
Table-ized A.I.
Who cares if it's capitalism? /David
The iPhone is not an interesting or compelling product because of the icons, user interface widgets, or exterior design. Copying these purely aesthetic elements does not produce what people here are calling a “clone”. The iPhone is important because of the multi-touch input device, the resolution independent graphics system delivering the visuals, the hardware graphics acceleration, the frameworks underneath, and all other foundational elements that make whole classes of applications possible (e.g., the Google Maps client that nearly approaches Google Earth in presentation quality).
As far as I can tell, this knock-off does not copy anything substantive about the iPhone: the technology that makes it possible. It is just another phone that may appear similar on the surface and that is that. All these silly arguments about how they are “stealing innovation” and other nonsense are a waste of time. If it was so easy to create the raw materials behind the iPhone, or they could have been pulled off the shelf, this product would have existed before Apple introduced it.
On a side-note, this goes to show how wide-spread the ignorance is about what the iPhone (or OS X with Quartz and the Core frameworks for that matter) actually brings to the table. So many people I discuss the device (and the Mac) with think it is identical to any other phone (or computer) but with glossy-looking graphics. This is an entirely superficial assumption and ultimately wrong.
Why bother.
But the way the politics are playing out here...
Look for an attempt at a "default re-election" for a third term under the guise of fighting terrorism and screw the constitution (which will be suspended under the guise of "a national emergency" after the NEXT attack by Al Queda, which I figure should happen next September or October, just in time to screw up the elections.)
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Chinese pirates copy everything, this is hardly news. The only reason I can think of that this was submitted was to say "LOOK, THE IPHONE GOT BEAT!" If I could mod the submission Troll, I would.
Hold on a second there: The Meizu isn't exactly a bootleg copy of Pirates of the Caribbean. Or a fake iPhone.
It may violate a patent or two in the US, but that remains to be seen (can Apple patent having buttons in a 4x4 grid?); it's in a completely different class from the bona fide fakes that are actually appropriating the Apple trademarks and passing themselves off as Apple products.
Your mind is clear / The things that you fear / Will fade with how much you / Believe what you hear
It's slightly different because the 'copy' IS a 'copy' not a 'clone' but the rest holds. That is, until you get into Snood and Frozen Bubble, which are clones of Bust-A-Move; Quadra and Lockjaw, which are clones of Tetris; Pydance and StepMania, which are clones of Dance Dance Revolution; Crack Attack and Tetattds, which are clones of Puzzle League; MySims, which is allegedly a clone of Animal Crossing more than it is a Sims game; Verticube and Luminesweeper, which are clones of Lumines; ReactOS, which is a clone of Windows 2000; the various "candy" skins for GTK+, Qt, and various window managers, which are clones of Aqua appearance; etc.
If it is as open as openmoko... yummy!
What you guys are forgetting is that no nation follows strictly one economic ideal. Let's go to the extremes and take a look. If you live in the USA and have taken an ECON 101 class, you would know, we are not a PURE capitalistic economy, and it would be ridiculous to be one. The first thing you learn in an Econ 101 class is that "USA is a Capitalistic nation WITH bounds". Now, let's go to the other extreme. Even Cuba has economic ties with nations and they deal in a capitalistic way rather than a communistic way. Somewhere they have to cut the bonds of communism for self-sustainance. Even Sweden, which is a socialistic nation has capitalistic ideas with their market system, internally and externally, although their land distribution policy remains socialistic. Hence this war of words which we are fighting here between Communism, Socialism and Capitalism are nothing but flame-baits. Something has gotta give somewhere. The I-Phone imitation bothers us only because Apple is a U.S. company and we'll lose out profits to them(China). Same with pharmaceutical companies(USA) and India copying our patent drugs. If we were truly bothered by imitation of something patented we'd also look inside our own nation as well, where other companies copy/duplicate/modify original works and sell them at a lower rate. I can't name examples off the top of my head but I'm sure there are many. So, let's stop the war of words between economic ideas and leave as a war of words between nations.
Funnily, the particular phone the framework of the story is based on is never found by the author (well, never shown). So it's hard to say exactly what it does feature. But looking at your punchlist does bring to mind the one point the author did mention, multi-touch is a technology that originated in China. He mentions it's development being related to Chinese character input so I'd say it's likely that this technology *would* be included. And if what he says is true then Apple probably can't keep that tech exclusive. Meaning legitimate makers (like HTC) will probably be releasing phones that use it.
The moral of the story wasn't that Apples product wasn't good, it's that the limitations *placed* on it were creating a market for knock-offs (where there is demand but no availability) and work-a-likes. I thought it was an interesting read.
Quack, quack.
labor and demand a higher salary.
But that is China's situation and is rapidly becoming the case in the west.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
So? People argue that one button mice are good things, as well. People will come up with just about any rationalization for their own stupidity.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
The term was not created by the RIAA, it was created by early cracking groups and individuals to describe their own activities, and adopted by other groups operating outside the law in similar ways (for example, self-proclaimed "pirate radio stations"). It's been broadened to the point of meaninglessness (as most such terms are) and is now applied to pretty much any violation of copyright law, and as you note it's not really appropriate in the current debate... but it's definitely NOT something the RIAA made up nor is every use of the word outside the definition of the legal term meaningless.
What... I'd buy one!
Keep passing the open windows...
Actually none of them lost any money at all in the process. They simply failed to make money that they (felt they) were entitled to.
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
No proximity sensor.
No auto-rotate.
And if you don't speak Apple, I'll translate:
None of the stuff that made people want to buy an iPhone.
Screw whoever modded my above post a troll.
-- Boycott Shell
"The typical cloner either uses off-the-shelf code, writes something entirely new, or modifies a publicly available Linux-based system.)"
What other options are there?? That's almost the stupidest thing I've ever read!
If you were an old fart like me you would remember when exactly the same criticisms were said about the cheap Japanese rip-offs that were flooding the market and undermining domestic products that were simply superior in every way. The very idea that Japan would, or could, become world class was laughable, just ask the British motorcycle industry - or the US motor industry.
More the reason to not allow them in unless they meet the same standards from worker to product. Then count the origin of any parts from the parent company's location (and not just the place it's made) - to further enforce it.
Japan had a chance when they still made unrestricted supercars. Now, they're restricting choice with the underpowered offerings that make it to the US. It's not an insurmountable problem - a few well-placed regulations, and they'll be back in step.
Until then, I'll have mine well-muscled, and GM/Ford North American - and not exhorbitantly out of reach.
If we take this opportunity to extinguish the problems that China brings in quality (and obvious currency manipulation), there might be a day that it may become acceptable. However, their lack of attention to quality from worker to product will continue to have problems.
Beware complacency.
Beware those who would have you sacrifice quality for "free-trade" as quality will be long-gone afterwards. Also beware those who defend it- for they also do not have quality in mind and may not have any intent on having it.
You mean "Beware the two-faced free-trader, for quality does not follow him- only shoddy knockoffs and broken promises".
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
When you can just steal a lot of other people's ideas, break public licenses (such as the GPL), use substandard materials, and profit away! Lets see them try to even come close to Apple's support and server side infrastructure. That's the part they always cheese out on, because it actually requires research and money.
And Jesus answered and said to them: "Take heed that no one deceives you. For many will come in My name, saying, "I am the Christ," and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass," (Mathew 24: 4-6)
I'm fairly sure you'll find "les affaire capitalism" is what's happening on the other 90% of the internet.
What I see is that the free market has failure modes which create a similar problem to the concentration of power in a governmental system. You have runaway feedback loops where those with money have more power to influence the market, tilting the playing field towards them and gaining more money with which to tilt the playing field even further. This leads to concentration of wealth and power into fewer and fewer hands. Eventually, people will be born who do not have the means to buy control of their own means of production. Those people will be virtual slaves to those who do own the means of production.
I ask you, what in your system would keep this from happening?
Hi spun, long time no chat.
I'm popping into this conversation to share a relevant idea with you that I've came up with recently, that I haven't seen much written about (been scouring the internet for prior iterations of such thoughts), and I'd appreciate your input on it. All other commentators welcome as well of course.
You mention runaway feedback loops where having money enables you to extract more money from those who have less than you, and you ask, what could keep this from happening? My traditional answer to that question has been a somewhat socialist one: people must have some responsibility to a collective body, in particular I advocated a partial redistribution of wealth based on a sort of dynamically progressive income tax. (I think we've discussed this before).
However, more recently it dawned on me that a much more libertarian solution - that is, a solution that requires less centralized (democratic, collective) power and government (or pseudo-government) intervention, rather than more - would be simply to declare rent contracts invalid, and so not enforce them. That is, a contract to let someone use something for a temporary period of time in exchange for a permanent payment should be no more enforceable than a contract selling yourself into slavery. Beyond that, anyone trying to enforce such a contract is just guilty of theft, just as someone trying to enforce a slavery contract is just guilty of assault. Proudhon was close, but not quite: it's not property per se that is theft, it is RENT which is theft. Note also that as a consequence of this, interest on loans is abolished (as that's simply rent on money; "I'll rent you some dollars at a rate of 5 cents per year for each dollar" = 5% APR loan), and also wage labor (as that's the worker renting himself to the employer).
This way, you cannot acquire wealth simply by having wealth. You can't rent out a spare house you have and use the money to buy a new house and then start renting that and so forth, eventually becoming a land-lord of feudal proportions; if you have property you're not using, and you want to profit from it, you'll have to sell it, which will result (in the short term) in a huge influx of new properties for sale on the market, lowering prices drastically. (Though as to the privatization of new properties from public land, and how those people came to be property owners in the first place, I agree that it was originally an illegitimate transfer from public to private property, and that the privatization of new property should require a payment [only one-time, though] to the public for compensation; however, making reparations for that is no more feasible or just than making reparations for the slave trade, for though both were at the time horrible injustices, they were committed by no one who is alive today, and to punish the living for their grandparents' crimes would be wrong. All we can do now is start doing things right from here on out and let the inequalities slowly level out).
This way, you cannot take all the riches you've somehow come into, lend them at such rates as the interest alone pays all your expenses, and never have to work again. If you have excess wealth and want to profit off of it, invest it. Actually invest it, as in, but portions of profitable companies, fund promising startups, etc. Th
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
It has none of the Apple innovations, it's a poor clone with all the of the usual cheesy smartphone features, plus the case design is iPhone shaped but isn't anywhere near as well designed.
It's just an iPhone style cheap smartphone.
Yes, I also remember the era of cheap Japanese copies. I think this is just a transitional stage of technology development. Once a country reaches the point that it is coming up with original technological discoveries and products, then it starts to want international protection of its own IP, which means that it will have to agree to respect the IP of other countries.
I'm not sure that it is even that much of a bad thing. A lot of the 3rd world purchasers of these knock-offs and counterfeits wouldn't be able to afford the real items, anyway, and the copies are too hard to smuggle into developed countries to have a big economic impact. And it provides an economic incentive for companies in the 3rd world to develop the technologies that they will need to compete in the global technology marketplace. From the point of view of consumers, it encourages original manufacturers to keep costs and prices down, to continue to develop new features, and to build the sort of reputation for reliability that makes people reluctant to accept copies.
Instead of Pirates I only see Double Standards. Reverse Engineering is legally permissible in many places of the world and already used in known companies.
Anyone else notice how the battery came right out (not soldered)?
30% off web hosting. Coupon code "SLASHDOT".
the article starts off with the MiniOne as the example of a "pirated" item. if you did a little research on it, you'd see that there is no "piracy" going on.
...you'd think they'd do something original and exciting. unfortunately, you can't teach creativity, and it's not a marketable skill in china right now. i've always wondered (being from a 3rd world country myself), what happened to some sense of pride in leading rather than always following. make no mistake, a lot of what they do with the knockoffs is pretty cool, but in my mind, always just the next obvious step after someone else's genius. we won't be seeing any true originality out from china in a while.
It's a little garbled (fixable) but the products they feature only vaguely resemble an iPod. Maybe inspired by, but they look like good products in their own right. Ogg (I don't care, but lots of people used to) and FLAC support is really nice. But the controls and UI look very well done (I own a Creative Zen, which works nicely too).
Quack, quack.
Why is it that I have to go to a communist, dictated country instead of the "Land of the Free" (yes, you're allowed to laugh) to get a product that is open, has more functionality, not locked to a single carrier, less expensive and actually places the customers' needs and desires above corporate hog-tying?
Oh, wait, I know why it'll fail...IT HAS BUTTONS! OH NOES!!!1111!1oneeleventyone
Capitalism killed millions, too. A million already in Iraq alone. What's your point?
Impoverished billions as well. You can find as many bad examples as you like. Most of Africa.
Oh goody, would it be legitimate to oppose it with force, too? We'd have permanent global war.
And I'm sure some capitalists would make a buck off it.
Lies about crimes
I agree with you that the concept of stealing is against the principles of capitalism, but the capitalist notion of protecting property rights refers to a tangible items, not to the 'ideas' protected by intellectual property. Intellectual property rights and copyrights are not inherent to capitalism.
One can and others have made the case that intellectual property rights are undue regulation by the government. Laws regarding intellectual property rights are, in effect, thought laws. These laws say that you are forbidden do or make something because someone else thought of it first. Copyright and intellectual property laws rights are used as a government enforced monopoly. One can make an argument that some intellectual property rights are beneficial, but only using arguments that most Libertarians would not agree with.
Capitalism involves creative destruction. What was once profitable can rapidly be made obsolete by new inventions and ideas. Contemporary western governments tend toward limiting this creative destruction to both appease the general population with limited welfare, health care, subsidized student loans, etc. and powerful business interests with copyright and intellectual property rights. Again, some would argue that this is an improvement over unfettered capitalism, but intellectual property rights are not included in Laissez-faire capitalism.
One area where the Chinese example again diverges from important capitalist ideas is that many of the counterfeiters are breaking their contracts. Contracts are intrinsic to capitalism and one of the few areas where Libertarians agree that government is needed. If a Chinese factory is under contract to produce cellphones with a company, and then proceeds to also sell counterfeited versions of the same product, they have violated their contract.
A 1995 article "The Libertarian Case Against Intellectual Property Rights" argues the point much better than I can in my brief post.
http://libertariannation.org/a/f31l1.html/
I strongly agree with your final point. One of the many reasons the China example is not an example of the result of unfettered capitalism is the artificially yuan low. This combined with government subsidies (on all sides) makes it incorrect to say that the negative effects counterfeiters in China are an example of pure capitalism's faults.
Property rights
Property
Knowledge
And of course economics.
A careful reading will tell you that the original story isn't about "knowledge" and "property rights". It's about "applied" knowledge and property rights. Apple "applied" their knowledge and created something unique in a tangible form. That is which most economic systems reward.
Regards,
and Marx, Lenin, and Malthus were wrong about a few things.
Maybe more than a few.
I don't buy it. He says himself that adding cut & paste is harder than adding arrows & such.
I also don't believe Apple will add cut & paste via software update. We're seeing the 1 button mouse "my vision is right" idiocy of Jobs again. Mac's still ship with 1 button mice you know! Cut & paste will end up as crummy crash inducing hacks.
Infact there is only really one solution to crummy user interfaces : make closed source software ineligible for copyright protection. If all is open source, then all small changes have their chance. A closed source word is slave to to many human failings.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
It doesn't have a web browser. None.
A group in China makes the first iPhone clone. It runs Linux. Sounds pretty cool.
But what erupts in the discussion threads on Slashdot?
Many, many, many long trolling rants that amount to 'matchbook cover grade Political Economy Rants.' There are pages of the long rant threads about communism versus socialism. Then big ropey threads of 'Intellectual Property' ranting.
I find the idea of an early iPhone clone, and one that runs a non-closed operating system, to be highly interesting. This wasn't even posted on apple.slashdot.org, so why have the trolls been able to turn it into an unappealing troll thread? Did Apple send out their legions tonight???
I can definitely see why they wouldn't want us discussing the cool tech features of an iPhone clone that runs Linux and can be used on any cellular network, anywhere.
Microsoft says legacy (serial/parallel) ports are bad. They don't obfuscate the hardware enough.
I'm posting from China right now, and while I agree that there is much less cultural emphasis put on notions of originality and individual achievement, I have to say another pervasive aspect of modern China is the lack of rule of law. This has an enormous effect on business practices, and encourages certain business practices.
Now, day to day life here (in Beijing) is pretty safe and reasonably well regulated. But a manufacturer, say, in Guangdong is far away from the central government, and very far accountability to anyone but local officials. If they want to start violatin' someone's intellectual property, they've only got to bribe the local officials to do it. Seeing how it can be a very lucrative business to rip off other people's ideas, the local watchdogs are generally bought and paid for.
A concrete example are the ubiquitous pirate DVDs- Every time there's a national crackdown, the stores empty for a few days while new suppliers or trade-routes are found. Then, a flood of new titles returns to the stores. When the crackdown happened last year, suddenly, all the titles were in Russian. So instead of getting discs intended for, say, the Korean market, we were getting knock offs from the Russia-bound trade instead. A few months after, when the heat is off, higher-quality dubs re-appear.
The Chinese domestic market for cell phones is huge, more than big enough to make an iPhone knock-off profitable, even if it never leaves China and therefore never draws serious complaints from Apple or US regulators. Even if the government summoned the political will to crack down on one fake iPhone manufacturer, another would spring up in the absence of consistent enforcement.
I personally believe that the iPhone is a pretty bad deal, as it stands now, and that anything in it that's not patented is fair game for imitation. Heck, there are plenty of moronic things that get patented that shouldn't deserve IP protection... but anyway, I'd be willing to buy a legal knock-off of the iPhone if I believed that it offered me similar value for less money. But the situation in China is such that, even if patents were being violated, there's just no incentive to follow the law.
feel you have been cheated on ?? HAHAHA
Wow, you must be some special kind of superdope not to realize that the post you replied to was a joke. Shouldn't you be running the country or something, dumbass?
Socialism is an umbrella term for a number of systems where distribution of wealth is subject to control by the community for the purposes of increasing social and economic equality, just as there are many types of 'Capitalism'. The social-democracy model, the communist model and the anarchic model (and the last two are as far apart as you can get!) can form the basis of socialist states. And a socialist state is not a precursor to a communist state, whatever Fox News tells you.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
Just because you got (number of iPhone features) + n does not mean your phone is an improvement upon the iPhone. You're missing what makes the iPhone attractive: The fact that it is a pleasure to use.
US companies have always felt free to rip off trade marks that belong to companies without strong legal rights in the US.
Obviously Bud/Budweiser/Budvar was the highest profile one although this is now semi-settled.
Bacardi still sell a knock-off of 'Havana Club' rum in the US only, where the Cuban owned trade mark (licensed to Pernod Ricard for use Cuba and the rest of the world) is not recognized
All this has to do with power, not any moral imperative, In China enforcement is weak and the market operates 'freely' as one would predict. In any case aren't slashdot readers meant to be against copyrights, patents, and all that 'regulation' stuff?
There is not a single Apple logo on the device. Furthermore, except for some design touches, Meizu and LG actually designed iPhone-like touch screen phones before Apple. Perhaps the real rip-off company is Apple. http://www.bigberries.com/?s=meizu http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&um=1&hl=e n&q=meizu+minione&btnG=Search+Images
The real question is: are people like you deliberately lying?
Linux is made wherever there are programmers interested in Linux.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney
SIP with WiFi would make it totally worth it. There are many VoIP providers which support the open SIP protocol. I use Broadvoice using their BYOD plan with a VoIP hard phone and love it.
So how is this different from what Microsoft historically did?
Microsoft started making copies (MS's versions) of software and ideas other people and companies developed themselves (numerous utitlities like defraggers, word processors, browsers, etc etc etc)
Sorry, but it's a pretty obvious point.
I applaud these Chinese guys for innovating on the iPhone's feature set. What strikes me as funny is that people are crying foul all over this when they forget what Microsoft did to smaller businesses by "embracing and extending".
The mouse has 6 action zones on the Mighty Mouse. It's a multi-functional mouse. It's not been a 1 Button in conjunction with command key action only mouse design for years. http://www.apple.com/mightymouse/specs.html
So where can you get one of these new, improved LINUX iPhones? And will they work on Verizon's CDMA network? That's what I want to know.
Innovators must be protected, but not necessarily the companies and repressive ideologies (or anything repressive for that matter) which earn billions off of their hard work.
Comparing the effectiveness of either little or no protection is tricky: Which is more effective? Is the moderately protected system better than the overprotected system, because it encourages more innovation; — or perhaps the overprotectedness of a system is better, because the extent of overprotection forces (or stimulates) people to create something uniquely new that builds little on other people's work, but is impossible to develop further by anyone else (but the inventor) past the patent expiry date?
What can lead to stagnation, though, is when innovation is stifled by any way or method that actively or just by proxy suppresses ideas and thoughts, discussing them, etc. New ideas and concepts are not useful when voluntary propagation of these may land you in jail or otherwise cause considerable (such as legal) discomfort.
For example, it's not good to innovate in Texas, because companies there have complete right to their workers' mindshare, thus it's somewhat better to be an innovator in California. In either case should and must an innovator not divulge his idea before he submits a patent application.
Another example is the Soviet Union, where applying most of R&D stayed within the Soviet military complex and some research in many subjects was outright suppressed or was taboo at best. Both articles cite reasons from insufficient funding compared to all kinds of military projects (10/90% ratio) to discouragement of new ideas for ideological reasons and then of export restrictions to the SU and then corruption.
I might as well submit something later in addition...
I use a bluetooth mighty mouse daily.. it's default still is one button.. multi-button ergonomics has obviously been sacrificed.. individual action zones are not very acurate, for example. Job's ego shines thought.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Since the iPhone debuted, I've been searching for a phone that resembles the iPhone in physical dimensions,screen size, and general hardware attributes, but that isn't locked down like the iPhone (or most any other smart phone for that matter). It sounds like this Chineese company would be a good place to look. To be honest, as long as it has the ability to run some flavor of Linux, I'll be able to mess with it until it does what I want, or at least until I make some of the key features I'm looking for work. And if it doesn't work, then I will not have lost much, since it's just a cheap piece of Chinese hardware (which is really all the iPhone is anyway).
This is imitative, not innovative.
A big salute to chinese tech ppl, i hope i can get hold of it sooner... thanks...
Best Regards, Eliena Andrews
Googles Ad supported Video phone After reading about Google : 1) Controlling large amounts of the worlds dark-fiber. http://news.com.com/Google+wants+dark+fiber/2100-1 034_3-5537392.html
2) Google said that it's willing to participate in the Federal Communications Commission's upcoming wireless spectrum 700MHz band auction and pay the minimum reserve of $4.6 billion.
http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9747716-7.html
http://digg.com/tech_news/Google_s_battle_for_wire less_spectrum
3) Google hires Andy Rubin, founder of Danger and the " Sidekick"
http://googlewatch.eweek.com/content/google_produc ts/for_google_phone_rumors_press_1_for_more_google _phone_rumors_press_2.html
4) Google & Sprint collaborate on WiMax mobile Internet services.
http://www2.sprint.com/mr/news_dtl.do?id=17560
This all came together in a epiphany I had this weekend. I predict that Google will soon launch a Free Ad supported Video phone some time next year.