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Chinese 'Apple Peel' Turns iPods Into iPhones
angry tapir writes "The Apple Peel 520, a Chinese-developed product that drew the media's attention for being able to turn an iPod Touch into an iPhone-like device, is coming to America. The add-on device, which just went on sale in China, has been billed as a more affordable option for users wanting to get their hands on an iPhone, but lacking the budget."
TFA,
Who is GoSolarUSA?
http://www.gosolarusa.com/company.html
Apparently they don't do anything yet. Okay, let's check out CEO Tyson Rohde. Says he /was/ CEO of Biotricity before this gig.
http://www.biotricitypower.com/company.php?main_cnt=our_team
Huh, what a shock. Biotricity is /another/ company that doesn't seem to do anything. Including list the current CEO who replaced Tyson.
Okay, how about Brewer Captital Group? Ah, well their link redirects to a 404.
http://www.brewercapital.com/
Goldbridge Energy Partners then? I get "network problem" -- no site available.
http://goldbridgeenergypartners.com/
And none of those "companies" or Tyson Rhode have managed a mention in Wikipedia of course.
I thought it was a little unlikely to see a solar energy company going into dubious electronics, but this is looking like a less unlikely match with every link. Maybe this'll even get some steam and be good for a couple of weeks of /. stories. I kinda miss Darl.
'It juts uses the iPod as its UI.'
Or to put it another way, it replaces the cheap phone components that Apple left out of the Touch so that it could cash in on the low end of the market without threatening the status of its expensive flagship product. Although the true cost is often buried in a contract, in the UK you can buy an unlocked 64Gb iPhone 4 for £599. The equivalent iPod Touch is £329. Obviously the iPhone 4 is more expensive to produce, but not £270 more. The cost of this device (not to mention the cost of a complete PAYG Android phone, about £100 over here) shows that Apple could produce a much cheaper device if they chose to. But rather than owning the whole smartphone market (as they already own the mp3 player market all the way down to the Shuffle), they've decided to focus entirely on the high end. Whether this will turn out to be a wise decision in the long term remains to be seen, but it's obviously highly profitable right now! In the meantime it leaves us with the oddity of the iPod Touch, a device designed by bean counters, which has no real competition in the market because only Apple can get away with selling a 'smartphone without a phone'.
Bull.
Apple is being sued left and right by companies that have actually innovated in the cellular field. Apple just copied everything and paid no-one.
Apple has blatantly refused to join any patent pools, instead they happily infringe other companies' IP rights.
Just so you know, My iPhone dual boots into Android as well. Current release only gives internet/voice/mms functionality (if your SIM is unlocked), but next release should have the Android app store.
http://www.iphodroid.com/
If you 'recall' then, Apple was also first on that bandwagon. Newton anybody?
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Actually, I recall an article on Anandtech that states the various differences between the latest iPod Touch and iPhone. They didn't just drop the phone part, they also have a different casing which could indicates different internal structure, lower quality display, speaker, camera and no GPS. Are these worth the £270, probably not, but it means it might not be as bad as it looks.