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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.
China values imitation much more than the USA does.
'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'.
only Apple can get away with selling a 'smartphone without a phone'.
I recall something that was called "PDA" which seems to qualify quite well as a "smartphone without a phone", and quite a few companies like Palm, HP has been quite successfully selling those before smartphone became popular.
I know it is trendy with moderators to bash Apple here, but at least try to bash for things they are actually guilty of, ok?
Oliver.
Well except for CPUs. Every desktop CPU is designed in the US (both AMD and Intel are there) and a large number are made in US fabs. But that's it. Oh well and graphics cards, nVidia designs their cards in the US (AMD in Canada). And ICs like A/D converters (Texas Instruments designs in the US). And airplanes, one of the two remaining major airline designers/manufacturers is Boeing, who is in the US. And search engines, both Google and Bing are developed in the US...
Getting the point? The US actually innovates a hell of a lot. You find a great many new, high tech, things are developed in the US, even if they aren't built there.
This is NOT an example of Chinese innovation, it is an example of the opposite. Apple did the innovating, to the extent there was some. The developed the platform, the OS, the UI, all of that stuff. This just adds a cellphone radio to the iPod Touch. That isn't innovative, that is what an iPhone is. Not saying it may not be nice for people but innovative it is not. They just bought off the shelf GSM parts and wrote an app (probably using Apple's development tools) to modify another off the shelf device to act just like yet another off the shelf device. Neat? Perhaps (though if iPhones are too expensive just get something else, seriously there are plenty of other good, maybe even better, smartphones out there). Innovative? Not hardly.
Seriously, this hate on the US's industry shows nothing but your own ignorance of the actual markets. Do some research, if you actually care, and you'll discover that the US designs (and actually builds too) a whole lot of high tech, state of the art, shit. You'll discover China does not. Usually when they make somethign high tech, it was designed elsewhere and many of the parts are made elsewhere too.
Like say you buy a Denon receiver. Very high tech gadget with lots of nifty features. Unless you buy the high end ones, it is made in China (the high end ones are made in Japan). However all of them are designed in Japan, China only does the assembly per Denon's specs. Also the DSPs, the heart of their capabilities, are designed by Analog Devices (USA) and fabbed at either their US or Irish fab. Their converters are designed and made by AKM Semiconductor in Japan. Their room correction software is designed by Audyssey Labs in the USA. It's video processing system was designed by IDT (USA) and made by TSMC (Taiwan).
So while the label may say "Made in China," all that means is they assembled the parts. All the "innovation" went on in other countries.
Go research it, if you care, but please stop spouting off if you aren't willing to.