“At the end of an alley in Taiwan’s most violent city, a black Mercedes-Benz sedan blocks a sliding- glass door that opens only from within. Inside, technophiles can buy iPhone knockoffs for two-thirds the legitimate price,” John Liu and Chinmei Sung report for Bloomberg.
“With a touch-screen and Apple Inc.’s logo on the back, the ‘iClones’ look just like the real thing,” Liu andSung report. “Apple won’t offer iPhones — which combine a phone, music and video player with wireless Internet — in Asia until 2008. The owner of the shop in Sanchung, near Taipei, says he began selling ‘aifungs’ in December, six months before the iPhone went on sale in the U.S.”
“The clones show how fast Asian counterfeiters move. ‘Ben’ says his company designed the fakes from pictures posted on the Internet before Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs unveiled the iPhone in January,” Liu andSung report. “Knockoffs cost the global economy $650 billion annually, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates. Apple spokeswoman Jennifer Bowcock wouldn’t discuss how much the company loses as a result of phony products.
“‘The longer Apple delays, the more the pirates can rip the company off,’ says Chialin Lu, an analyst at Yuanta Core Pacific Securities Co. in Taipei,” Liu andSung report.
“Cupertino, California-based Apple, which said yesterday it sold its millionth iPhone, intends to fight back. ‘We are committed to pursuing counterfeiters and others who steal from us and deceive our customers,’ Bowcock says. On its Web site, Apple asks consumers to report fake hardware to ,” Liu andSung report.
Full article here.
Get passed the log in
screen and the iClone is terrible.
A total waist of cash.
What about blog sites that sensor your comments if they do not say something to the effect of…”Apple is great”?
Everyone – just make sure you love the iPhone and have something great to say about it before you go posting anything here. MDN and the Cupertino Cops will take your comment off.
Also…amen!
Also… is full of it. I’ve never encountered an instance of censorship on my part or any one else’s.
I have noticed that there is very little profanity on MDN. Perhaps you have an awful potty-mouth and got your post deleted for dropping too many f-bombs. hmmm? Could it be you just don’t have enough class to post?
If you’re going to have a clone iPhone then you want to look cool, you also have to be prepared for people to ask you about it and ask how cool it is to use. You then have to tell them you bought a crappy knock off. Frankly I’d rather use a regular knockoff.
Well can you blame people for wanting one? Apple refusing to launch it in other countries than the US doesn’t exactly help. Until Apple make the iPhone available to these people I see no problem with them buying copies, it’s not like Apple wants to sell them the real deal.
@peter huges
Yes, I was wondering just how good the after purchase experience could possibly be, I mean this technology isn’t child’s-play.
So basically you get a $300 device for about $200, and other than a cool startup sequence and a few icons that look similar, you have no where near the actual functionality of the real thing.
And it seems to me that $200 for a fake is mighty steep, wouldn’t they be better positioned at about $50 bucks? Seriously.
But you miss the point. First of all there are laws. Second of all if you buy a “BMW copy” that looks like a BMW but has a Yugo engine and interior, you get what you pay for.
These phones do not use Apple software but the article did not say how well the phones ran. I am going to assume that they faked the front, us MS mobile and its a “Yugo on the inside”.
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en
“Also… is full of it. I’ve never encountered an instance of censorship on my part or any one else’s.”
No, at MDN you are obviously stupid (and called that by the fanboys here) if you don’t go to bed everynight and pray at the alter of Jobs.
Also, if you dare mention that you own something made by another company other than “Apple” you are obviously a troll… Every technology company that is not Apple is “beleaguered”…
The fanboys here live in their alternate reality and will call you a troll because you can not accept the “fact” that everything that is not Apple is Junk! Total junk. Fanboys are like that, the have their little forum here where for the first time in their miserable existence they finally “fit in”,…. for the 1st time they understand the world where people who have always excelled them can not…
So before they are off to McDonald’s to cook french fries they stop here at MDN and play the part of technology expert and / investor. It helps them forget they have no life….
This is all pretty common to the internet. You can read about the “Face on Mars” by “Internet researchers” who can prove that NASA is covering up reality, the JFK assassination was a conspiracy, and George Bush bombed the WTC. Same thing.
I sent an email to “counterfeit@apple.com” and dobbed in HTC, Dell and Micro$haft.
Apple’s reply was that none of them actually mattered as they were way to bogus for civilization to take seriously.
Ok, I didn’t … But I want to.
that’s why you need a Tor network or web proxy servers to hide your ip and delete all your cookies beforehand. the only id information they can tell it’s you is by your web browser and screen size. now it’s really fun when you can switch those around, then they have to read all your comments as MDN only wants fluffy comments
Woo Hoo!! AiFung here I come!!! I think Apple’s just jealous and the iPhone is a knockoff of AiPhone!
@Also… aka @Montex.
Congratulations … you are troll Number i26935/JRC000
Please take a ticket and wait in line.
We expect a delay regarding attention to your specific problem, but please be patient, we will get to you eventually.
Thank you.
Gosh, this is absolutely the type of comment we have come to expect from AENUS: “Knockoffs cost the global economy $650 billion annually, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates.”
Now where does the money go, Mars, Venus, the Sun? Maybe AENUS should go invade the sun (after all it has a weapon of mass destruction there, some sort of fusion bomb) and copy that weapon of mass destruction so it can get all that money back. Sounds like it might be still in the solar system.
What a bunch of morons.
I just like the name Jennifer Bowcock…
Don’t know why though…
this site IP bans so many addresses for censorship that they actually have to allow them again after a time or else be totally cut off the internet. everyone gets ip banned here, its just a matter of time, so prepare now to learn how to come back, its not your fault they set up the site like this to weed out the real troublemakers but innocents who have real honest opinions gets ip banned along with all the real pains because of some young dumb moderator who hasn’t had sex in while wants to piss everyone off. milollions of web proxy servers all over the world to choose from, just google. MDN really doesn’t have a chance but have ot read all these comments and get insulted like children they are, i do like the off topic posts though, forces mdn to purge, stupid censoring asswipes
Heavens to Betsy, where do they come from?
Road Warrior you are the moron for sharing your moronic “thoughts” with the world.
No, at MDN you are obviously stupid (and called that by the fanboys here) if you don’t go to bed everynight and pray at the alter of Jobs.
Also, if you dare mention that you own something made by another company other than “Apple” you are obviously a troll… Every technology company that is not Apple is “beleaguered”…
This site is rife with negative Apple commentary – just search for comments made by Shoeman, for a start. Or would that be too much like looking in the mirror?
This is now the lamest thread in MDN’s history.
If you are not here to talk about the article, go away.
Good or bad I have seen all kinds of posts here, a few get deleted now and then but not for anti Apple content, just pure stupidity.
Get over yourselves. You’re just not that important.
MW= language… It really did, I’m not making this up.
@ MONTAX
Also… is full of it. I’ve never encountered an instance of censorship on my part or any one else’s.
I have noticed that there is very little profanity on MDN. Perhaps you have an awful potty-mouth and got your post deleted for dropping too many f-bombs. hmmm? Could it be you just don’t have enough class to post?
Oddly enough, I have been banned by MDN for transgressions long ago, such as calling them out for posting weekly “news” stories about products from advertisers and not using full disclosure when doing so.
No profanity. No harsh language. Just calling them out for ethics violations.
I now have to go through anonymous proxy servers just to post my occasional responses these days.
You keep telling yourself we have to be bad to get banned though.
On Topic: Anyone who spends $200 for an iPhone knockoff will be thrilled to buy a real iPhone in six months or a year when they – more likely an iPhone II then a mere iPhone – become locally available. They will, of course, insist on a demo in advance – a comparison run against their copy. But … will they learn from the experience, the expense? Dream on.
Off Topic: I’ve been waiting to get banned because of the link in my .sig, and it hasn’t happened. I have not been subtle, I have not toadied to the Apple-is-great line, I have not hidden my IP or other information. And I have not been banned, despite what some annoying prats – who, also, have not been banned – have had to say. For my own part, I try to remain civil and include On Topic content in nearly every post – which is more than most of the posters in this thread can claim.
DLMeyer – the Voice of G.L.Horton’s Stage Page Pod Cast
Even mini coopers can be counterfeit:
http://www.counterfeitmini.org/movie.php?movie=movies/large_spot_DSL.mov&size=large
(classic video)
@DLMeyer…
DL… ya never know. I got a comment deleted the other day because I posted that I had sent a link to the story days before. But other people do the same and don’t get their posts deleted. It just depends on who is moderating that day I think.
all fun deleting posts until someone shows up in the parking lot…
“boo”
MDN can do pretty much whatever they want…BECASUE IT’S THEIR FLIPPIN SITE! I am pretty sure that they could put a big red “I”M AN IDIOT” stamp on your troll posts if they really wanted to. I cannot believe that somebody who hates MDN and the people here would waste time trying to stir a pot that nobody gives a sheet about. Go away! I’m getting a headache!
P.S. I want my AiFung!