“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.
I really like the idea of the big red “I’m an idiot” stamp on troll posts! That would be awesome.
It always amuses me when someone cries censorship on MDN. It’s their site, they delete abusive idiot posts as they see fit. And they should. And they ban annoying prats like Peterson and other Mendar-types. (There’s an obscure reference for you…)
On the topic of aifungs… it would be pretty funny to see if or how they actually functioned. Just curious how technologically advanced the fakery could be? Would it even be able to make phone calls?
@montex:
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.
Actually, there are a number of posters here, including myself, that <u>don’t</u> drink the Kool-Aid everytime Apple serves it. If I don’t like an Apple product, I have no problem saying so, and I have done so. MDN has never censored my opinion.
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”…
I own quite a lot of items by other companies. In fact, MOST of the tech items I own are NOT Apple. However, if Apple offers a similar item, they usually do it better. And no, not ever tech company that isn’t Apple is beleagured–Only those that have publicly trashed Apple, and now aren’t doing so well. For example, every company that has attempted to compete against Apple, and went broke as a result.
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…
Fanboys exist for everything. This is part of the package deal, and it’s no different than say, fans of Microsoft, for example.
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….
Wow… That’s really quite a generalization. I have two things to say about that… I earn well into six figures, yearly, and I am mildly amused at your statement. The second thing that I have to say about that is I like my burgers medium, so try and make it just right.
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 don’t know about any of that, but you have some fun with it, mkay?
hmmmmm, wonder if they have a CDMA version? And TheConfuzed1 I couldn’t have said it better.