“It seems Apple’s legal team managed to take some time out of suing Samsung to file a lawsuit against a New York City teenager who made $130,000 selling white iPhone 4 conversion kits before the device was launched,” Killian Bell reports for Cult of Mac.
“Fei Lam recognized the demand for the white iPhone 4 and set up whiteiPhone4now.com to cash in on Apple’s continued delay of the device’s official release,” Bell reports. “Lam developed a secondhand relationship with someone at the Foxconn factory in Shenzhen, China, where many of Apple’s products are manufactured. This contact was able to supply Lam with white iPhone 4 parts which he sold on as conversion kits at up to $295 a piece to those who couldn’t wait any longer for the device, including Apple’s co-founder Steve Wozniak.”
Bell reports, “Obviously Apple didn’t take too kindly to Lam’s newfound business and yesterday it filed a lawsuit in which it claims Lam engages in deceptive practices…”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Lava_Head_UK” for the heads up.]
I guess he will be on the lam, soon or is that Lam Sun?
A sacrificial Lam?
Looks like the sun had finally set now that Lam is on the lam.
Either the sun has set, or he’s pulled the wool over his eyes.
Misleading headline! Makes it sound like a kid sold Woz a white iPhone 4, not that he had set up a business selling Apple’s parts and Woz happened to buy them.
BTW, shame on Woz. He should have known better.
When is Apple going to give us display panels on both sides so we can make our iPhone any color we want? Make it touch so we can use more than our thumbs to control games an other apps while they are at. I’m only half joking here, we’ve seen talk of this.
“Any customer can have a car painted any colour he wants so long as it is black.” — Henry Ford
Henry Ford certainly didn’t spell it “colour.”
No offense, but how the hell do you know?
Henry Ford didn’t spell it, he just said it. Someone else quoted him by writing it down.
Because Henry Ford is American, not British.
Actually, the majority of english speaking countries spell it colour instead of color. Color is only an American thing. Same with Mom and Mum, Neighbor and Neighbour.
Gasp! I bet no one knew that!
Apple immediately filed a dismissal.. end of story. No more suit.
The problem is, he was paying some worker at Foxconn to steal real iPhone parts from the factory.
THIS is the real story.
Mdn your headline is very misleading.
I don’t blame woz or anyone else for buying them, only lam is in trouble here.
So buying stolen goods is okay in your book?
I can’t see that it’s reasonable that some one would know these parts were stolen. From an outside (an outsider to Lam’s business) perspective these kits might seem like just something cool this teenager created. Steve Wozniak is familiar with guys in their garage creating cool shit, maybe he thought this was similar. I actually feel bad for Woz, he strikes me as a very trusting guy.
Absolutely. And that includes stolen books.
It’s not like the guy was telling everyone “I am selling Plastic DIRECTLY smuggled from Foxconn, don’t tell anyone”
I’d say everyone that purchased the stuff thought he had made them, or had them made for him.
it wasn’t till later that they found out they were stolen.
Most people that end up buying stolen goods, are never aware that it was stolen. Unless they are buying stuff out of a Van in a Shady parking lot…
Hey knee-jerkers, MDN did not write the headline. Read the entire article BEFORE accusing:
http://www.cultofmac.com/apple-sues-teen-who-sold-steve-wozniak-his-white-iphone-4/97249
recently woz said he wouldn’t mine playing a bigger role in Apple. Although I love him as a founder of Apple this shows how unsuited he is for the highly competitive tech business of today. Woz seems almost from a different less ruthless age unlike today where patents are worth huge money (Apple has paid tens of millions to patent holders) and a device (like the iPhone) can equal billions in profits. Don’t defend your ground and you are dead.
without tough nuts like Jobs and Tim Cook Apple would have been crushed.
Steve Wozniak: an elegant weapon from a more civilized age…
Not a good story. Glad Apple dismissed.
Anyone else think this idiot is an idiot. He did not know who Steve Wozniak was and he shipped him the part?
Apple’s bigger problem is that insider use of Apple’s proprietary molds, tooling and company secrets that I am sure Foxcom had to have signed legal papers about like an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). I am sure that Foxcom is where the Apple lawyers are looking now. Not at the idiot!
Stop lambasting this poor kid. He’s going to end up in the slammer.
The kits were probably just laminates.
Ok, I’m done.
Seriously though, the “contact at Foxconn” is the license violator here moreso that this guy. The worst they got the kid for is selling non-licensed add-ons, and I’m not sure the rules around that if you are not claiming any affiliation with Apple in the process.
problem is, they can prosecute the guy in the states.
they can’t exactly touch the guy in china…
Did this lam kid dress in baggy pants and baggy hooded sweater?
What would of happened had it been the black iphone that was delayed this long, and not the white iphone?
Kids lucky. Dealing in black market goods could have gotten him in a lot more trouble. He most likely had to turn over whatever money he had left and promise never to do it again. The dismissed suit is the sword of Damocles hanging over him to make sure.
Guys lay off the … This isn’t Nazi Germany
So some guy sold plastic parts he got from some guy that people stick on a phone
Cheezzz
if colour is spelled color the pronunciation changes to rhyme with colon.
oh and why do americans have so much trouble pronouncing words with q in them?
You’ll have to talk to Noah Webster about color vs. colour. Trouble pronouncing “q” words?
Apple was suing Lam for unauthorized use of Apple Logos used on the conversion parts, which were supplied by *non-authorized* parts suppliers.
Special Note: Foxconn is an AUTHORIZED Apple parts supplier.
Jeez MDN, I wish you would read just a bit before posting misleading headlines.
Hmm. So Woz, cofounder of Apple, bought white reject parts from someone who stole them from FoxConn, right?
Fei Lam should have taken more care about whom he sold the parts to, if he wanted to minimise his chances of getting sprung, don’t you think?
Colour him a dumb entrepreneur.
Smart kid. Impressive that a teenager pulled it off to the tune of 130K profits ! But now its time for his punishment ’cause he really did infringe on Apple copyrights etc…
Newsflash: Apple’s long delay of white iPhone due to a kid buying up all the part supplies for his own venture LOL. Wouldn’t that be hilarious.
Apple: “Foxconn, when are we getting our white iPhones?! Its been 4 months !”
Foxconn: “Uhhh…we’re um, having issues. They came out kinda yellowish so we, um, we scrapped the parts. Yeah, that’s it.”