I was talking with a friend awhile ago about the current state of hardware piracy in China. Basically, if it’s available in the US, there’s a nearly identical knock-off on the streets of Beijing and, by correlation, in the back alleys of San Francisco and New York. I found an absurdly faithful iPod shuffle copy a few months ago, and now “ECNokia” (very original name) is offering an iPod nano fatty rip that they’re advertising as identical in industrial design, but throwing in a bigger screen, a digital camera, SD cards, video recording and an FM tuner.
Granted, we don’t know that this picture is in any way accurate, but the interesting thing is that it could be. After all, Chinese companies do all of the manufacturing for iPods at this point. If you were Foxconn or whomever, it would be pretty darn easy to just leave the molds for your Apple project on the line as you make a few knock-offs. This is the bizarre situation of our present era of outsourcing: Companies can copy a market-leading project without reverse-engineering it, because many of the copiers are the actual engineers.
Via Gizmodo
10 responses to “Chinese Rip-Off Looks Like a nano, Does Way More”
Im surprised apple isn’t sending out the troops or maybe they are…
“This is the bizarre situation of our present era of outsourcing: Companies can copy a market-leading project without reverse-engineering it, because many of the copiers are the actual engineers.”
Wait, you mean outsourcing may actually has NEGATIVE consequences?
Surely you jest.
I mean, EVERYONE’S doing it so it MUST be a great.
(ignorant business board member): LALALALA! I can’t hear you! We need to go to China! Everyone else is do it! LALALALA
“must be great”, that is.
Also, isn’t it supposed to have a touchscreen as well?
o_O
The “fake” nano in the picture has Japanese fonts, not Chinese, so maybe this is actually the pic of real nano?
Despite the Chinese claims, that iPod in the picture is running a Japanese menu