Apple hasn’t announced the iPhone 5S yet, but Chinese clone specialist GooPhone has already created a cheap knockoff of it. And it has done a pretty incredible job. As you’ll see in the video below, the “i5S” looks identical to the real thing, and you probably wouldn’t even know it was a clone. That is, until you started using it.
There’s a belief that Apple makes new engineers work on fake products until they can be trusted. According one of the company’s former employees, Adam Lashinsky, who published the book Inside Apple last January, the Cupertino company hires people into so-called “dummy positions” until it’s confident that they can be a part of upcoming products without leaking information.
But how accurate are those claims? We know Apple takes secrecy very seriously, but would it really waste time and money on giving people fake projects just to ensure they won’t squeal?
Almost certainly not.
Every so often, an iOS developer attempts to make a quick buck by creating a simple app, naming it after a hugely popular jailbreak tweak, then releasing it in the App Store with the same logo and screenshots. That’s exactly what JB Solutions has done with IntelliScreenX, a $0.99 app that promises to be the ultimate notification center for your lock screen. In reality, it’s nothing more than a nasty alarm clock.
The iPad mini has appeared in a series of images that show the 7.85-inch device fully assembled for the first time. It’s unlikely the device in these images is genuine — it appears to be nothing more than a third-party mockup — but it gives us a great idea of the iPad mini’s size, its features, and what the real thing might look like in your hands.
If this took photos, I would buy it.
There’s making things out of Lego, and then there’s making things out of Lego. And H.Y. Leung’s amazing white Leica M8 is firmly in the latter camp. His replica rangefinder might just be the best Lego fake we’ve ever seen (outside of anything to do with Star Wars, of course).
Unreal. This phony iPhone 4S found in Turkey looks and feels exactly like the real thing up until you turn it on… and even then, if you weren’t already familiar with what an iPhone’s low battery warning looks like, you might mistake it for the real thing. This is why you should either buy your gadgets from an Apple Store, or test them extensively before buying.
Becoming an Apple engineer could well be one of the most exciting careers currently available in the technology industry, but don’t expect to working on the iPhone 5 during your first week. It seems the Cupertino company is so obsessed with secrecy that new employees are made to work on “fake” devices for months, until they can be trusted not to leak them.
Chinese police in Shanghai have arrested a gang of five people for making and selling fake iPhones on the black market. Unlike the other fake iPhones we’ve seen, however, these ones were made using a selection of real iPhone parts.
In a bid to rid New York City stores of shoddy counterfeit goods, Apple has reportedly cracked down on a number of businesses that are selling fake accessories — seizing items found in its raids and demanding that companies change their names if they’re too similar to that of the Cupertino company itself.
Following the discovery of some pretty convincing fake Apple stores in China a few weeks ago, the Chinese authorities have been on the hunt for more. Their last find uncovered a whole 22 stores in the city of Kunming along.
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