Apple’s biggest copycat nuisance, Xiaomi, is at again.
The Chinese tech firm, known for its design knockoffs of Apple products, will roll out a new wearable device next week that, by the looks of a teaser ad, resembles the Apple Watch.
A square timepiece with rounded corners, a rotating crown on the upper right edge… you get the picture.
With intellectual property theft among the thornier issues of recent trade tensions between the U.S. and China, U.S. officials need only point a finger at Xiaomi to make their case.
Most recently, Xiaomi released knockoffs of Apple Memoji characters, calling them Mimoji. The list is long and includes a laptop that is MacBook Pro-ringer, smartphones and AirPods (Xiaomi calls its product AirDots).
Lei Jun, Xiaomi’s CEO, once donned the jeans and black sweater style of Steve Jobs for one product launch and even used Apple’s famous line, “One more thing.”
Cult of Mac’s Killian Bell recently wrote an in-depth piece on Xiaomi and Apple that is worth checking out.
One in five American corporations report IP stolen from a Chinese company, according to a CNBC story from earlier this year.
Apple sues copycats in the U.S. and other countries. It sued Samsung over the original iPhone. China does little to police copyright and a protracted legal battle against a company not seen as a global competitor may not be worth Apple’s time and money.
The Xiaomi watch was teased on Weibo and was first noticed by the German tech site, WinFuture. Its unveiling is set for Nov. 5.
Source: BGR
