Police shut down Chinese factory that produced $19M worth of fake iPhones

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 35
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    maestro64 wrote: »
    This shows that the Chinese government values Apple more than their own companies. They did this to show any other company who is ripping Apple off to think twice. China would not shut down one of their own companies unless they saw more value elsewhere.

    Apple pumps hundreds of millions of dollars into China and employs untold numbers of workers there. Having said that, there are many, many, many more companies there selling knockoff products there and this continues unchecked.
  • Reply 22 of 35
    john673john673 Posts: 40member

    At least they priced the iPhones at a reasonable price unlike apple

  • Reply 23 of 35
    anakin1992anakin1992 Posts: 283member

    i am puzzled by your comments.

     

    can you elaborate more on where we can find a cheap, IP-respectfull, democratic, no state-knock-off place on this planet for apple to manufacture their products?

     

    further who are taking advantages over chinese to lure them to destroy their environment and exploit their own people? these products are made by foreign enterprises for foreign companies in china. these foreign entities come from more humane societies and more IP-respectfull places. should not they obligated to behave like they should?

     

    by the way, i felt sorry for your mom's experience in china. if every company in china bribes like your mom's, i guess it would be interesting to see how much of china's GDP are for bribery. 

     

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by am8449 View Post

     

    I agree, manufacturing in China is a financial necessity.

     

    If it made financial sense, I would prefer all Apple products to be manufactured here in the States like the Mac Pro. Bring the jobs, business, know-how, all back.

     

    Or at least outsource manufacturing to a country with more respect for intellectual property rights. Without its cheap labor, China is the worst place in the world to manufacture, in my opinion. They'll destroy their own environment and take advantage of their own people to make your product, and then steal your technology and know-how to make knock-offs and run state-sponsored businesses that compete with you.

     

    Apple may be doing well in China now, but I wonder if one day a Xiaomi-like company that targets the premium market will steal Apple's thunder in terms of their domestic market.


  • Reply 24 of 35
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,851member
    gatorguy wrote: »
    There have supposedly been other Chinese knockoffs that ran iOS, iOS7 on at least one according to news reports last year assuming it was accurate. This particular phone even had a "Touch ID" button, It did unlock the phone when touched, just not using a fingerprint to do it. :rolleyes:

    Perhaps they run an Android variant, that's an iOS knock off after all. :D
  • Reply 25 of 35
    wigginwiggin Posts: 2,265member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Maestro64 View Post



    This shows that the Chinese government values Apple more than their own companies. They did this to show any other company who is ripping Apple off to think twice. China would not shut down one of their own companies unless they saw more value elsewhere.

     

    Or, this is the Chinese government's way of saying if you are going to rip off American intellectual property don't be so stupid about it that you get caught selling it in the US.

  • Reply 26 of 35
    am8449am8449 Posts: 392member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by anakin1992 View Post


    can you elaborate more on where we can find a cheap, IP-respectfull, democratic, no state-knock-off place on this planet for apple to manufacture their products?

     

    further who are taking advantages over chinese to lure them to destroy their environment and exploit their own people? these products are made by foreign enterprises for foreign companies in china. these foreign entities come from more humane societies and more IP-respectfull places. should not they obligated to behave like they should?

     

    by the way, i felt sorry for your mom's experience in china. if every company in china bribes like your mom's, i guess it would be interesting to see how much of china's GDP are for bribery. 


     

    Like I said previously, I would prefer for all Apple products to be manufactured in the U.S. That's the ideal. But it wouldn't be cheap, so I recognize the trade-off there. In terms of respecting IP, I think Japan does. Generally speaking, they have a culture that prides itself on abiding by rules, and anecdotally, when I lived there, almost no one I met pirated anything. I never mentioned anything about being democratic, so I don't know how to respond to that.

     

    I think Apple has gone above and beyond to be good "citizens" in China. 

     

    You are right that foreign companies may contribute to the exploitation, but I think the unscrupulous attitudes are already there within Chinese society. You can see this in how Chinese companies exploit their own citizens by selling them deadly contaminated baby formula, cooking oil dredged up from their sewers, and cutting corners with school buildings which collapsed and killed their children during earthquakes.

  • Reply 27 of 35
    I bought a few of these knock off phones and for those that were curious it actually runs a version of android that is skinned to look like iOS it doesn't actually run the real iOS. Some of them do have access to Google play but not all of them
  • Reply 28 of 35
    misamisa Posts: 827member
    Lol. I wonder what they had for an operating system!

    Did these actually work with iOS!?

    Doubtful. Ever since 2006, counterfeit cell phones have been a big business on eBay. When the iPhone was released, it was the easiest thing to get banned for because a lot of the fake iPhones didn't look a thing like what was really released. There was also quite a bit of fake Nokia-N95's and little else.

    When you buy a counterfeit iPhone/iPod what you're really getting is just "enough" to convince someone who turns it on, but it doesn't actually work, and is often just a reskin of an old Android OS. Counterfeit iPods were worse. Most of them had tiny batteries and didn't work for very long. If you've ever seen counterfeit hard drives before, a lot of this makes sense. There are "fake" hard drives that are little more than a SD card and a paperweight. Counterfeit iPad/iPod/iPhone accessories have a gum-stick sized battery in an empty cavity that should have at least a 1"x1" battery.

    If a price is too good to be true, it absolutely certainly is. Hence, don't buy pre-owned iPhones off the internet, and if you're silly enough to do so, swap out the sim card and try your own sim card in the device and make sure it makes calls, and check a "user agent" website to see if that IS what the device is saying it is.
    am8449 wrote: »
    Like I said previously, I would prefer for all Apple products to be manufactured in the U.S. That's the ideal. But it wouldn't be cheap, so I recognize the trade-off there. In terms of respecting IP, I think Japan does. Generally speaking, they have a culture that prides itself on abiding by rules, and anecdotally, when I lived there, almost no one I met pirated anything.

    Japan, Korea and China have all produced "knock-offs" at some point in time before they got their chickens in order. So Japan and Taiwan no longer widely produce straight-up counterfeit goods, but Korea still does. A lot of what Japan does is naive mistakes (eg Tupperware(tm) != Daiso ) so Japanese sellers tend to get get flack for keyword spam more than they get legal threats.

    The Koreans produce a lot of counterfeit gaming devices. (Oh look, Samsung again)

    Basically the problem with China right now is that their culture doesn't readily recognize that there is anything implicitly wrong with copying something and "adding value" to it.

    If you were to scan over P2P pirate software listings, you'd actually notice that the vast majority of Anime, Comics, and Computer/Console game piracy originates in Japan, and it's usually the "Chinese language" version of an item that is the most popular to pirate, but Korean versions are much easier to find than Japanese language versions if the Japanese language version is older than a few months. While a lot of this stuff does seem to originate in Japan, it doesn't seem to be for Japanese pirates, but rather foreigner pirates (eg Korean and China.)
  • Reply 29 of 35
    satch99satch99 Posts: 16member
    LOL, I love the sign in the fake Apple Store that actually says "Apple Store" under the logo. Apple would never do that.

    China just really makes me sick to my stomach at their societal ways (and Gov't.) We knows we're bad enough for Imperialism, but at least we have smart people doing amazing things... China oin the other and seems like one giant country of corporate thieves who just knock off and steal everything they can from America and elsewhere. Scavenegry.
  • Reply 30 of 35
    sphericspheric Posts: 2,704member
    You Do realize that the reason it is that way is because of Western Imperialist Trade Embargoes, right?

    We wouldn't sell them anything, so to get it, they HAD TO copy it.
  • Reply 31 of 35
    shaminoshamino Posts: 541member

    I wonder how close these copies actually are.

     

    When I was in China on a business trip a few years ago, I saw stores full of counterfeit Apple products, but the cloning was skin-deep.  The devices were actually Android devices in a case that looks like an iPhone/iPad case, and with a skin that looks very similar to iOS at first glance.  Nobody purchasing them were ever under the impression that these were Apple products - they thought Apple's look was fashionable, so they were willing to buy generic cheap junk packaged in an Apple-like case.

     

    If this article is for the same kind of product, then I fail to see how it's news.  If they actually made a deeper copy, where it is running iOS and can sync with iTunes and access the App Store, then that's a whole 'nother story.

  • Reply 32 of 35
    SpamSandwichSpamSandwich Posts: 33,407member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by shamino View Post

     

    I wonder how close these copies actually are.

     

    When I was in China on a business trip a few years ago, I saw stores full of counterfeit Apple products, but the cloning was skin-deep.  The devices were actually Android devices in a case that looks like an iPhone/iPad case, and with a skin that looks very similar to iOS at first glance.  Nobody purchasing them were ever under the impression that these were Apple products - they thought Apple's look was fashionable, so they were willing to buy generic cheap junk packaged in an Apple-like case.

     

    If this article is for the same kind of product, then I fail to see how it's news.  If they actually made a deeper copy, where it is running iOS and can sync with iTunes and access the App Store, then that's a whole 'nother story.




    That's China in a nutshell (and a good summary of how their entire economy is built on the shaky legs of fraud and misrepresentation).

  • Reply 33 of 35
    am8449am8449 Posts: 392member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Misa View Post



    Japan, Korea and China have all produced "knock-offs" at some point in time before they got their chickens in order. So Japan and Taiwan no longer widely produce straight-up counterfeit goods, but Korea still does. A lot of what Japan does is naive mistakes (eg Tupperware(tm) != Daiso ) so Japanese sellers tend to get get flack for keyword spam more than they get legal threats.



    The Koreans produce a lot of counterfeit gaming devices. (Oh look, Samsung again)



    Basically the problem with China right now is that their culture doesn't readily recognize that there is anything implicitly wrong with copying something and "adding value" to it.



    If you were to scan over P2P pirate software listings, you'd actually notice that the vast majority of Anime, Comics, and Computer/Console game piracy originates in Japan, and it's usually the "Chinese language" version of an item that is the most popular to pirate, but Korean versions are much easier to find than Japanese language versions if the Japanese language version is older than a few months. While a lot of this stuff does seem to originate in Japan, it doesn't seem to be for Japanese pirates, but rather foreigner pirates (eg Korean and China.)

     

    I did meet many Chinese and Koreans in Japan. Maybe foreigners residing in Japan are the source of this pirated media.

  • Reply 34 of 35
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SpamSandwich View Post





    Apple pumps hundreds of millions of dollars into China and employs untold numbers of workers there. Having said that, there are many, many, many more companies there selling knockoff products there and this continues unchecked.

    This does not always mean much in china since China usually forces product made in China by foreign company to be shipped outside of china. The fact that Apple is now selling lots of product in China the game has changed. The Government does not want to hurt Apple's business in its own country, their is more value now to promote Apple over a local knock off which is only sold in China, Now it may be different if those knock off were sold around the world. China is very complicated in this regards.

  • Reply 35 of 35
    maestro64maestro64 Posts: 5,043member
    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Wiggin View Post

     

     

    Or, this is the Chinese government's way of saying if you are going to rip off American intellectual property don't be so stupid about it that you get caught selling it in the US.


    Yes this could be true as well, that is what Happen with Matel and the China supplier who used lead base paint and got caught in the US. China shut down the supplier and the owner supposedly killed himself because he embassed the China Government. Yeah right. The fact that the government is making this public tells you they are sending a message about something or many things.

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