China Rips Off The iPad With The iPed

http://kotaku.com/5549865/china-rips-off-the-ipad-with-the-iped

by jrnkntl • 16 years ago

85 69 16 years ago

kotaku.com

drKarl• 16 years ago

It seems that China has already built the $100 tablet the OLPC wanted to build...

jodrellblank• 16 years ago

The one with the dual colour/sunlight readable screen, clockwork power, mesh networking and introspectable software?

Where?

ZeroGravitas3• 16 years ago

I was going to comment that it's going to be revolutionary when these guys combine forces with Android, but it says in the story that this is built on Android. Interesting times.

WiseWeasel• 16 years ago

It also says it's running on an Intel CPU, which has got to be wrong. Android doesn't run on the x86 architecture as far as I know. Take the info with a grain of salt.

[Edit] Well, it seems like there may be some unsupported (by Google) Android-x86 work going on, so maybe it's possible:

http://www.android-x86.org/

I wonder if the fact that Android software runs in a JIT-compiled runtime mean that binaries for Android-ARM are compatible with Android-x86. [/Edit]

kevinelliott• 16 years ago

Combine this with some interface and packaging cleanup (something one really talented designer could do), and some decent marketing, and they could make a fortune off this thing. I would still keep my iPad, but I'd probably buy a few of these for guests to use, and as additional interfaces around the house!

nooneelse3• 16 years ago

Battery life might be the deal breaker on this device. But yeah, if that isn't terrible, why have a $500 picture frame, home theater controller, and toy for the kids when you can have a $100 one that fills those roles just as well?

How soon till a proper reviewer can get their hands on this and put it through some paces? Engadget, how about putting that checkbook journalism to some good use?

jdietrich• 16 years ago

This is why Android is so incredibly important. The Chinese can build good hardware at ridiculously low cost, but they just can't do software, as anyone who has ever used an iPhone knock-off can testify. Android massively cuts R&D costs, putting the agile and efficient Chinese manufacturers at a distinct advantage.

Android will take the whole of the Chinese and Indian smartphone market by default, unless something else comes along which is more open, versatile and easy to implement. The markets are sufficiently price sensitive that $7 extra for a WinMob license is a dealbreaker, let alone the vast premium the likes of Jobs or Kallasvuo charge. They have peculiar demands that western manufacturers just aren't attuned to - when have you ever seen a Nokia or a Motorola with dual sim card slots?

Western hardware companies should be sweating about their local markets too, but not because of the threat of generic clones - there's a much bigger scare on the horizon and it looks suspiciously like HTC. They have gone from generic manufacturer to big brand in a few short years off the back of WinMob and Android; There is a tide of companies seeking to do exactly the same thing.

Mohandas Gandhi said "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.". I hope we all get our enjoyment while the joke is still funny.

DannoHung• 16 years ago

Android is cool, no doubt, but the few times I've used those phones, the UI is just not there. It's even more important on a touch-screen device that attention to detail in every tiny measure of interaction be made, but Android doesn't have it (unless the new versions are vastly better in the last few months).

grandalf3• 16 years ago

I agreed with you until I got an HTC Evo 4G. I have shown it to several iPhone users and everyone agrees it is a better UI experience.

The only weakness compared to the iPhone is the quality of apps, but that is quickly changing.

Android's clever design of intents + back button behavior gives the mobile device a far more weblike (in a good way) experience when using apps.

bad_user• 16 years ago

I have a Nokia 6500 with dual sim slots.

jgrahamc• 16 years ago

I am sick to death of hearing "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win" used as justification for anyone's pet technology subject always winning.

Just because Eric Raymond cast himself as the Gandhi of the OSS movement and used that quote doesn't mean we should copy him.

ZeroGravitas3• 16 years ago

Well it only really applies if you are ignored, then laughed at, before it becomes an actual fight.

Despite his appearance in their ad campaign I don't see many Apple fans considering themselves ignored or laughed at, nor using that as justification for their assured future victory if they are. On the other hand it seems to fit the Christensen disruptive model very well: "The reason big new things sneak by incumbents is that the next big thing always starts out being dismissed as a “toy.”

cdibona• 16 years ago

Actually the first application of that phrase to Linux came well before Eric appeared on the scene. I'd say that I first saw it on a t-shirt for Linux Expo in North Carolina in 97 or 98, and it was being used colloquially well before that.

If I were to credit anyone, I'd maybe credit Jon Hall, who used it in his speeches when he was promoting Linux at DEC.

kalid• 16 years ago

I really dislike that quote too, it's a tautology along the lines of "You keep losing until you win". If you haven't won yet it's because it's just around the corner -- just put up with the ignoring, laughing, fighting a bit longer. Never mind the fact that innumerable technologies were ignored, laughed at, and fought and never won.

wmf• 16 years ago

I've read that shanzai phone makers are willing to pirate WinMo, so Android is not necessarily cheaper. I suppose larger vendors have to be legitimate, though.

jsz0• 16 years ago

If the history of PC OEMs are any indication there will probably be a lot of diversity in the Android phone/tablet market at first but over time some major players will be established and there won't be much room left for anyone else. Chinese manufacturers are still at a big disadvantage when it comes to supporting their products and getting them into the retail chain around the world. I think it's likely they will take the familiar role of manufacturing the devices for companies who can handle the nuts & bolts of advertising, selling and supporting it.

rick_2047• 16 years ago

I never understood it. How can they churn out cheap knock offs so fast. Either they are really smarter than the whole R&D department of Apple combined or they have a very vast and well developed espionage market.

jasonlotito• 16 years ago

It's not that difficult to build a copy when you are building the original as well. =)

brk• 16 years ago

It's also not that hard to build a slightly nodded copy after someone else has already spent millions on R&D figuring out all the difficult bits.

And of course this appears much more of a physical/appearance clone than anything. I'd like to see some 3rd party reviews of durability and battery life and so on.

In the end, it is no different than cars and other consumer goods. Some people appreciate a product with real design and innovation, and some just want the cheapest thing possible in a given form factor. I think there are markets for both.

cmelbye2• 16 years ago

That's like saying "This Chinese Louis Vuitton knockoff looks just like the real one! Their designers must be much better than Louis Vuitton's." That device's hardware looks like the iPad. That in no way signifies that the company's R&D dept. is anywhere near as good as Apple's.

robryan• 16 years ago

Or a R&D department at all, seems like it could be as simple as taking the same ipad design replacing some of the components with cheaper off the shelf components alternatives.

They probably know more about how the ipad is made than most people at apple if they have the insider connections where it is being built.

barkingcat• 16 years ago

It's called schematics. There is a huge underground market for system board / chip / electrical level schematics for every single type of consumer electronics in China.

Since schematics printed on paper, in a binder, etc are relatively easy to smuggle out of the factory (or make a duplicate for), it's most likely that the knockoffs use the manufacturing schematics at some point in their production.

Bunny has a great post of the types of schematics available in shen zhen.

bitwize2• 16 years ago

Now isn't this nicely symbolic of the ghetto that Android has become? :)

nooneelse3• 16 years ago

If by "ghetto" you mean not limited to the first world market only... sure, I guess.

bitwize2• 16 years ago

No, by "ghetto" I meant "ecosystem of knockoff products fraught with quality issues". Android desperately wants to be the low-cost alternative to iPhone OS, yet low-cost also means compromises in usability, responsiveness, etc.

I have an Android phone, and though I like the Sprint service better than AT&T's, compared to an iPhone using the phone itself is an exercise in clunkiness and awkwardness.

I just flashed it to 2.1 (itself an exercise in unnecessary foldirol) and it feels somewhat smoother, but not Apple-smooth.

perlpimp• 16 years ago

Chinese doesn't have culture for innovation, they have always had culture of replication. Even from within innovation has been something that as suppressed for many centuries.

China is a world's factory. With disregard for copyright and intellectual property its hard to see when their own people will get motivation to invent and develop technologies.

ilcesco• 16 years ago

You'd be amazed by how little it takes to motivate someone.

gokhan• 16 years ago

Gunpowder, paper & printing, magnetic compass... more important than Internet in their times. I wouldn't call their culture lacking innovation.

timelinex2• 16 years ago

You are right. I think most people should know this. Rip off happens everywhere. Just that china has more people and the probability of it happening there is higher than other places.

niekmaas• 16 years ago

Don't forget toilet paper http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toilet_paper

Must be the most innovative discovery of all times

locopati• 16 years ago

You could say the exact same things about the United States in the 1800s. Part of the US expansion and industrialization came about through stealing British inventions and running with the ideas.

Kisil• 16 years ago

The seeds of innovation were there earlier, though. The rifle industry comes to mind - I remember reading that innovative rifles with better range played some part in colonial militias' success in the US revolutionary war. One could argue that was more craftsmanship than innovation, but there's a strong connection between making things well and making better things, and China isn't famous for quality goods either.

watmough• 16 years ago

Japan followed the same story line initially.

Camera manufacture started as either junk, or as cheaper copies of German (Leica) bodies and lenses.

Car manufacture was in one case initially intertwined with licensed designs from the UK.

In both these cases, Japan grew to become the leader in cameras and amongst the leaders in automobiles.

The interesting thing is whether China can do the same thing with computers, but as software has such a cultural dependence, I highly doubt it. Aside from Matz, has Japan even produced any really notable software or operating systems?

nonrecursive• 16 years ago

Nintendo's doing pretty well, and the DS and Wii can be considered innovative. I don't think their games aren't software in the way that you mean, but they've broken new ground there many times, too.

felipe• 16 years ago

> has Japan even produced any really notable software or operating systems?

Ruby

_b8r0• 16 years ago

> Aside from Matz, has Japan even produced any really notable software or operating systems?

The NES, the MSX, The FM-Towns, Sega Master System, Megadrive, Dreamcast, the SNES, Mario, Contra, Starfox, Golden Axe, Thunderblade, Outrun, The PSP, The Playstation, PS2, PS3.

That's just in one industry (gaming). Of all of those the only ones that weren't significant out of Japan were the FM-Towns and MSX. The MSX was the biggest single threat to 8-bit computers in the early to mid 80s not because of it's power, but because it was a licenced standard (with OS software admittedly written by Microsoft, thank goodness they never got a hold on the OS market!)

scorpion0322• 16 years ago

To be fair, innovation is not all that useful, unless you can market it.

And marketing, only one country is known to do well. And one company, specially.

It is not a lack of motivation. This device was built ground up itself.

igorgue• 16 years ago

iPed is a better name than iPad :-)

masklinn• 16 years ago

Yeah, doesn't make you think it's a tablet for pedophiles.

Did for me, though.

SkyMarshal• 16 years ago

Funny, it made me think it was a tablet for walkers.

anamax• 16 years ago

Am I the only one annoyed by "China Rips Off"?

China is a country. Some folks in China did something.

Unless said folks are govt, "China" didn't do anything.

dpritchett• 16 years ago

I don't think this product could be legally brought to market in the United States. The Chinese government's trade policies enabled the creation of a $100 Android-running iPad lookalike.

papersmith2• 16 years ago

Though from certain POV these devices exist despite government policies, as the phenomenon has certain anti-authority connotations:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanzhai

Niten• 16 years ago

So what? U.S. government free speech policies allow citizens to say most whatever they like, including things that cannot legally be said in Islamic theocracies. When a U.S. resident inevitably exercises his freedom of speech in a way that offends Muslims, would someone in Saudi Arabia therefore be justified in claiming that "the U.S. insults Islam"?

No, of course not.

glhaynes• 16 years ago

It's really weird to me that so many people at Kotaku seem so excited about this. How many times has there been some radically cheaper Chinese knockoff with a similar name that turns out to be a piece of absolute shit? Were these people excited about the Vii? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vii

Apple is successful in large part because of attention to detail; this thing can't even seem to decide whether it's an iPed or an APad. And it's not really a clone in any sense: it's only a 7" screen, yet apparently still heavier than the (arguably already too heavy) iPad. Really, what are the chances it's great at $100 when most people were surprised Apple was able to get the iPad (perhaps manufactured at the same factory) down to $500?

Be excited about the future potential of Android tablets using cheap commodity hardware, sure, but I don't see anything exciting about this particular device from what little info is here. What an example of not getting why the iPad is successful.

rjett• 16 years ago

In a case like this, what steps will Apple take to quash the IPed?

scorpion0322• 16 years ago

It's not legal to sell them in US. They will be happiest if they can have 1% of the market share of iPad.

Apple has more important things to bother about. Like innovating, the iPad mini, for instance.

dkasper• 16 years ago

The iPad mini... you mean iPod Touch?

daniel-cussen• 16 years ago

I thought the ipod touch and iphone were the ipad minis.

sireat• 16 years ago

This is quit unsurprising, I suspect, in a few months there will be dozens of increasingly iPad looking devices running some version of Android.

First butterflies are already here: http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.39169

However, one has to keep in mind that the CPUs currently in these devices are very underpowered(instead of 600mhz ARM actually clocking in at 300mhz).

User experience is very unPad like to say the least..

I am puzzled though, why they do not go for more powerful CPUs as the price difference should be only a few $.

Raphael_Amiard• 16 years ago

Well for 100$ i want one

China Rips Off The iPad With The iPed

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