Beijing cops' iPhone swoop knocks out counterfeit mobe makers Police in Beijing have closed down a counterfeit iPhone manufacturing operation which employed hundreds of workers to produce more than 41,000 fake handsets in 2015 alone. The bootleg business was not named in the police statement, but reportedly first came to the authorities' attention following the seizure of counterfeit …
A real head-scratcher! Why would anyone with the necessary chops to bring these things together and, likely, also then arrange for them to be shipped and sold abroad not just get into the business legitimately? The economics of cranking out facsimiles of high-demand consumer items would make interesting reading... (cue TW)
"...A real head-scratcher! Why would anyone with the necessary chops to bring these things together and, likely, also then arrange for them to be shipped and sold abroad not just get into the business legitimately?..."
I've wondered this myself. A guy I worked with bought an 'iPhone' off fleabay a while back and brought it to me [as resident 'computer person'] to look at, as it "wasn't showing up in iTunes".
The 'iPhone' looked and felt completely legit. ie. not obviously made of inferior materials or anything like that. But my suspicions were aroused by the fact it said "Made in America" on the case, whereas Apple gear usually has "Designed in California"
Swiping through the interface, it would probably have convinced someone not familiar with Apple gear that it was iOS. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make all the screens and icons look right. But, again, I smelt a rat, as the transitions between screens felt less slick than I would have expected and the system font wasn't quite right [as an arty-farty type, I noticed that. Many people wouldn't].
So, up til that point, I suspected the phone wasn't kosher but there was nothing that unequivocally screamed 'Fake!'.
I then plugged the phone into a computer to witness the "iTunes failing to open" that my workmate had complained about... which it didn't. I then looked on the desktop and saw that the phone had mounted as a regular USB storage device and, having a mooch through its directory structure found that it was running something which didn't even seem to be a skinned Android, but looked like some kind of customised barebones Linux system.
The story ends happily as my workmate got a refund from the eBay seller who disclaimed all knowledge that s/he was peddling fakes.
But I did wonder at the time, [exactly as you say] why someone with all the design and organisational skills to build a physical representation of an iPhone and create a customised Linux iOS-a-like to run on it that was convincing enough to fool [albeit only for about five or ten minutes] someone familiar with Apple gear –wouldn't just go into business for themselves.
It seems to have worked for Xiaomi!
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A real head-scratcher! Why would anyone with the necessary chops to bring these things together and, likely, also then arrange for them to be shipped and sold abroad not just get into the business legitimately? The economics of cranking out facsimiles of high-demand consumer items would make interesting reading... (cue TW)
"
Three main reasons. (1) Selling their own design with a name nobody has heard of would attract few customers. (2) The selling price & hence profit margin can be vastly higher for an i-phone. (3) they do not have to give any sort of support for their product whatsoever.
You could just have well have asked why people who are good enough to make clothing and watches churn out fake Nike, Levi and Rolex branded products.
...as these crims are unlikely to get any serious punishment.
These are small fish which is why they probably went after them. Being China, who knows what the punishment will be... slap on the wrist? Time in re-education camp? Bullet? The government is just trying to make a point that they're "doing something" when I don't believe they really care. Their copyright/patent laws basically ignore the rest of the world. Hell... there's been Chinese citizens patenting things invented elsewhere and then trying to claim royalties.
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