
In China, an Empire Built by Aping Apple - danso
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/business/global/in-china-an-empire-built-by-aping-apple.html?hp&_r=0&pagewanted=all
======
hoi
The article has a bit of American Bias towards it (probably because it's the
NY Times).

Xiaomi have developed their own UI (with some similaroties to Apple) called
MIUI which you can download and install on your Android if you wish. They are
galvanizing the market in China because they are pushing home the 'China-
built, High standard' message. In other words, they are playing the patriotism
button and in the main, it's working.

The main issue is whether they can push beyond China.

~~~
THE_PUN_STOPS
Woah, Xiaomi is behind MIUI? I had no idea. I'm impressed, it's refreshing to
see Chinese tech companies pushing innovation and quality to compete instead
of half-assed clones.

~~~
jmomo
It should be noted that MIUI is also a rampant GPL violator. They have taken a
lot of open source stuff under the GPL, among other licenses, and closed it
off or even claimed as their own. This probably isn't shocking given the
article.

[http://www.thepowerbase.com/2012/11/android-community-
demand...](http://www.thepowerbase.com/2012/11/android-community-demands-miui-
rom-comply-with-foss-licenses/)

~~~
mc-lovin
"A lot" and "rampant" seem like exaggerations. Based on that link, most of
MIUI's changes are to the Android source code, which licensed under the
permissive Apache license.

Only their modifications to the linux kernel need to comply with the GPL
license.

edit: Here is the relevant quote from the parent's link

>While the kernel modifications [to the GPL licensed Linux kernel] are only a
small part of the modifications Xioami has done to create MIUI, it does
include the low-level work Xioami has done to push things like performance and
energy efficiency.

------
gommm
Having tested MIUI compared to stock android on my mother in law, MIUI was
much easier for her to understand and use... So, I don't think it's fair to
say that Xiaomi is not innovative, it's actually one of the very few android
phone maker that actually cares about the software side of things and built a
really good interface.

------
andrewmb
Westerners seem to get majorly hung up on the "China copying" meme and miss
the bigger picture--China is incredibly focused on technology and there are
huge sums of money and a strong cultural impetus for home-grown innovation. As
an analogy, China is at the stage where they have learned the major rules for
a programming language, and are now copying and pasting advanced code from
stackexchange or other places.

Let's not forget historical context either: Japan and S.Korea were once known
as knockoff central, and now produce extremely advanced products in their own
right.

~~~
general_failure
> Westerners seem to get majorly hung up on the "China copying" meme

Huh? Nytimes seem to be hung up, yes. 'Westerners' seems to have slipped out.

~~~
andrewmb
I'm painting with a broad brush :). The extremely negative and short-sighted
attitude about Chinese knockoffs is (in my experience) most prevalent in
'western' countries: USA, Canada, UK, Western Europe. I have less contact with
Eastern Europe, South America or Africa so I can't comment on their reactions.

Attitudes toward copying are very cultural. In China, it stems from pragmatism
and a greater focus on the ends rather than the means (winning trumps winning
well) whereas in the US--and West--winning is important, but so is "playing
fair".

------
jtheory
They obviously chose the word "aping" for a reason, but it strikes me as a
poor word choice here.

These aren't pocket calculators with "I-PHone" rubber-stamped on the cover.

From the article:

"Skeptics say the company produces low-price iPhone imitations with no
significant software or hardware advantages."

So where are the _dis_ advantages, other than the "they're copying Apple"
problem?

I suspect that if they stay more or less on the right side of copyright/patent
law in the west, they'll capitalize on the "lower price/equivalent hardware"
combination that apparently even the skeptics mention. And with the
capabilities to build the next big idea, all it really takes then is enough of
a break from traditional company culture to let new, good ideas bubble up
and/or be sought out (and hey look, the Xiaomi CEO seems to be going for
that).

------
contingencies
For some perspective on his background, Kingsoft makes the most popular
Chinese/English dictionary software in China - a really great product, ahead
of its time. Joyo is not unheard of either... so he hasn't exactly come out of
nowhere. Furthermore, hassling someone because he uses tried and true
marketing techniques or happens to wear a black shirt while presenting is a
bit extreme.

~~~
irrationalidiom
I can't speak for their dictionary, but KingSoft has an antivirus/internet
security program which is nigh on impossible to uninstall, including extremely
misleading messages on their uninstall screen.

I wouldn't touch any of their other stuff for that reason alone.

~~~
contingencies
Fair enough. The golden era of their mouseover dictionary was ~2000.

------
pellias
In China, the user base is its advantage. With the manufacturing skills, they
are just Aping now, give it 10-15 more years, those might just grow into
another Samsung, Amazon. In fact, last year two of Alibaba’s portals together
handled 1.1 trillion yuan ($170 billion) in sales, more than eBay and Amazon
combined (Economists - [http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573981-chinas-
e-comm...](http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21573981-chinas-e-commerce-
giant-could-generate-enormous-wealthprovided-countrys-rulers-leave-it))

------
Juha
"Skeptics say the company produces low-price iPhone imitations with no
significant software or hardware advantages."

I must say that compared to other low-price phones in china like Lenovo, ZTE,
Huawei and Hisense I'd rather take Xiaomi. They seem to pay more attention to
quality than others and they do show innovativeness with MIUI for example. And
more importantly they seem to have more and more of their own innovation in
each product generation. For example their MI2S offers exchangeable colored
backs that I haven't seen with many other companies (Nokia maybe).

I used to think NYT is respectable paper, but with words like "aping" in the
title of an article like this I'm giving up on that thought.

~~~
touristtam
"He is also selling millions of mobile phones that look a lot like iPhones
[...] his company sold seven million mobile phones last year by using designs
that mimic the look and feel of the iPhone and using marketing that seems
right out of Apple’s playbook."

A bit like the Samsung Galaxy S3/S4 are resembling the iPhone. The Xiaomi
M1/M2 are far from copycat GooPhone and the like, while the specification of
the latest device from Xiaomi are matching or surpassing the Android
competition (checking for yourself the different review on the internet) and
the price is one of the lowest for this type of high end hand held device (we
are talking about ~300 USD here).

I can not remember as well when Apple played so well on scarcity of supply for
a new product, like Xiaomi and their flash sales.

~~~
Juha
Yes, I agree that nobody would mistake Xiaomi for an iPhone so it's hard to
call it a clone. They have clear logo, different button positions and the back
looks totally different. It didn't seem like the author had actually used a
Xiaomi phone himself.

------
soup10
The Chinese seem to think that integrity and respect are mutually exclusive.
When you are poor or middle class, starting a business that is inspired by
other products on the market is pragmatic. When you are wealthy, blatantly
cloning other businesses with no significant improvements makes you a thief
and a profiteer. This guy sounds like a scumbag that gives business a bad
name.

------
marcamillion
Meh...I have to see him doing something that Apple isn't - in a unique
way...before I believe he can even look at S. Job's shoes.

He claims to be looking at TV - if they release a TV BEFORE Apple, that is as
good as Apple's version (or even better) then I will stop being skeptical.

Until then, chalk me up as one of those "skeptical Westerners".

------
damian2000
They look like iPhones but are running Android ... and as it mentions at the
bottom of the article, they release an updated OS version every week.

------
af3
Its simple money, dear NYT. He can be Steve Jobs or Steve Ballmer or whoever,
as long as his shit is selling. Innovation? oh c'mon, there has been no
innovation since Einstein.

------
chourobin
shameless... i dont understand how these people can sleep at night.

~~~
w1ntermute
The same way good old Benjamin Franklin did as he pirated the works of British
authors: <http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/dickens/pva/pva75.html>

~~~
gnoway
Not exactly, Ben wasn't asserting that he created the works.

~~~
continuations
So like Steve Jobs, who accused Microsoft of stealing "his" ideas when in fact
he stole those ideas from Xerox?

[http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=A_Rich_Neighbor_N...](http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=A_Rich_Neighbor_Named_Xerox.txt)

~~~
rahoulb
_bought_ those ideas from Xerox and then added a whole load of extra stuff to
them (icons, pull-down menus)

------
bosch
This guy should be embarrassed. Why is he trying to copy Steve Jobs? I think
down the road the Chinese will be stuck in a very hard place after decades of
copying. Without innovation, it's hard to develop new ideas and technologies.

The Chinese desperately need a cultural revolution to understand that stealing
is not an acceptable way to do business. Until that happens it will be hard
for any Western company to take them seriously.

~~~
throwaway2048
"The Chinese desperately need a cultural revolution "

Terrible choice of terms, not sure if you are intentionally trolling or not.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution>

