

China Rips Off The iPad With The iPed - jrnkntl
http://kotaku.com/5549865/china-rips-off-the-ipad-with-the-iped

======
jdietrich
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.

~~~
jgrahamc
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.

~~~
ZeroGravitas
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.”

~~~
ahoyhere
How old are you? How's your memory?

Before the iPod dominated the market, before Apple's re-ascent to glory was
completely undeniable, Mac users were _always_ the butt of jokes.

------
glhaynes
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.

------
anamax
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
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.

~~~
Niten
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.

------
ZeroGravitas
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
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]

------
perlpimp
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.

~~~
watmough
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
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.

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

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

Where?

------
kevinelliott
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!

~~~
nooneelse
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?

------
sireat
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 $.

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

~~~
scorpion032
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
The iPad mini... you mean iPod Touch?

------
Raphael_Amiard
Well for 100$ i want one

------
igorgue
iPed is a better name than iPad :-)

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

Did for me, though.

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

------
rick_2047
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
It's not that difficult to build a copy when you are building the original as
well. =)

~~~
brk
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.

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

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

~~~
bitwize
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.

~~~
senki
Compromises. That's the keyword. 90% usability for 20% price - it's a good
deal for 90% of the people. The other (upper) 10% get the iPad, they can
afford it.

~~~
roc
I don't think usability works that way.

90% usability may be a good deal, but only for the 20% of people who put the
effort in to find benefit from the technology. Everyone else would have spent
less, but gained less as well -- as they ignore large swaths of features,
spending only enough cognitive time to use one or two core applications.

E.g. Note the incredible flexibility and power of desktop PCs and how that's
been almost completely ignored by 90% of users, who barely know enough to do
email and the web.

And that's a particular issue in the case of a mobile, secondary-computing
device such as tablets, where having the functionality isn't anywhere near as
important as actually improving the experience of using those functions.

i.e. They have passable email on their desktop and/or phone, so you need more
than passable email to sell a tablet. If 'almost' having good usability was
good enough, we'd have been hip-deep in windows tablets for the last decade
and Palm PDAs before that.

