

Already Valued at $4B, China’s Xiaomi Has Declared War on Apple - namzo
http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/17/already-valued-at-4b-chinas-xiaomi-has-declared-war-on-apple/

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krakensden
Their Android flavor, MIUI, is fairly popular as an alternative to Cyanogen.

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timdorr
Interestingly enough, MIUI is based on Cyanogen.

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StacyC
What is it with the “war” on everything? How about you just make a great
product that people want. Easier said than done, I know, but it’s not war.

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slantyyz
Remember, this article is from Pando, so it's not surprising that the headline
is, um, a little excessive.

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ttran4
This may be the first company in China to be innovating instead of working on
the Hiphone 6. Regardless, they will never be taken seriously because Chinese
companies reputations are already destroyed.

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majani
Classic mental mistake of the disrupted.

China have come from making pathetic, health-hazard goods, to now making 'good
enough' products, and it won't be long before they are making Apple-quality
stuff.

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Steko
"it won't be long before they are making Apple-quality stuff."

Wait, they actually make actual Apple stuff today. I realize these aren't
China designs but when we're talking about build quality, the know how is
already there although in most cases spoken for by foreign capital.

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GiraffeNecktie
From the article "The name, by the way, translates to “millet” in English, but
it is also the combination of two Chinese words that have a powerful resonance
here: rice and rifle. As any patriotic citizen will tell you, together those
words mean “revolution.” "

Huh? The two characters in xiaomi (小米) are xiao3, meaning "small" and mi3
meaning "rice". In other words, millet. Rifle is qiang1.

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xiaoma
The phrase is "小米加步枪", which comes from a Mao Zedong speech to the 8th route
army and militia when fighting the Japanese in WWII. They had no real
government or supplies and had to subsist off of millet and fight with single-
firing rifles to overthrow their occupiers.

It translates to "millet and rifles", just as the article said. It's pretty
common in Chinese to use a part of a famous phrase to refer to its entirety.
Actually, Baidu is another company name that does this.

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GiraffeNecktie
Thanks. That's a much clearer explanation.

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drzaiusapelord
Wiki: " Xiaomi is a high-end smartphone, using a Qualcomm Snapdragon S3 (dual
core, 1.5 GHz) as its CPU and an Adreno 220 as its GPU,[4] but its price
(RMB1999/around USD310)[5] is less than half the cost of a typical dual-core
CPU smartphone.[6] "

So they're selling the phone equivalant of a Nexus 7 (decent hardware that
deeply undercuts the competition.)

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taligent
Did I miss something ? Nexus 7 is the same price than the Kindle Fire.

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drzaiusapelord
The Fire is a locked down Amazon appliance with a proprietary app store and
all manner of restrictions running on a heavily modified version of Android.
The Nexus is a proper tablet with access to all of Google's tablet services
including Google's unfiltered app store. Sure, you can put some ROM on it, but
Joe and Jane Public aren't.

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taligent
I don't think Joe and Jane Public are going to know the difference between a
filtered and unfiltered app store or what an unmodified Android version means.

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bishnu
Nope they aren't. But for damn sure they know the difference between "Amazon"
and "Google".

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brudgers
One of them has an ongoing relationship with the customer and probably a
credit card on file.

The other is Google.

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SoftwareMaven
I declare war on...dill pickles. Now come buy my sweet pickles. _yawn_

Also, a nit: it is sad to see a journalist refer to the "lead" of his/her
story.

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geuis
I don't like the article overall, but don't have a problem with the internal
reference. Way too often, titles are written to be provacative and the content
of the story is much more mundane, or doesn't even support it. I don't mind an
instance where an author elaborates on their lead in an attempt to explain it.

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m0nastic
I believe SoftwareMaven was referring to the literal "lead" spelling that the
writer used (as the majority of actual journalists use the "lede" spelling),
not to the reference.

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ambler0
I was unfamiliar with this. I googled it, and found this discussion:
<http://howardowens.com/2011/09/18/lede-vs-lead/>

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tomflack
I'm in China and nobody gives a shit about home-grown Chinese brands. I
mentioned to a friend I wanted to check out a Meizu MX and her boyfriend asked
"what's that?" To which she replied "Oh, just a shanzai iPhone".

The first meizu store I went to, there was a guy selling rugs inside.

The second meizu store had two very bored looking sales assistants and in the
half hour that I poked around and pestered these guys nobody else came in.

The technology malls are filled with Apple, HTC, Samsung and even Sony phones.
Zero obvious brand presence for Chinese phones.

In the future this will change, I'm not saying that the Chinese phone industry
won't be a powerhouse, but for now temper your excitement.

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warech
"Xiaomi appears to have hit a sweet spot in the market, selling high-spec
devices that compete with the iPhone on quality, but undercut it substantially
in price" This strategy follows Christensen's disruptive innovation to the
letter. Interesting to see Apple on the brink of disruption in a consumer
category it principally defined.

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Steko
"This strategy follows Christensen's disruptive innovation to the letter.
Interesting to see Apple on the brink of disruption in a consumer category it
principally defined."

Sorry I'm not seeing it. Who's to say Xiaomi doesn't end up eating Samsung's
lunch instead of Apple?

I mean people in the market for "a cheaper iphone" or "a more open iphone"
traditionally that's where Samsung and company have been making money right?

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noamsml
If there's any company I won't be sad to see hit with an Apple lawsuit, it's
Xiaomi. The MIUI ROM is great, but it copies the iPhone Look&Feel to an absurd
degree. I get that MIUI is all about "usability" and "beauty", but WinPhone
has proven usability and beauty can be achieved without blatantly copying
Apple.

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mrlase
Would anyone happen to know if the bootloader is unlocked on these?

EDIT: For what it's worth, here's a review that Engadget did of the phone back
in September 2011: <http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/27/xiaomi-phone-review/>

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chucknthem
Great to see them doing well. I first heard about the company while exploring
different Android ROMs, and the MIUI rom by XiaoMi was the best I've seen
overall in terms of stability and usability which cyanogen lacked. Their
native apps felt really intuitive to use and it adds a lot of functionality
that you normally get from apps and more. e.g. a toggle to turn things on and
off in the notification area is an app in the app store, but the quality just
isn't good enough and I hate going through a bunch of crappy quality widget
apps just to find one that I might like. Cyanogen has most of the features
that xiami offers and more, but they're not as well designed nor as stable.

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amirmansour
Wow the Xiaomi keynote looks a lot like Steve Jobs keynotes with significantly
less production quality:
<http://player.youku.com/player.php/sid/XMjk1MzcxNTY4/v.swf>

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zcvosdfdgj
there's a guy on stage with a projector in the background. It looks like a
million other presentations.

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Produce
Apple invented the universe and everything in it.

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DeepDuh
This is just silly, Apple didn't create the universe. They just gave humans
knowledge!

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programminggeek
Can you buy a Xiaomi phone outside of China? For a $300 phone it looks pretty
nice.

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xiaoma
I very nearly bought one of these a few months ago, but it was sold out.

