That didn't take the Chinese long... "iPed"

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

If they were anywhere else other than China, they would be in the pooh. Gotta hand it to them - an Android-based, flagrant copy in weeks flat - even down to the packaging. Amazing really...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q599s...=youtube_gdata

The clip is in Japanese, but you'll get the picture... so to speak.

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

so glad they had the subtitles so I knew what they were saying.
LOL

Nice find Chris

[RickS (Rick)]

It looks like it has some decent wired connectivity options unlike the real thing

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Yep, and with all those days of development time and backyard manufacture quality built right in, it'll be brilliant. Buy one and let me know...

[jjjnettie (Jeanette)]

Originally Posted by Omaroo

Yep, and with all those days of development time and backyard manufacture quality built right in, it'll be brilliant. Buy one and let me know...

No, seriously....
Someone buy one and let us know.

[Satchmo]

Originally Posted by RickS

It looks like it has some decent wired connectivity options unlike the real thing

Thats what struck me when I saw the video
Give it a year and there will be loads of tablets available from the better brands running Android .

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Originally Posted by Satchmo

Thats what struck me when I saw the video
Give it a year and there will be loads of tablets available from the better brands running Android .

Absolutely. This iPed is junk. It has to be, and no sane person would buy one to rely on in a fit. Android will spark up the tablet debate soon enough amongst the mainstream players, and this can only be a good thing. I'll say it again - whereas the iPad is designed from the start as an media/Internet consumption device, there is plenty of room for fully featured tablet computing machines. Just makes me wonder why they haven't ever caught on with Windows Tablet Edition being available for years already. Maybe it's the iPad's form factor that has finally done the deed and broken ground for the rest. It can't be denied in light of recent events.

[taxman (Matt)]

Originally Posted by Omaroo

This iPed is junk. It has to be, and no sane person would buy one to rely on in a fit.

I don't know - my 12 year old son got himself an iPhone knockoff in January with the $80 he accumulated between birthday, Christmas and pocket money.

He has not had a problem with it and a 12 year old and friends will give what they think is an iPhone an absolute hiding in terms of use, functionality etc.

I do love the name though - "Hi-Phone" and it even has an apple emblem, except the bite is not taken out of it

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

That's cool Matt, but the bet is that your kids phone knockoff was't put together in a couple of weeks. Then again.... Maybe it was. What O/S is it running - do you know? Open source operating systems will empower Chinese backyarders to manufacture these devices at the drop of a hat. A good thing? I don't think so, but time will tell I guess.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Like all things Chinese, it'll either work straight out of the box and be perfectly reliable, or like most of their stuff, it'll last a week if it's lucky. This is also a perfect example of why international law should be tightened up and these governments figure out that co-operation and trust is the best policy. I'd slap fines and trade restrictions on China that quickly over this, they'd be wondering what slapped them in the face.

[Nesti (Mark)]

This is actually a very, very interesting subject.

In the past (last 30 years) China has been this 'other world' where you can get so much stuff cloned. The limitation being the level of technology that was [once] available. I include the word "once" because as of 3-5 years ago, it has all changed. An example of this is that China is almost able to mass-manufacture carbon fiber bicycles as good as any other entity. This will soon include Italian hand-builders and US companies like Trek. Also, the domination of the European fully molded Radio Controlled models is also rapidly coming to an end. The European's had a head start because when the Cold War ended, the composite material technologies cascaded down into the hobby market...just so people which once worked on military technology (Jet Fighters etc) to make money to live.

On the electronics technology front, China is almost capable of matching any level of technology there too.

I cannot tell you how big an achievement it is for the Chinese to pull-down the last bricks of the western technology wall.

Gone are the days where a product had to be technically advanced too keep it out of the reach of the Chinese copying industry.

Mind-you, the ability to achieve this has been derived purely from cheap labor and once living standards in China increase, wages climb and more financial constraints are placed on Chinese manufacturers, we'll see an entirely different economic and industrial model emerge...kind of like Japan's technology emergence back in the 70's and 80's.

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Interesting Mark. One thing that strikes me though is that there is absolutely no protection from this stuff. Chinese manufacturers are sufficiently hidden from the western consumers who purchase it by the tonne not to have to answer to any of them. "Well, it was cheap, wasn't it?" The attitude towards patent protection control is yet to match the prowess. Is that a function of modern communism, where its ideal that no-one owns the rights to anything yet taking the profit is OK?

Technology to manufacture the basic operating hardware is more than arguably there, but I'm not too sure about the level of effort they put into ensuring a device's longevity, inter-application integration within the device itself or providing any real technical support. You're on your own - sink or swim. To support something you have to lift your head above the water line, exposing it to those you've blatantly attacked the legitimate market of. The only factor in your favour as a consumer is that most of these devices rely on open source.

With the expertise available to build the basic hardware, it'd be nice if China possessed more people who could think for themselves and innovate in this industry rather than rip it off - which will continue as long as there is a market for it - and there always will be. I guess that this shift may come over time, as it did for the Japanese after the 60's. Before then (50's - 60's), my father would absolutely refuse to buy anything Japanese back because it was junk - and it was. Times a-change though. Firms such as Nikon and Canon came out and started to think that the "zero defect" mantra was worthwhile for business.

I see what's happening in the modelling world too. I used to lust over YellowAircraft and Bob Violett composite models from the States, but they were way out of reach - with turnkey jets costing well into the multiples tens of thousands of dollars and basic airframes still costing thousands. Equivalents from China? A few hundred. Quality - bearable.

[renormalised (Carl)]

The reasons why China is able to almost match anyone else in the manufacturing of technology is because they either stole it through industrial espionage and/or people were willing enough to deal with them regardless of any restrictions to trade that may have once been imposed upon them...i.e. backdoor technology transfer and sales of goods. It's precisely how their military has managed to drag a large chunk of itself up from what was basically a peasant "pitch fork and plow" military in the 70's and 80's, to having some halfway decent equipment, now.

If other countries governments weren't so inept, or in cahoots with the businesses involved, or the businesses weren't so mercenary and had some moral fibre/conscience, then China would still be in the same position it was 30-40 years ago. Their little economic miracle might not have happened, or it would've been a whole lot more painful.

[Nesti (Mark)]

Germany doesn't have too many dramas...they manufacture elegant and technically superior products...and many people are prepared to pay big bucks for quality and style.

Gerald Celente states that "20% of the [US] public are prepared to wait in-line at a shop just to pay big dollars for the best that money can buy".

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

Originally Posted by Nesti

"20% of the [US] public are prepared to wait in-line at a shop just to pay big dollars for the best that money can buy".

Yep - and only need to buy it once.

[Nesti (Mark)]

Originally Posted by Omaroo

Yep - and only need to buy it once.

How true!

[avandonk]

The western owners of the technology who use cheap Chinese labour to produce their overpriced goods while paying themselves huge bonuses for their 'efficiency' have only themselves to blame when knockoffs go out the same factory back door as the 'genuine' article.

Bert

[Omaroo (Chris Malikoff)]

There'd be some truth to that Bert.

[Darth Wader (Wade)]

iPed - sounds like kiwi tichnology to me

Either that or a device with built-in foot massaging functionality.

[marki]

Bert you are absolutely correct. Big mutinational tech companies would sell their own mothers if there was a dollar to be made.

Mark