Also, I'm curious, but if anyone has any insight, is this even profitable at $100 for them or is there a some sort of loss leading play for data behind such counterfeits.
$300 claim https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KucQDXnKws
build video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leFuF-zoVzA
The only special thing is the design (also of the CPU) and the software.
If you've ever wondered where your prehistoric iPhone 4 ended up, some Thai teenager is lovingly using it (with the software home button, because this is Asia).
Do you mean that the increased availability of these fakes could tarnish Apple’s brand? I suppose we’d wind up in a situation where folks can only buy Apple devices from Apple authorized dealers. “Exclusivity” seems already thoroughly baked into Apple’s brand so I’m not sure this would actually hurt them. Is this not how it already is?
In most wealthy countries for sure. However the target market for these devices might be different countries, where Apple products are not that common and well known. Or where people don't care that much, because "looks like Apple" is still better than the alternatives.
My friend bought a fake Rolex watch.
He knew it wasn't real gold, and that half of the complications did not operate, but he still bought it and wore it.
There are enough people out there these days that see brands as style trends imho and will do anything to "rock" them.
> So maybe this phone isn’t Apple’s iPhone X, but it is an iPhone X.
Ridiculous. If the phone can't run iOS apps (arm64 binaries compiled for Darwin+UIKit) it's not even close. What a racket.
Turns out, making the software to do cool stuff is most of the cost of building new products.
Ok that's actually kinda adorable.
The software differences are amusing as someone had to just take a shot and put out a sort of MVP of some of these features... or just do something else.
>The “Podcasts” app just opens YouTube.
>Apple Maps opens Google Maps.
Close enough!
The backdoors are interesting as... does anyone want to hack someone who buys a $100 iPhone, I guess so?
Having a backdoor on a mobile device means having a backdoor to any intranet that device connects to. A lot of people keep everything accessible on their local intranets: files, printers etc. If you get your compromised phone into your lawyer's office and he/she lets you use their unsecured intranet to get on the internet, chances are that then their network becomes compromised as well.
The device doesn't need to fool the user very long to be effective - just long enough to get them to buy it, and long enough to log in to their iCloud account. Those are the two big points where value is extracted.
Is it really so lucrative that it beats applying those same talents at a real job?
The average software developer salary in China seems to be about 15,000USD a year (Glassdoor). I don’t think this is a years work.
But I’m curious as to how the work is funded. These ROMs get shared pretty liberally. So I’d guess once the work is done you have a limited amount of time to exploit it exclusively.
What if they didn't create an obvious attempt to create a direct knock-off of the latest iPhone? What if they created a comparable device to stand on its own? What if they clearly labeled everything that the phone was really doing? What if they weren't scraping every interaction he user has with the device?
What if they took all of that deceptive effort, and poured it into producing a device that could be trusted, and took all of those efforts to deceive, and instead poured that creativity into improving the fundamental device they wished to create?
What if they made something they could put their names on, without inviting all the consequences that their dubious behavior would surely result in, if we knew who was behind this sort of thing?
What if they could admit to what they were doing, because it sought to benefit their patrons, instead of posing obvious risks to anybody spending $100 on their stuff?
What sort of "trouble" are they talking about here?
a) android skinned to look like ios
b) based on a mediatek reference chipset/rf baseband platform
c) riddled with buggy apps with huge security vulnerabilities
basically if you go to dealextreme, aliexpress, dhgate or a similar website. search for android phones, find things that cost right around $70-100, they'll all be very similar.
The more amazing part to me is that they actually bothered to duplicate a lightning port rather than use microusb or usb-c for charging.
I kinda like it if only because it is absurd.
It makes me wonder if we could make an all screen, every surface phone, and then as styles change the "look" of the phone would change.
"Bezels are back with the latest software update!"
Not hotdog.
> “The mismash of default apps preinstalled on the phone I was given are horribly insecure (if not outright malware),”
In short a modern smartphone.
I could have used a better summary. Now I had to read half the article anyway.
