Chinese Authorities Break Up Counterfeit iPhone Ring

[MacRumors]

Reuters reports on an article from Chinese newspaper Shanghai Daily noting that Chinese authorities have arrested five people in conjunction with the manufacturing and sale of counterfeit iPhones.

Police said those arrested were part of an organised gang that bought components for the phones from Guangdong in southern China and assembled them in rented apartments in Shanghai, the Shanghai Daily said.

About 200 fake iPhones were found during the crackdown.

The cost to make one fake iPhone , which used some genuine parts, was around 2,000 yuan ($313). It was sold on unauthorised markets and on the Internet for around 4,000 yuan, only a few hundred yuan cheaper than the real iPhone, the newspaper said.

The report notes that the fake iPhones were apparently remarkably authentic, offering many of the same functions as and very difficult for customers to distinguish from a genuine iPhone.

Counterfeit "iPhone 5"​

The prevalence of counterfeit Apple products and retail stores in China was cast into the public eye several months ago when an American blogger posted photos of one such counterfeit Apple retail store. Chinese authorities closed two out of the initial batch of five counterfeit stores discovered in the city of Kunming, although the stores were closed for permit issues rather than for counterfeiting.

Apple has ramped up its anti-counterfeiting efforts in China over the past several years as it seeks to dramatically expand its sales presence in the country, but has reportedly been stymied by a lack of cooperation from Chinese authorities.

It is unclear if Apple played a role in identifying and pushing for the arrest of the people involved in the current case of manufacturing and selling counterfeit iPhones.

Article Link: Chinese Authorities Break Up Counterfeit iPhone Ring

 

[Geckotek]

Is it possible we are seeing what the real iPhone 5 will look like?

Doesn't seem to match the leaked cases, but has curved glass. Could this be a 4S?

Either way, looks nice whatever it is. I wouldn't mind owning this.

Edit: I think this is an old pic from another article on fake iPhones. But I've always wondered if the counterfeiters knew something we didn't. Or perhaps the casing is even authentic? We'll find out soon enough I guess.

 

[DisMyMac]

It is unclear if Apple played a role in identifying and pushing for the arrest of the people involved in the current case of manufacturing and selling counterfeit iPhones.

If so, Apple needs to be held responsible for any human rights abuses that occur as a result of their imperial bargaining with those pesky mandarin officials....

 

[n8236]

Believe me when I tell you this won't stop

 

[daviddth]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

Actually I hope that was tongue in cheek. People who sell the counterfeit items, iPhones or not, deserve to be punished.

The issue is that Chinese officials don't care, so doing anything much is unlikely, and changing the law is even less likely

 

[wackymacky]

Is it possible we are seeing what the real iPhone 5 will look like?

Doesn't seem to match the leaked cases, but has curved glass. Could this be a 4S?

Either way, looks nice whatever it is. I wouldn't mind owning this.

Edit: I think this is an old pic from another article on fake iPhones. But I've always wondered if the counterfeiters knew something we didn't. Or perhaps the casing is even authentic? We'll find out soon enough I guess.

Looks more like a 3G knock off to me that an iP5

 

[Geckotek]

Looks more like a 3G knock off to me that an iP5

Yeah, I was gonna say if an iP4 and 3G got together and had a baby.

 

[appleaccessorie]

iPhone series are too expensive for most of the people in China. Even though you have a contact with China Unicom, you should prestore about 5880￥（919$), and you should permit monthly consumption more than 383 ￥(60$)，if you want get a iPhone 4 32G,but it's cheap for lots of USA user.

 

[SmoMo]

So, is this fake phone running iOS then? Or is it an Android phone with a iOS theme?

It sounds to me from the report that it is actual, or compatible, iPhone hardware which I find really interesting. I'd love to have a fake iPhone just out of curiosity, has anyone here ever seen one up close?

Also, if it is a 100% compatible iPhone, then I'm not convinced that the Chinese customers are being conned at all, it sounds like a pretty rational decision to go for a cloned phone if it is a bit cheaper and not locked in to a single carrier.

 

[callum23]

look at the size of the screen where you can actually touch it. It's too small, not real

 

[thewitt]

They run iOS, though they are very buggy. Screen resolution is poor and the aspect ratio is wrong. Screen size is wrong as well.

Memory is less than the standard iPhone and storage is only 8g

Several of my staff in China have these, and though they are cheaper, the quality is very clearly absent.

-t

 

[aziatiklover]

About time they are doing something about it.

 

[SockRolid]

Aha. There's there curved glass.

Remember those rumors about Apple needing curved glass polishing machines? Well this is one possible reason why. Maybe just the edges of the touch screens of future iPhones (and/or iPads) will be curved, like in the photo.

https://www.macrumors.com/2011/09/2...lass-ios-devices-for-first-half-of-next-year/

That would get rid of the rather sharp corners on the iPhone glass panel(s) and would improve the future iPhone's "hand feel." Nice.

[Title should read "Aha. There's the curved glass." Can't change the title on editing.]