Don't you guys get it?
China is the counterfeiting nation.
A moot or at best completely tangential point.
again moot point unless you are trying to claim this specific guy took the bribe, got busted and then jumped out the window.
This has NOTHING to do with Apple, except their idiotic idea that using Chinese factories is a "good" idea.
If Foxconn habitually lost Apple prototypes on an ongoing basis do you really thing they would still getting 100's of millions in contracts from Apple? There are millions more to be made by making real iPhones than in making fake ones.
Apple (and every other major multinational ) knows they are going to get ripped off when they go to China. They just mark it up to the cost of doing business there. Microsoft looses many millions there too, but enough folks do pay there that it is still millions more than if weren't doing business in China. The vast majority of companies are mesmerized by the "Billions and Billions" of Chinese customers. Even those the vast majority of them cannot afford their goods. If there is a 8-20% fraction that will can still have a market the size of a large "Western" country.
There is some benefit to Apple trying to play a role in changing conditions in China. They get to regulate how well they want the standard to be on the treatment of workers. High enough so that it is recruiting and propaganda tool but not so high that have to make any sacrifices/tradeoffs don't want to.
I think people on MR were talking about this problem years ago when some very very good counterfeit shuffles were showing up and it was obvious that Apple's plastic molds and designs were being counterfeited, very very well.
Those are going to show up whether the prototype is stolen or not.
The knock-offs are so much dramatically cheaper that they are usually being sold into a market Apple was going to ignore anyway. (so being first to market with a product most folks in the world can't afford has substantially less impact versus the knock-offs that will be priced into that market.) Same thing with most of these other manufacturers. As long it is a cheap knock-off that has less material value to their primary markets they are will to life with them. [ They'll continue to moan and groan to the Chinese govt about it... but they will buy off those officials and continue to do business as long as the vast majority of the knock offs stay inside China. ]
Jobs and Woz used to sell phone phreaking equipment. They know all about knocking off and taking money from large corporations is all about. Jobs knows some folks are going to steal. If that is kept to small percentage it will still grow as the overall business that Apple does goes larger. 400 million and knock-offs take 0.5% is 2 million. 40 Billion and that is 200 million "stolen". You're looking at the WRONG slice of the pie if fixated on the second number in each of those two examples.
In most countries, more of the consumers want to do the right thing. Pay a reasonable price for something that has reasonable value to them.
Where the pricing is out of whack is were more folks will buy other options that knock-offs. The bigger the gap between ability to pay and value the larger the tension. Most companies adjust their tolerance to what the local "gap" distance is.
