The Latest Apple Ripoff From China
February 24, 2012
Most iPhones are made in China. Still, many Chinese make so little that they cannot afford Apple’s popular handset. For these folks, merchants are now offering what is perhaps the biggest knockoff since a fake Apple retail store popped up in the world's most populous country last year.
Non-iPhone owners can now pay $1 per month to have their mobile messages sent with a fake "sent from my iPhone" tagline, according to The Financial Times. The "service" works through QQ, the world largest instant messaging tool.
As one enterprising merchant contends from Shanghai:
“The iPhone is too expensive. If you don’t want to spend that money, then fake it!”No word on what a "sent from my iPad" message would cost. Besides, couldn't these users save themselves $1 and add the message to each of their messages themselves? The iPhone 4S costs about $800 in China. The average Chinese worker earns less than $2,400 per year according to the World Salaries organization.