Meizu's MiniOne M8 GUI exposed: shame on you J. Wong

Ok Meizu, seriously, with your M7 announced a week after the iPod touch and your CEO J.Wong just posting these new interface shots of the M8 to your user forum, how can we or any straight talking rag not call you for what you are: a brazen Chinese Apple cloning machine? We understand that any full-screen, touchscreen phone or DAP will look pretty similar given the limited panel sizes available to manufacturers. The possibilities with the user interface are however, infinite. We already know that you have a half dozen or so iPhones in-house so please, just admit to your "inspiration." No more weightless claims that your design appeared four days before the iPhone unveiling. You're not fooling anyone.

Gallery: Meizu's MiniOne M8 GUI exposed: shame on you J. Wong

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[Via MeizuMe]

[Jeff @ Sep 21st 2007 5:33AM]

Copy or not, I'm still gonna buy it if its a good product.

[Alan Partridge @ Sep 21st 2007 6:30AM]

Higher quality + more features for less money? Thats my kind of rip-off!

[ilh @ Sep 21st 2007 8:51AM]

I take it you've never played with a Meizu M6 then Shameless?

[Nick @ Sep 21st 2007 8:54AM]

that QWERTY keyboard sure looks great!

[Raymond @ Sep 21st 2007 9:58AM]

@ShamelessChinese: I hope you go to hell, damn racist.

[joe23521 @ Sep 21st 2007 10:37AM]

Hey "ShamelessChinese," next time you make a racist remark and want to fool people into actually considering what you have to say, try using a more neutral name. What a tool.

[Blake @ Sep 21st 2007 11:03AM]

Shameless is right. Chinese knock-offs always claim more than they actuall are. For ex. I have a chinese Honda clone ATV. While nice, it ain't no Honda that's it's marketed to be and being only 2 years old shouldn't make loud clicking noises in the transmission. They are getting better, but this kind of stuff is blatant rip-off.. Can't believe there are so many defenders.. :\

[Jon @ Sep 21st 2007 11:43AM]

What is so rip-off about that? SMS thread? Not a creation of Apple. Soft keyboard? Been done before by many companies years before Apple.

[Nick @ Sep 21st 2007 12:09PM]

@ Jon

You serious?! They are talking about the GUI.

[June @ Sep 21st 2007 12:20PM]

I'm getting really sick and tired of the racist remarks on this thread. It's true that the Chinese in China haven't developed much in innovation in the past few years; but what about Chinese Americans or any Chinese who has managed to escape the yoke of Communism?

You really think that Chinese are stupid? Why don't you tell that to the Chinese student in your class who is smoking the rest of you? What race despite being an extreme minority makes it to the top of the class almost every time? The Asians.

Who are some of the top scientists in the country? Asians.

So let's lose the attitude towards Chinese and aim it instead at Communists, which is the real reason why China is a pathetic piece of crap right now and which, by the way, came from Russia into China.

Yes, I'm half-Chinese; and I lived in China for a while: one of the worst times of my life. Ugh. I never want to go back.

[Bart @ Sep 21st 2007 12:42PM]

Uh...are most of you idiots using the "rasist" word even familure with the English language? Agree with his comments or not, nothing in Shamless's post is rasist..wrong?, biased?, sure maybe, but hardley rasist. That word needs to be used sparingly lest it loose it's true meaning.

[Jon @ Sep 21st 2007 12:44PM]

@ Nick, I see a different GUI. Maybe you need specs fanboy.

[Alex @ Sep 21st 2007 1:03PM]

Okay... Are we jumping onto the racist bandwagon a little too quickly?

In ShamelessChinese's post, Chinese=People in the counry of China. His post may be exaggerated, but I admit that when it comes to knockoffs like this, he is partially accurate.

Basically this is no more racist than saying that "American products are better." There's a HUGE leap between saying that and saying that "White people make better products." Same goes for his comment.

[Alan Partridge @ Sep 21st 2007 2:06PM]

Saying "Basically, any information coming from China is unreliable and untrustworthy." Is a racist statement. If you dont see that then maybe you watch too much Fox News. Also check his post history.

[Asva @ Sep 21st 2007 2:09PM]

I like how Raymond wants him to go to hell! lol

[Joe @ Sep 21st 2007 2:28PM]

How in the world is saying "Basically, any information coming from China is unreliable and untrustworthy." remotely racist? Are you suggesting that information coming from China is reliable? Perhaps you aren't aware that China is still led by a communist totalitarian government which controls the flow of information and can be shown to be lying about all sorts of things. (Perhaps you are too young to remember Tiananmen Square. Are you even aware of Chinese censorship of the internet?)

[June @ Sep 21st 2007 2:36PM]

I'm not saying that saying any information coming out of China is unreliable is racist.

I'm saying that claiming that Chinese are stupid just because there haven't been any innovations in the past few decades in China is racist. (I'm responding to all such comments that I have seen in here.)

The only reason why there haven't been any great things coming out of China is because incentives are squashed by Communism, not because any Chinese people are stupid.

[Richard Ford @ Sep 22nd 2007 7:05AM]

Some of you guys need to grow up. Realise what real life and economics is and learn how to better analyse a situation. Or you will always be justa voice on a BBS and not making the big bucks.

The Chinese are more entrepreneurial and business minded than Apple. It is Apple and every other company out there who is at fault. It got so bad that companies like Samsung and Dodge now release their products almost straight away in China.

For the rest of your code writing dorks out there, get a life and learn how to conduct critical analysis. Or one day you will still fail to get it and then will bitch that "All the jobs are in China and India..." As a point of contention, all the great inventions on the 20th century were British. Jet Engine, car, computer, phone, light bulb, train, watch, clock, gravity ;-), Rugby, Soccer, Golf, Tennis, economics, world trade, English Language.... and many more. So while the USA is a great monetizer and business environment, it is hardly the "innovation" capital that some of you make it out to be.


http://www.utilitycomputing.com.cn/?p=64
http://www.utilitycomputing.com.cn/?p=77

[Nick @ Sep 22nd 2007 12:40PM]

@Jon

#1 where in my any of my posts did I say that Apple is the savior? for all you know I could be a Linux kid who likes ubuntu or mandrake.

#2 Don't be telling me that I need specs when you seem to be the only one on this forum unable to realize that the GUI's are pretty damn similar looking. Similar button shapes, similar uses of gradients, similar user flow through the different menu hierarchy.

#3 any person with half of a brain would be able to figure out that people are talking about the GUI when the abstract you are posting on is titled "meizus minione m8 GUI exposed shame on you j wong"

#4 go back to your basement troll.

[Mike I @ Sep 23rd 2007 6:24PM]

June -
Your comments are quite racist... "Why don't you tell that to the Chinese student in your class who is smoking the rest of you? What race despite being an extreme minority makes it to the top of the class almost every time? The Asians."

Excuse me, but I am Asian, too. I have to tell you something: It's not being Asian that makes those kids in my advanced classes smart, it's their parents that force them to work. It's their culture.

Another thing, being smart has nothing to do with ripping things off. I'm sure the people who made this phone were incredibly smart, but that doesn't change the fact that it's unoriginal and a complete rip-off.

By the way, when this thread mentions things like "cheap Chinese rip-offs" they are talking about rip-offs from CHINA. They aren't talking about Chinese people, and they are ESPECIALLY not talking about Chinese-Americans. "Chinese-Americans" are actually Americans, by the way.

The truth is that Chinese companies DO NOT INNOVATE. They are well known for having thousands of spies in American, Canadian, and British technology companies. They RIP-OFF. Being Asian has nothing to do with anything. We don't care if you're Asian or Chinese, or whatever... It's completely besides the point. WE'RE TALKING ABOUT GADGETS HERE.

So since race seems to matter so much to you. Here I am, an Asian, telling you this: GET OVER YOURSELF.

[greg @ Sep 25th 2007 10:27PM]

The Chinese HAVE created their own technological innovation, I dont why this "they can only copy" thign keeps makign the roudns when evidence says the opposite. They are now selliogn the worlds first solar powered phone (cell phone), and developed their own DVD standard that is supposoidely better than the new standards like Blue Ray. DO a quick google and spend a bit of time and you can find them.

Japan, now a big "innovator", was doign innovating but a lot of copyign in the 60'd and 70's until its economy developed. The west also did the same after ti saw some great inventions in Chian a coupe of hundred years ago.

Please, lets leave the racism at the door.

I also do believe, from past reading, that Apple arent any angels with regard to copying to.

[tekdemon @ Sep 29th 2007 2:26AM]

Actually Mike I, the real reason why Chinese-American kids tend to excel at school is the simple fact that their parents tend to (not always obviously) be some of the smartest people from their country, lol. I mean, half of the people got out of there because they were smart enough to get some kinda student visa or whatever to come over here, or some kinda professional work visa or whatever. It's not like the US is huge on just letting some random hick immigrate over here, so anybody immigrating in is going to automatically be way more talented than the people who aren't immigrating over.

Yeah, there's also people who came over illegally, but it's pretty damned hard to save up the kinda cash that you'd need to get over here, so anybody who can pull it off probably wasn't all that stupid or lazy to start with either.

Point is? Your average Chinese-American kid is probably going to be smarter just because his parents have a MUCH higher chance of having been well-educated and intelligent people. I believe the last study done showed that the people immigrating to the USA from China were in the top 0.1% most educated people in all of China, the PhD's and MDs get to come over legally, your average broke Chinese factory worker has no chance in hell of making it over here.

The culture explanation might be part of it, but seriously, those kids excel because they have the natural brains AND they work hard.

By the way? Immigrants (the legal kind) in the USA from MOST countries tend to be much more successful than minorities who didn't immigrate in. This applies to everyone from Jamaicans to the French to the Chinese to Indians to Koreans to Peruvians to Nigerians. If you're talented and smart enough to get into this country legally? Chances are that your kids are gonna be damned talented and smart too, so long as you don't totally screw up their education in every way possible.

[June @ Oct 8th 2007 10:04AM]

@ Mike I

This is what happens when you say something and don't come back for a while.

Quote: "Your comments are quite racist..."
Excuse me. But what is this? Grade school? That you purposefully take my comment OUT OF CONTEXT? Do I have to spell it out when the evidence for the provocation of my comment is scattered throughout this thread?

This is the context:
June:"You really think that Chinese are stupid? Why don't you tell that to the Chinese student in your class who is smoking the rest of you?"

What is so difficult to understand about this? I'm responding to people who are saying that the Chinese are stupid JUST because they are Chinese, as if the race of a person has anything to do with how smart someone is.

I know the fact that they are smart has nothing to do with the fact that they are Asian. But the fact that China isn't developing any new innovations in the past few decades has nothing to do with the fact that they are Asian, either!!!!! THAT is what I am pointing out.

If you are too dense to understand that, especially since I specifically spoke to whoever was saying that the Chinese are stupid, then I don't know what to tell you.

Why don't you get over yourself and actually read the comments in this thread?!!!

Okay, I was trying to find the comments that I was responding to in order to post them there; but it's getting harder and harder to find them because of Engadget's weird commenting system that allows older posts to be bumped down by newer posts that are tacked onto the oldest posts.

So you get a pass this time; but know that I was responding to comments of racism made in this thread.

[Liam @ Sep 21st 2007 5:35AM]

Wow, it's funny how you're getting so frustrated over this. It's pretty obvious that this is a blatent copy of the iPhone UI. And no, a company isn't going to admit that it copied off another. Did you get really annoyed when Vista integrated new 'gadgets' onto the desktop? Get real and stop being so naive.

[Jason @ Sep 21st 2007 8:08AM]

Actually, I used to use Konfabulator, and I got really annoyed when Apple riped that off and put it in OSX.

[rp @ Sep 21st 2007 2:06PM]

Apple did not rip off Konfabulator. It is well known that Apple already had widgets called "Desk Accessories" in an early version of their OS.

[Igor @ Sep 21st 2007 5:37AM]

isnt it obvious? apple spied on them and because they have more resources could bring iphone faster on the market

[webon @ Sep 21st 2007 6:30AM]

true tha!

[Evinyatar @ Sep 21st 2007 5:37AM]

If it's open, simlock free and 3G, let them.

[Steve Handjobs @ Sep 21st 2007 6:05AM]

You might have a different opinion if you were the Lead Designer on the iPhone, or any member of the team that busted their balls to put out an innovative, first-class product only to watch some talentless clods rip it off before it was even officially launched.

The only reason you could ever dream of having this kind of technology is because of intellectual property rights that drive the hi-tech sector. Free-riders like Mr. Wong would be prosecuted in any normal country that wasn't obsessed with blind economic growth without regard for the cost.

[Steve Handjobs @ Sep 21st 2007 5:58AM]

You might have a different opinion if you were the Lead Designer on the iPhone, or any member of the team that busted their balls to put out an innovative, first-class product only to watch some talentless clods rip it off before it was even officially launched.

The only reason you could ever dream of having this kind of technology is because of intellectual property rights that drive the hi-tech sector. Free-riders like Mr. Wong would be prosecuted in any normal country that wasn't obsessed with blind economic growth without regard for the cost.

[Hong @ Sep 21st 2007 6:35AM]

What a shitbag! Do you think ANY other country would give a damn about copyrights if they could reach such huge growth-rates with breaking them? And don't forget: It was you -- the english-men -- who put China in a war just for being able to sell them f*cking opium..

[blade417 @ Sep 21st 2007 9:01AM]

LOL! His name is steve handjobs.

[Nick @ Sep 21st 2007 9:09AM]

@Hong

please explain to me what a war and opium have to do with Intellectual Property?

side note: That shit was in the 1850's! like anyone alive today had anything to do with that bullshit. Its like people wanting me to pay reparations for shit I never did.

[Jamar @ Sep 21st 2007 10:41AM]

No, I wouldn't feel differently; if the product I designed was unnecessarily locked down (AT&T exclusivity) and crippled (where's the 3G?) by a bunch of corporate idiots, then let my product fail, because it doesn't do the job right.

[Mog @ Sep 21st 2007 5:41AM]

Wait...Igor...seriously?

And, uh, no shit, the M8 is a ripoff of the iPhone. This is news? We might not have seen all the interface shots before, but we saw enough - and the hardware is identical. (Yes, any all-screen phone is going to look similar - but not Meizu-M8-similar.)

[lestat @ Sep 21st 2007 5:50AM]

sarcasm is lost on you eh?

[Liam @ Sep 21st 2007 5:51AM]

Sarcasm 1
Mog 0

[Ronald McD @ Sep 21st 2007 5:46AM]

Wow, I can't believe this got its own panties-in-a-bunch article. Either Thomas is a huge Apple fanboy in panic mode, or he was only recently introduced to China.

[Thomas Ricker @ Sep 21st 2007 5:55AM]

@Ronald McD,

Actually, neither is true. Meizu has gone on record stating that they are *not* copying the iPhone. They've gone to great lengths to prove that they had their design before Apple unveiled theirs:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/14/meizu-ceo-we-only-kind-of-knocked-off-the-iphone/

Our Keepin' it real fake series does a good job of documenting Chinese clones. However, only Meizu had the balls to come forth and claim that their design had no relation to the iPhone and that any similarity is purely coincidental. My mama taught me not to lie, I hold Meizu to the same standard.

Thomas

[Cleverboy @ Sep 21st 2007 6:10PM]

Wow, Thomas... we must read this part in different ways...

"--the design was still undergoing changes, and when Apple launched their product, so Meizu reworked the aesthetic, added some metal, slimmed it down, and voila, M8 cum miniOne. We recognize that's some serious gray area for Meizu to be treading--"

Could it be because they LOOKED at what Apple did... and then COPIED many aspects of the design, to make their phone look much more similar to it? It's only a "gray area" because Meizu admittedly was inspired in the DESIGN phase by the launch of the iPhone. When people say something is a CLONE, it is because it was inspired by the look of something else, if not outright copied. It's like someone dressing like you, and wearing their hair the same way... you'd say, "What are you? My clone?"

As an example, the iPhone wasn't "inspired" by the LG Prada... it was in motion long before that... in fact, other than a full-screen capacitive touchscreen, the phones were going for totally different aesthetics (the Prada not having metal at all as it creates very distinct design issues with reception).

It's amazing how political things get with the definition of "clone" and the hype around the iPhone. HTC Touch is an iPhone clone, just like the MiniOne. Not on the form factor, but on many of the interface conventions... while clearly being both limited by Windows Mobile, and also trying to do something as graphically "Wow" as the iPhone's Core Animation effects. At the end of the day, it was too much for the time constraint, and most agree its hardly fullfilling on its moniker. Moreover, now that Apple's changed their mind, they'll need to reconsider their pricing. ;)

[BFish @ Sep 21st 2007 5:50AM]

1-2 years and Nokia will show their copycat version, they should really learn the speed from chinese ;)

[annoia @ Sep 21st 2007 12:06PM]

Yeah, I wonder what that will look like... http://www.engadget.com/2007/08/29/nokias-iphone-no-seriously/

Let's see what comes out first.

[Liam @ Sep 21st 2007 5:53AM]

Ye I totally agree. Thomas seems like a bit of a frustated Apple fanboy at that time of the month. Perhaps if he doesn't have enough knowledge of international markets and competitive practices, he shouldn't be posting here.

[nikster @ Sep 21st 2007 6:14AM]

Seems like it's a new fashion to stick that "Apple fanboy" label on anyone and everyone.

I like the iPhone. "Apple fanboy! RaahhRahhRahahhh." But it's a good product. "No only fanboys think that, the iPhone is crap." How about the iPod. "All marketing hype that only Apple fanboys fall for." There sure must be a lot of Apple fanboys on this planet - I never knew.

It's irrational. It's silly. It's ... the fear of a Mac planet!

[Ceralor @ Sep 21st 2007 10:42AM]

No one ever said only Apple Fanboys fall for Apple products. Steve's RDF that his black turtle-neck emits controls many people, mostly those who care about hype rather than doing their own research. I did my research when I picked up a PMP, and I got a Creative Zen Vision:M rather than a Zune or an iPod. Yes, the Vision:W has a bigger screen, but has half the battery life.

Any y'know what? All my friends with iPods are jealous of my Zen, because it has more features than their iPod does, supports more formats, works with any system and not just iTunes, and sounds better.

[John @ Sep 21st 2007 11:44AM]

No, the fashion is to stick a fanboy label on anyone who doesn't care about facts and just spouts tripe about how great any one product is. Apple has a disproportionate number of these. No one says the iPhone is crap - it was widely called overpriced, and unsurprisingly, it received a massive price cut soon after its release. iPods are not the best DAPs, feature wise, for their price. That is - hardware wise - an indisputable fact. You may be able to claim that the interface is what makes it so good, but that is unable to be objectively measured, so while it may be the best player for you, someone else might not give a damn. So how do you tell if someone's a fanboy? You look if they're ignoring facts to make a better case for some particular company or product, or overreacting to something. In this case, not only is this a gross overreaction, it's also ignoring that Meizu has been planning this for some time, before the release of the iPhone.

[Thomas Ricker @ Sep 21st 2007 11:57AM]

@Liam,

Meizu has gone on record stating that they are *not* copying the iPhone. They've gone to great lengths to prove that they had their design before Apple unveiled theirs:

http://www.engadget.com/2007/02/14/meizu-ceo-we-only-kind-of-knocked-off-the-iphone/

Our Keepin' it real fake series does a good job of documenting Chinese clones. However, only Meizu had the balls to come forth and claim that their design had no relation to the iPhone and that any similarity is purely coincidental. My mama taught me not to lie, I hold Meizu to the same standard.

Thomas

[GazzyC @ Sep 21st 2007 12:29PM]

I think I will have a Zen then :-) one question can they record from Line in?

[LEXX911 @ Sep 21st 2007 2:02PM]

@Thomas Ricker

Man, stop repeating yourself. Stop acting that Apple never copying anyone else. How about explaining to us how Meizu displayed their touch ipod like before the itouch was released?