Keepin' it real fake, CXL: Cottage MP3 player apes iPod nano 4G a year in advance

Why, this is downright preposterous! How dare the copyright-ignoring, astonishingly uncreative minds of those at Miao copy Apple's latest iPod nano design a full year in advance? They should be implausibly embarrassed by churning out a so-called Cottage MP3 player in 2007, all while the brains at Cupertino sat and pondered how to make its tiny little PMP that much better. This, people, is an outrage. An outrage!

[tm75tm @ Sep 12th 2008 7:47AM]

Ha - someone beat them to the punch.

[acer @ Sep 12th 2008 8:06AM]

not much difference between fakes and originals.. they're molded in the same factory.

acer @ 2oni.com

[SOOPERGOOMAN @ Sep 12th 2008 9:52AM]

I think maybe it time they sued Apple for stealing "THEIR" design...

[ZeroCorpse @ Sep 12th 2008 11:20AM]

Acer's actually, probably right. A lot of the clones are made in the exact same factory as the original. Corrupt managers will actually lease out the space (and the equipment) at night and during holidays. While the owners and regular workers are away, the counterfeit company cranks out a bunch of clones using their own materials and similar (if not identical) schematics.

This was documented in Popular Mechanics Magazine (or was it Popular Science Magazine?) in mid-2007. I can't recall the issue, but the article was pretty fascinating. One of the car manufacturers was astounded that the clone version of his company's car was entirely interchangeable (and cheaper, and thus more popular) than their own. They said you could replace almost any part on the real car with a part from the clone car, and the reason for that is because the pirates not only clone the cars, but they clone the factories that make the cars, and work out deal with the same raw materials suppliers.

China's counterfeit industry is quite amazing. We have nothing like it in America.

So acer wasn't taking a swipe at the iPod. He was merely pointing out that in all likelihood, the counterfeiters used similar, if not the exact same equipment to make their product, and that they likely stole some plans for this form factor long before it was in production.

The guts are certainly not identical, and the interface is nothing like an iPod, but the basic clone components are there.

[Jagster @ Sep 12th 2008 11:32AM]

So is the point that Apple is the counterfeiter since these no-name ones came out a year ago? I guess Apple found out where these are made and paid one of the corrupt managers for some space in the factory and the schmatics. Shame shame Apple.

[NamarieMike @ Sep 12th 2008 12:33PM]

Problem with suing China counterfeit dudes are laws in that country. What should be happening is a top level agreement between US and China goverments (and for that matter all other affected companies and countries) to take advantage of that "cloning" capacity. Have those companies not only have a "licensed" lower pricing branding not intended for use where the original products are located at.

This will allow the counterfeiters to keep on churning copies, but have part of that money funnel bck to the parent company that created the original and still allow local workers in all countries to keep their jobs. No worry about moving production to another country or worrying about loosing money.

Everybody wins....hey. I just solved macro economic issues......!!!!

[EmerilLIVE @ Sep 12th 2008 7:49AM]

This just in! Large Hadron Collider makes time travel possible!

[SOOPERGOOMAN @ Sep 12th 2008 9:53AM]

Hey guys I'm back from the future.

[Mike @ Sep 12th 2008 2:56PM]

@ SOOPERGOOMAN

Did you stop your parents from meeting each other, you're fading :D

[rumo @ Sep 27th 2008 12:08PM]

@MIKE: in the future?? :P

[iEye @ Sep 12th 2008 7:50AM]

Yea, I bought one of those just for fun... cost me $40...you have to convert all the video to MTV format...

I am surprised no one has copied the iPhone 3G yet!

[gad get @ Sep 12th 2008 7:52AM]

They've already copied the iPhone, so wouldn't copying the virtually identical iPhone 3G be kinda redundant?

[Wooshman @ Sep 12th 2008 7:57AM]

MTV Format? So you had to cut out all the music videos and instead cut in reruns of ''The Real Life''?

Sounds horrible. Maybe Apple's version of this player isn't so bad after all.

[Nate @ Sep 12th 2008 9:34AM]

I bought one of these by accident on eBay. The guy had them listed as iPod Minis. I got this hunk of junk instead. I'd say this was probably a year and a half ago.

I didn't really care. It was cheap as dirt, and not long after I bought it, the guy was kicked off of eBay.

[voodoo @ Sep 12th 2008 7:52AM]

The year old fake probably has better battery life and codec support though.

[Nual @ Sep 12th 2008 7:53AM]

I say sue Apple

[gad get @ Sep 12th 2008 7:55AM]

ROFL!

[gad get @ Sep 12th 2008 7:54AM]

This just shows how uncreative Apple is. They copied a copy of themselves! Heehee! :D

[ivanotter @ Sep 12th 2008 7:57AM]

"You know how a copy of a copy isn't 'quite' as sharp as the original?"

[absinthe party @ Sep 12th 2008 8:23AM]

"we're gonna eat a dolphin!"

[ElevatorHappyFun @ Sep 12th 2008 9:10AM]

We arent going to EAT a dolphin, chief we're going to PET one.

[ivanotter @ Sep 12th 2008 7:56AM]

Hehe this confirms to me my feelings of dislike for the new Nano.

I said before: it looks like one of those cheap knockoff MP3 players.



God I, didn't was Psychic! ;-)

[ivanotter @ Sep 12th 2008 7:59AM]

Gahh posting at 5:30 AM without sleep is BAD idea

Meant to say "God, I didn't know I was Psychic!!"

Which doesn't quite work either....

[Wolfticket @ Sep 12th 2008 8:04AM]

You should have said: I had a funny feeling I was Psychic.

[Darkroom @ Sep 12th 2008 8:54AM]

god wished i'm psychic

[gad get @ Sep 12th 2008 7:57AM]

Just to clarify, that's not a picture of the copy up there, it's the real iPod. Follow the link to see the copy.

[gad get @ Sep 13th 2008 4:03AM]

OK, now they've got the clone pictured.

[Adam @ Sep 12th 2008 7:57AM]

Doesn't even look like the new iPod. It looks identical to the 2nd gen nano witch was already out in 2007.

[gad get @ Sep 12th 2008 7:59AM]

Except for the screen, which matches the new Nano's larger, tallish display.

[Adam @ Sep 12th 2008 8:28AM]

O right I see what your saying Apple totally deserves to be sued...NOT! If you think that taking a 2nd gen nano and adding a taller screen makes it your own product, your very very wrong. They are lucky apple didn't put them out of business when they released it. The shape and rounded edges are exacly like the 2nd gen.

[happy_penguin @ Sep 12th 2008 8:10AM]

Reading the translated link is hai-larious.

[Jack @ Sep 12th 2008 10:29AM]

I second that

"The netizen said that the official announcement of the new Apple (fourth generation) iPodnano on the screen in order to intensify the idea of horizontal video player and built-in microphone (or horn) is designed so that he feels familiar"

....see engadget, u should change ur style of reporting things

[Boris @ Sep 12th 2008 8:14AM]

And yet we're going to have Apple users screaming how Miao copied Apple since Apple had already planned this design years ago.

[ds @ Sep 12th 2008 8:26AM]

The best thing is the machine translation of the AP sports links on the right:

To criticize the Chinese people who are dog feces

[Mobius_1 @ Sep 12th 2008 8:28AM]

That "knockoff" even has memory slot for microsd! Maybe Apple should pay more attention when copying things...

[Panga @ Sep 12th 2008 8:34AM]

In Brazil we used to say: Don't create anything... copy everything when something like this happen.

This is not new. And usually something is copied because it is cheaper and then you just need to improve one thing here or another one there.

It is a shame that such a big company like Apple do this, but hey, this is not new right.

[Serial 8-Ball Mouse @ Sep 12th 2008 9:06AM]

Wow. No wonder Brazil is such a world leader in technological innovation. With sayings like that, how could it not be?

[happy_penguin @ Sep 12th 2008 9:08AM]

I thought you said "mais que nada"...


Oh wait, that was Sergio Mendes.

[wetworker @ Sep 12th 2008 9:43AM]

No wonder they are still trying to make Capoeira a Brazilian martial arts instead of African.

[Josh @ Sep 12th 2008 11:16AM]

at serial 8-ball mouse: ever hear of BRIC?

[eiki @ Sep 12th 2008 8:59AM]

slow news day? it's a copy of the 2G with a slightly larger and totally inferior display, the OS also sucks, just go on ebay you can see any number of copies and wierd hybrids of unrelated products, if the body was curved like the new nano, that's news, this is not

[eiki @ Sep 12th 2008 9:03AM]

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[harveyhanson @ Sep 12th 2008 9:04AM]

Yeah it may look a bit like it, but, UI is not the same obviously, and one of the things about the new Apple iPod Nano 4g is its thin, these dont look thin, and if someone took a head on photo, I bet they wouldnt be the same shape.

But, at least engadget are publicising something which is going against the Apple loving, enjoy it while it lasts, soon the Engadget Apple love will be back!

[konshuss @ Sep 12th 2008 9:25AM]

a banner on that page caused me to find my perfect chinese match!

[pditty @ Sep 12th 2008 9:39AM]

A store at the Arundel Mills mall here and MD has been selling this item or one extremely similar for at least 2 years.

When the 2G nano came out, so did this long screen "MP4" video playing music device.

[Rob Pribish @ Sep 12th 2008 9:57AM]

yeah its strange but then you think about it, that's a copy of the ipod nano 2G with a different screen. It was an easy change to make so that it wasn't too blatant of a copy, though it appears to have an fm radio which ipods have been lacking(and that 50 dollar inline headphone tuner thing doesn't count)

[john @ Sep 12th 2008 10:03AM]

I'm surprised no one mentioned this:


These don't look much like the NEW iPod Nano at all. wrong screen dimensions, flat face, etc.


What they look like are the OLD/original iPod Mini's. Which predate 2007 by quite a bit.

Maybe Engadget needs to do better research.

[Josh @ Sep 12th 2008 11:22AM]

other people did mention it, but +1 anyway, i agree, this is 2G nano with a slightly different screen

[kphitman13 @ Sep 12th 2008 10:25AM]

Well ill give it to apple. Another stolen mp3 player design. ( Well not really stolen, i guess Cottage stole Apples design first, but who doesnt like to rip Apple, right? ) However, Cottage did it right. LOOK! AN FM RADIO! If this was because its a low budget device, or because they realized people might like it, good for them! HINT HINT APPLE! Oh wait, you know what. I bet Cottage used the LHC last year, went forward in time and stole the 4g ipod design. Yea.... time travel.

[arctopus @ Sep 12th 2008 10:36AM]

This article sucks.