Roger Fingas
A North Korean firm, Ryonghung, has reportedly launched a tablet called the "iPad," seemingly exploiting international trademarks in the knowledge that Apple is unlikely to come knocking.
The North Korean product is a low-powered machine with a quad-core, 1.2-gigahertz processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, and just 8 gigabytes of storage, according to NK News. It does however come with a keyboard and HDMI, both of which are paid add-ons for Apple's iPad.
Ryonghung's product is claimed to have "more than 40 apps," although some of these may have to be loaded through SD cards. While it's also said to have "network connection" capabilities, users are likely to be forced onto North Korea's highly-restricted intranet.
Gizmodo noted that the hardware appears similar to an Android tablet seen in North Korean stores as far back as 2013.
In fact the country has sometimes seen other imitations of Apple products, such as an iMac clone, and an operating system called Red Star 3.0, which mimicked OS X.
The iPad trademark has proved problematic for Apple before. In 2012 the company paid $60 million to settle a dispute with the name's Chinese owner, Proview, despite that entity having long since stopped using the term.
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48 Comments
Should have called it the Kim Jung Un-Pad. I'm sure that would make his highness, the royal POS, giddy as the fat schoolgirl he resembles.
IP theft, trademark/copywrite infringement is pretty common all over Asia. It is almost like a cultural norm, and they typically don't understand that they've even done anything wrong.
Really it has an 8GB hard drive... I though everyone in North Korea were farmers or soldiers, did not know they made electronics.
Actually I believe most of this is actually made in China and trucked in to the country across the Chinese boarder.
I got a sweet Ryonghung BOGO IPad Grewpon so I picked two of these bad boys up -- one for me and one for the wife. Killer deal! Thanks, great leader!
Somehow I doubt anyone will be confusing the two.