Perhaps this is the answer to product piracy, hype up thing and release a different product. Could bring a whole new meaning to vapour ware.

Still anyone who has bought one might have a collectors item.

If it works and is cheap.

I mean on the one hand you can pay a premium for the iPhone, something I'm in no hurry to do, or you can buy a cheap rip off of a concept of a concept, which probably classes it as an innovative product once I file the Apple logo off.

Where could I get one of these I wonder? *wanders over to eBay*

The boss picked one up in Thailand back in November, so I'd suggest they have been on the market for a little longer than that. It looks cheap and nasty as you'd expect, but you would be surprised how easily people are duped by a nock off with an apple logo on it.

The touts in Shanghai follow you down the street saying "iphone, iphone, iphone..", my usual response was "Who do you want to phone?"

There must be an awful lot of profit for a forger to build a working (?) copy of a phone... of course that profit is probably far more if its just a case with cheap generic GSM internals made to look like the MiniMe Jesus Phone.

Paris, well, because if reports are true she's not had enough experience to fake it - yet.

Apple has been known to internally pass around bogus information before now - the so-called "Asteroid" break-out audio peripheral for Garageband that never was - with the express purpose of tracking down leaks. It's a fairly standard process: make different information available to employee group 'A' and employee group 'B' and see which tidbit makes it to the outside world. By selectively narrowing things down you can get a good idea of who's got the biggest gob. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened here.

That, or Steve is fucking with the accessory manufacturers who spilled the beans too early last time, by fooling them into tooling up for a product that doesn't exist. XSKN I'm looking at you.

I just don't buy that they could make the form factor that much smaller without killing the usability.

Why dont they just release it in its own right and hope no one sues them for patent stuffs!

From Canada already.

http://shop.ebay.co.uk/merchant/bmluxury

Go on, get one and try it for yourself. Here's a link:

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/MINI-IPHONE-NANO-EDITION_W0QQitemZ180319025285

Don't let the lack of seller ratings put you off. I would get one.....

I want one now that I've read this...

Thats just the i9, same size as the iphone but with mini on it...

which makes it a fake fake with extra margin on it...

Wow, worth having one of the Canadian ebay ones for the "Camera: 130 milion pixels high-definition digital" alone I would have thought ;-)

You can find them on ebay.

Crappy software, sure, but iPhone look-alikes in a smaller form factor have been available from the dodgy shops in the far east for some time. Many of them are Dual-SIM capable too.

This is the terrible state of affairs that happens when nobody protects Intellectual Property properly. It's a shameful mess, suddenly a vibrant marketplace springs up in which consumers get many more products and genuine price-competition.

Wait, what?

The point is, it DOESN'T work, once you get beyond the main switch on screens it's nothing like an iPhone. Trust me on that one.

Second one down is listed as a nano.

I was under the impression that a lot of fakes are made in the same factories as the real ones. Just that they are made over night without reporting the extra stock.

Maybe Apple released some info for the nanophone to the producers? Intentionally?

The fake nanos have bids already! £120! suckers.

Or is it people wanting to know how good that fakes are(n't)?

You mean the bluetooth works and it can copy paste?

These are probably just rebranded iClones, most likely, not the real deal.

Look up brands like CECT and Meizu. Chinese companies making similar looking devices, some with similar capabilities and smaller form factors, clearly in violation of any number of patents, but quite pretty and quite nice nonetteless.

Oh, and I doubt they run an apple OS, if you care about that.

If the "Counterfeiters" get their product out 1st, can't they slap Apple with a cease & desist for copying? And, claim $millions in damages!

Interesting.

Get out of that one Mr Jobs

Dominic - getting one of these would make you a prize idiot. Just because it looks like an iphone its nothing like one - no multi touch, no OS X, no app store.

I bought a fake iPhone Mk1 out of curiosity for £89. It was dire, but interesting exercise in how something which looks so similar and is so similar on paper can be a world apart. It would be a good experience for design students.

How can it be "counterfeit" if the "original" item does not exist ?

Ok the Apple logo is a naughty, but counterfeit it isn't.

I don't want appstore, OSX or multi touch.

I want a cheapish touchscreen phone sim free with some reasonable functionality, As I said, I'd file the apple logo off, otherwise I would look pretentious.

Saw the auction, thought it looked real nice.

Forwarded info to friend along with comment on how long before it is pulled.

Friend sends back auction gone.

Maybe eBay people read the Register?

you are right with that my old boss was from singapore in the manufacturing business, he said that in the factories his dad ran they would expect 35-50% of the goods to be made by the staff and to be taken, this was taken into consideration for the final manufacturing price of goods so there are alot of genuine "stolen" goods that may be unbranded knocking about but there are always those who do try and immitate.

But I bet has more functionality than the iPhone.