The new Xiaomi smartwatch hasn’t yet been officially launched, but the company has shared images and details for the device, which will probably be named the Mi Watch.
Unsurprisingly, for a company born out of copying Apple devices, the Mi Watch bears an, er, strong resemblance to the Apple Watch…
What do you call an Apple Watch Series 4 that isn’t actually an Apple Watch but has the same design and faces? Huami called theirs the Amazfit GTS, and it may be the most shameless knockoff we’ve seen yet.
Earlier this week, Xiaomi announced its new Mi CC9 smartphone that comes with a blatant copy of Apple’s popular Memoji feature, called “Mimoji.” Now that retail listings have appeared for the new Xiaomi device and animated emoji feature, an even more ridiculous thing has happened, the Memoji clone has been promoted by Xiaomi with an actual Apple Memoji ad.
Xiaomi owes its very existence to Apple, created to bring Apple product clones to the Chinese market. The company did seem to have somewhat succeeded in finding its own identity more recently, but it’s back to its old tricks with its latest Mi 9 smartphone, due to launch on Sunday …
Apple’s HomeKit seemed to be the star of the show at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, with a wide range of home-based gadgets — TVs, ceiling fans, outdoor sensors, light panels, a screen-based hub, 4K security cameras, thermostats and more — making headlines.
The HomeKit ecosystem is growing, and it looks like prices may even begin inching downward as well — but that’s not enough, and not fast enough either. As Bradley Chambers wrote in an opinion piece, Apple is leaving a lot of potential on the table by relying solely on third parties to create home-based gadgets.
Apple clone-maker Xiaomi launched its $29 AirDots back in November, true wireless in-ear headphones whose branding and white color were an obvious play on AirPods. Details have today emerged of an even more blatant AirPods clone, copying Apple’s ‘stick’ design …
Xiaomi – a Chinese company which turned cloning Apple products into a hugely successful business –has announced AirDots, an AirPods competitor costing just $29 …
It didn’t take long for the first Android clone of the iPhone X to appear, in the form of the Leagoo S9. The phone copied both the rounded corners and notch on the front of the device, along with the vertical camera bump on the rear.
And today a more familiar brand has done the same with Xiaomi’s Mi 8 …
The latest Apple Watch clone is now available and offers an interesting amount of features for a sub $100, iOS-compatible wearable.
Chinese brand Xiaomi created an entire business out of copying Apple, seen in everything from an iOS-like skin for Android through websites and product launches – but perhaps the most blatant example was an iPad mini clone it named the Mi Pad.
Xiaomi even applied for a trademark on the name, prompting legal action by Apple, and the Cupertino company has now scored a partial victory …
Apple is looking in pretty good shape this week. After posting a record quarter, IDC reported that the iPhone overtook Samsung during the holiday quarter and Strategy Analytics estimated that the Apple Watch – which also saw record (if unspecified) sales – also took 63% of the smartwatch market.
It wasn’t all good news, however. Alongside a continued slump in iPad sales, the company also reported a 12% fall in sales in China. This contrasted with 14% growth a year earlier. Apple explained one of the reasons for this during the earnings call, but it wasn’t the only one, as the WSJ noted …
We’ve been seeing concept images for a near-bezel-free iPhone 8 for some time now, but there’s a big difference between a purely visual concept and a real-life product. Concept images can completely ignore the engineering challenges, along with the practicalities of such things as earpieces and front-facing cameras.
But Xiaomi’s latest phone, the Mi Mix, shows just what is possible in a real-life phone …
Following the rumor that Samsung plans to bring 3D Touch style features to next year’s Galaxy phones, it’s no surprise to hear a report that Apple’s greatest fan – the Chinese company Xiaomi – plans to do the same.
The report from a well-known Chinese tipster says that Xiaomi has patented a technology similar to 3D Touch, notes GforGames. It’s believed Samsung plans to use a Synaptics touchscreen controller, while it’s unclear whether Xiaomi plans to do the same or has created its own technology.
Known as ‘the Apple of China,’ Xiaomi has made a living copying everything Apple, from the Mi Phone, with an iOS-like Android skin, to the Mi Pad, a clone of the iPad mini. CEO Lei Jun even took to copying Steve Jobs’ trademark blue jeans and black turtleneck shirt at one point, later using his ‘one more thing‘ line in Apple-style product launches.
Xiaomi – a Chinese company noted for cloning Apple’s product designs, iOS look-and-feel and even keynotes – is once more rumored to be going after the MacBook Air with its own premium-look laptop.
Rumors first surfaced at the end of last year, with an apparently Photoshopped image very reminiscent of the MBA design. Xiaomi at the time denied that the image was its work, and said that it was actually a clone known as the Kaka i5. But Bloomberg reports that the company is indeed considering launching an ultra-light laptop in the first quarter of 2016.
Xiaomi Corp. is considering the introduction of its first laptop early next year, people with direct knowledge of the matter said, opening a new front in its battle against Apple Inc. and Lenovo Group Ltd. Xiaomi’s notebook may go on sale in the first quarter.
The company is said to have held talks with Samsung to discuss the supply of memory chips and displays for the un-named laptop. Both Xiaomi and Samsung declined to comment.
Apple has lost its top position in smartphone shipments in China, reports Canalys, falling from the #1 slot it achieved in Q4 of 2014 to #3 in Q2 of this year.
Canalys did not reveal Apple’s market share (a number it would like its clients to pay for), stating only that Xiaomi took the top slot with a 15.9% share, with Huawei close behind at 15.7%. A separate market size estimate from Counterpoint, with similar numbers, suggests that Apple’s market share in the country may have fallen to around 12.2% … Expand
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Tim Cook, who is in China this week to discuss Apple’s new environmental initiatives, spoke to Chinese media regarding his plans to further expand Apple services in the country. Speaking to news outlet Xinhua, Cook discussed a variety of topics, including his hope to launch Apple Pay in China and get a smartphone in the hand of every resident.
According to the latest numbers from IDC, Xiaomi—the rising star of the smartphone industry—has managed to pass up Samsung in China. In 2013, Xiaomi trailed Samsung’s almost 19% market share by a solid 13 percentage points (at just 5.3%), and was only the 5th largest maker of smartphones in China. Things changed in 2014. Last year, Xiaomi finished off with 12.5% of the market, almost a half-point more than Samsung at 12.1%, taking the top spot and passing not just Samsung, but Lenovo, Huawei, and Coolpad as well.
Interestingly, though, the latest numbers also show that Apple’s launch of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus contributed to a decent size dent in both Samsung and Xiaomi’s market footprint in Q4 of last year. Expand
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Following on the heels of a record-breaking quarter for Apple, Strategy Analytics has crunched the numbers and crowned Apple the king of the smartphone vendors for Q4 2014—or rather, one of the kings. It seems the Cupertino company managed to tie rival Samsung for the title.
Both companies shipped 74.5 million handsets during the quarter, though Samsung still outsold Apple in terms of the annual total by a hefty margin. Those quarterly sales gave both companies an equal marketshare of 19.6%.
Image via <a href="https://twitter.com/DarthMowl/status/555617448138137600" target="_blank">Darth Mowl</a>
After teasing a super-thin new smartphone earlier this week, smartphone maker (or, maybe more accurately, “smartclone maker”) Xiaomi revealed its 2015 flagship model, the Note. Just to be clear, this is an entirely new device, and doesn’t seem to be related to the company’s existing “Redmi Note” smartphone.
It’s also not related to Samsung’s similarly named devices, though it hardly seems unreasonable to think that Samsung’s execs aren’t exactly pleased with the name. iPhone users may detect quite a bit of irony (karma, perhaps?) watching the Korean company squirm as it gets ripped off by a competitor, though.
The 5.7-inch phone is positioned as an iPhone 6 Plus competitor. It features a 1080p display, a 13-megapixel camera with optical image stabilization—a far cry from Apple’s 8 MP shooter—and a 4 MP front-facing camera.
Xiaomi has definitely been growing fast in emerging markets, but until now the company has focused mostly on stealing as much of Samsung’s Chinese smartphone market share as it can. According to Gartner’s most recent numbers, the company rose in Q3 to take a spot in the world’s top 5 smartphone manufacturers. But the company has other products beyond just smartphones, and now it has apparently begun working on a new Mi-branded laptop—and, to no one’s surprise, it looks just like a MacBook Air.
Update: a Mi spokeperson has refuted that the image in question is a Xiaomi laptop. This appears to be the original.
Just weeks after Xiaomi overtook Huawei and LG to become the world’s third-largest smartphone maker, The Guardian reports that the Chinese handset maker’s chief executive and founder Lei Jun is out with a bold prediction that his company could move past Apple and Samsung to become the world’s largest smartphone maker within the next five to ten years. Expand
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Not content with a blatant copy of the iPad mini and a smartphone called the Mi Phone, Xiaomi’s latest Android overlay – MIUI 6 – bears more than a passing resemblance to iOS 7. The flat icons, the icon screens scrolling above the fixed app tray at the bottom, the calendar, calculator, compass … Expand
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You’d think it would be pretty hard to deny that Chinese Android phone and tablet manufacturer Xiaomi copies Apple – yet that’s exactly what former Google exec and now Xiaomi’s global vice president Hugo Barra tried to do in an interview with The Verge.
Allegations of it copying Apple are “sweeping sensationalist statements because they have nothing better to talk about,” he says.
Well, let’s see …
Let’s start with the company’s phones. Admittedly they don’t look much like iPhones, but they are called … the Mi Phone. Still, I’m sure that’s coincidence.
Then there’s the company’s tablet. No prizes for guessing the name of that. And here’s what the Mi Pad looks like – remind you of anything?
Barra says that’s coincidence, too.
“If you have two similarly skilled designers, it makes sense that they would reach the same conclusion,” he argues. “It doesn’t matter if somebody else has reached the same conclusion.”
Let’s look at the marketing materials. Hmm, anyone ever seen spec boxes like these anywhere before?
What about a product launch. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is, but there’s something about a company CEO on a stage wearing blue jeans and a black turtleneck that looks somehow familiar …
Still, Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun toned it down today, swapping the turtleneck for a t-shirt as he introduced the company’s new wearable, the Mi Band. Sacha Pallenberg tweeted this photo of Lei Jun’s original approach to the launch, making a smaller announcement first and then introducing it with the words …
But hey, two similarly skilled presenters are going to reach the same conclusion about how best to spring a surprise, right?
Top image credit: Business Insider
Android may have the raw numbers, but iPhone users have always been the ones to make the most use of their phones – from web browsing through enterprise to paid apps. Mobile analytics company Flurry reports that one Android brand has finally caught up – but only in China.
Over the past 6 years, the average Apple iPhone consumer has spent more time in apps than consumers of every Android device we track- by a wide margin. This year, it looks like the story is about to change. In an analysis we conducted on a random sample of 23,000 devices in China throughout January 2014, we found that Xiaomi is now in the lead as far as time-spent in apps is concerned.
It’s no coincidence that the brand is Xiaomi. The company, and its CEO, has blatantly copied Apple’s marketing approach in every way from product launches right the way down to the Steve Jobs style clothing of the company’s founder. The company even recently announced an iPad mini clone known as the Mi Pad.
Xiaomi’s antics have so far been ignored by Apple, which has been focusing on developing good relationships with China, but given the company’s ambitious international expansion plans, there may come a time when Apple has to take a harder line.
(via TNW)