Oh the irony! A PCWorld report has a Chinese company called Shenzed Great Loong (yeah, two ‘O’s. Can it be any ‘longer’?) Brother Industrial thinking about suing Apple, saying that Apple copied the design of their Windows-based P-P-P88 netbook tablet released last year. This would have been just another story, until you learn that the Chinese company is known for producing knock-off phones themselves, called “shanzhai” or “bandit” phones.

“For this thing we are not shanzhai, because we were first,” said a company representative named Wu. If you read between the lines, Wu-man sounds like he just said “yeah, we know we copy stuff, and you know we’re rip-off artists, but this time someone stole from us. That ain’t fair, and we’re out for justice!”

Ok, we don’t think anyone’s going to believe that Apple “stole” the concept or design of a tablet with a black, glossy frame. Sure, they look the same (kind of), but we’re pretty sure that if you give, say, ten of the top tech brands a week to design a touch-based tablet, there’s a good chance at least two of them come up with a touchscreen with a black frame, right? Guy should have just admitted he was pissed because they felt they were “out-shanzhaid” by Apple, and that should have been the end of it.

Also, wouldn’t it be cool if Apple just went out and said, “We didn’t copy from you. Actually, we just made an oversized iPhone. You want proof? Check out this email from Steve Jobs that he sent a couple of years ago,” and then they pull out a 2008 email from Jobs that says: I think we should make another iPhone, but bigger. Drop the phone parts, keep the OS, and just make the screen bigger. Get on it boys. -Steve”

But if by chance Apple did get the inspiration for the iPad’s design from these guys, well, that’s just justice. Now, we’re not Apple-freaks or fanboys, but if Apple bitched about every touchscreen phone that came out that looked like an iPhone—and there are a lot of those going around in China and the Southeast Asian region—well, that stuff is going to get old. By the way, have you seen the knock-offs? You got “iPhones” with flip-out keyboards (although that one’s actually a good idea), “iPhones” running Windows Mobile, and “iPhones with the Apple logo facing the other way.

Anyway, in case you were curious about the tablet that’s allegedly more original-er than the iPad, here are the details: the P88 is a 10-inch touch-only device that runs on an Intel Atom processor and 2GBs of memory, and comes with a DVD drive, a 250GB hard drive, Wi-fi, Bluetooth and optional 3G connectivity, and support for Windows XP/Vista/7 operating systems. It’s actually a pretty decent kit… if only they played it cool.

Tags: Apple, iPad, Tablet PCs, Tablets

Related Entries

• $100 off! Now’s the perfect time to buy yesterday’s iPad
• Apple outs new “iPad is iconic” ad, highlights a heap of available apps
• The ‘iPad 2’ out by late February? It could happen (but probably won’t)
• Apple outs new “iPad is Amazing” ad shows off iOS 4.2 perks
• No more iPads for April 3rd buyers

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.