The Apple Peel 520 is a little encasement that slides over any jailbroken iPod Touch in order to turn it into a functioning mobile phone. And as we have recently heard, it will soon be available in the US. The first units will only be available only in black, but other colors like white,orange, green, pink, red, yellow, and blue will become available later. It essentially contains everything necessary for a fully functioning like an integrated microphone for speech, integrated speaker for hearing recipient on call, durable hard shell design, charging port, volume buttons, reset button, battery and SIM card slot.
The Chinese siblings who created the gadget that converts Apple Inc.’s iPod Touch into an iPhone, Pan Lei and Pan Yong, declare that they not copycats, but rather innovators.
The Apple Peel 520 is a case which contains a circuit board and battery that slides over an iPod Touch media player, enabling phone calls to be possible after software is installed (the iPhone voice calling and text messaging app and the “YsSMS” and “Yosion” apps). The gadget, which requires jail breaking the iPod Touch, is not a fraudulent iPhone, one of the brothers told Bloomberg Television.
“We’re capable of coming up with something original,” Pan Lei said in an interview.
According to the company, over 220 million iPod music players have been sold since its first release in 2001. The first Apple iPhones were released in 2007 and reached 2.7% of the global market share by last June. I iPhone has inspired many copycat phones from the Chinese grey market.
“The brothers who invented this Apple Peel probably ran down a list of how many ways could they annoy Steve Jobs,” said chairman of the American Bar Association’s Trademarks and Unfair Competition Division Jonathan Hudis. “I could not see Apple standing by to let this continue, especially if it results in product shipping into the United States.”
US users could potentially save up to $710 by using the device to be priced at $120. Apple is aware of Apple Peel and has reaffirmed that any product that has been tampered with in such a manner will no longer receive any warranty support.
US iPhone owners can get an iPhone for $99, but are required to sign a two-year contract with AT&T, paying at least $39.99 a month for a total of $1,059. The iPod Touch sells from $229.
The Apple Peel is going for for 520 yuan ($78) on Taobao.com, China’s biggest online shopping site. Yosion has arranged offering the gadget in the US through New Orleans-based Go Solar USA Inc., whose website also instructs owners how to “jailbreak” their iPod Touch in preparation for the installation of the necessary Apple Peel software.
“We’re also very creative,” Pan Lei said. “Not just getting a Nokia phone and copy, getting Apple and copy, or a Samsung phone to copy as well. It shouldn’t be like that.”
According to Gartner Inc. Apple was able to sell 8.7 million iPhones around the world in the second quarter of this year, achieving a 2.7 percent market share, trailing Nokia Oyj and Samsung Electronics Co., Apple also sold 1.7 million of the iPhone 4, inside of three days of its June 24 launch, it explained in a statement.
The Apple Peel does have some operating quirks like you cannot established custom ringtones for incoming calls, you cannot forward or delete a single SMS message, and such. Nevertheless, if the $120 price of sounds like a bargain to you, you can order one from Peel520.net, and it begins shipping October 4.
One interesting thing is that they actually point out on the website in bold letters that you should “be sure to know the current disadvantages before ordering”. It does not, however, state what those disadvantages are.
