North Korea has taken a bite of Apple cool with its own state-backed smartphone - which appears to be a rip off of the iPhone 3.
Sold in three colours, the so-called 'Pyongyang Touch' appears to be a clear copy of the ageing Apple gadget - except with a few localised alterations.
Basically, don't expect a flood of Instagram photos of young clubbers partying in Pyongyang, since the pariah state's strict censorship laws mean phones marketed in the country can't call overseas and have no Internet.
No details of the devices' technical specifications have been published, but pictures published by pro-North Korean Japanese outlet Choson Sinbo suggest it is running a modified version of Google's Android operating system.
The genuine article: The iPhone 3GS seems to be the inspiration behind the Pyongyang Touch, which observers say is a remodelled Chinese product
It is unclear whether the phones - available in in pink, navy blue and white - are actually being made in North Korea.
State-run media announced last August that the country had begun making a smartphone called the 'Arirang' using home-grown technology.
But photographs of the country's portly young leader, Kim Jong Un, visiting the factory apparently making the phones raised suspicions that the mobiles were merely Chinese imports rebranded for the North Korean market.
Mobile tech website GSM Insider reported last week published a photographs comparing the Arirang phone with the Chinese-made Uniscope U1201 that appeared to confirm that suspicion.
'Both devices are 97 per cent similar except the brand, the network support and the operating system,' a reporter for GSM Insider wrote.
'The logo of Uniscope was replaced by the Arirang logo in the Korean language while the network support as well as the OS must be modified based on the regulations in North Korea before official release.'
Despite apparently having managed to build its own nuclear weapons, isolated North Korea lags well behind its Asian neighbours in technology.
Crash landings of suspected North Korean drones in South Korean in recent weeks have revealed they are little more than remote-controlled toy aeroplanes equipped with consumer-grade cameras available for just a few hundred pounds.
No comments:
Post a Comment