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China Iphone Apple Hardware

In China, Some Apple Users Opt For iPhone Makeover Rather Than Buy New (reuters.com) 106

Posted by msmash from the interesting-things dept.
Instead of buying a new iPhone model, some Chinese iPhone owners are giving their old models a makeover to look like the latest version -- a trend that could dent Apple's efforts to boost sales in what has been its biggest growth driver. Catherine Cadell, reporting for Reuters: Online sites offer shoppers makeover kits, false cameras and even dust plugs to hide the removed headphone jack to give their iPhone 6 or 6S the appearance of the iPhone 7 -- Apple's latest flagship product which launched last month. The makeover quirk mirrors a broader view among some Chinese users that the iPhone 7 doesn't have enough new features to convince them to trade up. "I don't have the money to upgrade, and the (iPhone) 7 is just so-so," said a Beijing-based sales worker, who said he was getting a Shenzhen firm to replace his iPhone 6 back casing with a fake iPhone 7 shell. "I'm changing it to show off," he said, giving only his surname Gao as he wasn't sure that what he was doing was legal. Searches on platforms including Alibaba's Taobao showed a range of products to transform older phones to an iPhone 7 -- from stickers and engraving services to replacing the outer casing and even some of the hardware.
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In China, Some Apple Users Opt For iPhone Makeover Rather Than Buy New More

In China, Some Apple Users Opt For iPhone Makeover Rather Than Buy New

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  • DIY (Score:4)

    by DeBaas ( 470886 ) on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @11:55AM (#53155425) Homepage

    So they did just did it themselves in stead of paying Apple for it

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Joce640k ( 829181 )

      Just more proof that Apple owners only upgrade for style/fashion reasons, not for new features.

      • Just more proof that Apple owners only upgrade for style/fashion reasons, not for new features.

        More so in China, because of the gender imbalance. Among dating age Chinese the imbalance is about 10%, so Chinese girls can be very picky, and the guys are under pressure to show they can afford the latest gadgets. They need every edge they can get.

        • I secretly wonder if instead of invading Earth, aliens are instead filming us to produce some kind of nature show to laugh at how silly humans tend to be.

          Hell, that would be a pretty cool show anyhow, aliens or not. Get David Attenborough to narrate and millions would watch.

      • I'm surprised no one thought of racing stripes or pasting a VTEC sticker on their iPhone to make it faster... that's what all the cool Fandroid boys are doing.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by fubarrr ( 884157 )

      I believe that two of my friends were the ones who put founding bricks in this industry back in iphone 4 times. When they were studying in Hong Kong, they were using PVD chamber from university's lab to cover the inner side of the front glass in few microns of gold and made a good business out of that.

      They had an Alibaba outlet where they were selling glasses and whole refurbished phones with aforesaid treatment applied. Amazingly people were willing to put up USD 2k for a finished golden iPhone, rather tha

  • Bling power... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by __aaclcg7560 ( 824291 ) on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @12:06PM (#53155507)
    If you can't afford a real Rolex, buy a fake Rolex for five bucks. It's not like your friends can tell the difference anyway.

  • So incredibly shiny, and bendy, on purpose!

  • The biggest breakthrough Apple had with the iPhone was TouchID. Everything since has been a better camera and it runs faster. The problem is my 5s is plenty fast and the resolution is more than good enough.

    Once cordless charging gets to the iPhone and the resolution goes above 1080p, then that's a game changer. Once the screen goes to OLED, that's a game changer. Until then, my iPhone 5s is plenty fast with a great screen.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      Meh. Cordless charging just means an extra buck on my utility bill every month from the efficiency losses. And screen resolution is already so high that it exceeds the average human eye's ability to see individual pixels, so raising it won't improve things noticeably.

      OLED might be a nice improvement, but after that, there's very little left to upgrade other than speed and putting back the headphone jack. I mean, I suppose they could add a light field camera, or they could add a 3D screen with a narrow v

      • Meh. Cordless charging just means an extra buck on my utility bill every month from the efficiency losses.

        I'd gladly pay 3 cents a day for built in wireless charging. I had it with my windows phone and it is a wonderful feature.

        And screen resolution is already so high that it exceeds the average human eye's ability to see individual pixels, so raising it won't improve things noticeably.

        While the 5s has a "retina display", it certainly isn't 1080p or higher. I'm not asking for for more pixels just for more pixels.

    • TouchID is nice (I have it on my iPad) but it's hardly anything new. I had a friend with a fingerprint reader on a notebook before iDevices were even a thing. Like most other things, Apple just made a really good implementation that didn't suck so badly that people just ignore it. I don't really get what people expect out of mobile devices beyond incremental upgrades every year. The things already do a damned good job of fulfilling their purpose. Tacking on new things for the sake of new or change is just i

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by necro81 ( 917438 )

        Apple just made a really good implementation that didn't suck so badly that people just ignore it

        Which is why GP referred to it as "the biggest breakthrough". Making "a really good implementation" ain't nothing, as evidenced by the fact that so many companies do it so poorly. The same was true with the iPod and the original iPhone: they weren't the first, but Apple's were a damn site better than what consumers had been told to accept.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward
      If only there was another phone available right now which had all these features - fingerprint ID, 1080p+ resolution, cordless charging, and an OLED screen [gsmarena.com]. Then you wouldn't have to wait...

  • Stupid human nature (Score:4, Insightful)

    by iampiti ( 1059688 ) on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @12:23PM (#53155633)
    This need to show off nets the smartphone makers millions of sales every year. Most of those people couldn't tell the difference if you gave them a 3 year old smartphone in the enclosure of the new one.

  • Hated the iPhone 6 and 7, so I bought the Asia-only iPhone 5 SE with 64 memory.

    Small, fast, long battery life, fits in my pocket.

    Fashion is knowing that nobody wears watches anymore. And big phones are a sign you're wasting cash.

    • Fashion is knowing that nobody wears watches anymore.

      I see a lot of people wearing fitness bands. Which are also watches.

      • Nobody wears cheap happy meal digital watches anymore. However, if you spend more than $1000 dollars on a watch, you *WILL* wear it.

        • Like I said, the key to being fashionable is realizing nobody cares about your excuse to waste $1000. that could buy you 10 solar panels, for example.

          Which would power your house. If you didn't waste mortgage money on $1000 watches you don't need that are unfashionable.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

      Hated the iPhone 6 and 7, so I bought the Asia-only iPhone 5 SE with 64 memory.

      Small, fast, long battery life, fits in my pocket.

      Fashion is knowing that nobody wears watches anymore. And big phones are a sign you're wasting cash.

      The iPhone SE is not Asia-only. It's worldwide. It's an interesting Apple experiment trying to see if the demand for large screen phones is because people want large screens, or because the good phones had large screens and people didn't really care for having huge screens. Given th

      • And if you buy the latest Android, you can use it to toast s'mores!

      • I was glad to see when they announced the SE it indicated that whenever my 5S dies people will still make pocketable phones. With the 90s PC-style upgrade boom slowing with phones it will be interesting to see how the market stratifies further.

  • I have noticed that, as of late, Slashdot stories link to Reuters articles - and Reuters is definitely the top news organization in our solar system (as far as we know).

  • I'd rather have the opposite: a kit to give the new one a normal headphone jack.

    • I'd rather have the opposite: a kit to give the new one a normal headphone jack.

      You haven't seen the youtube video? You can do it yourself!

  • Life imitates art (Score:5, Funny)

    by bcmm ( 768152 ) on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @01:03PM (#53156017)
    http://appleplugs.com/ [appleplugs.com]
  • Its all fun and games until someone tries to throw your "iPhone 7" in the pool since they think its waterproof

  • And project Ara was doomed to failure? (Score:3)

    by swb ( 14022 ) on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @01:46PM (#53156363)

    It sure seems like some people would be into a modular phone, considering what they're willing to invest in cosmetic-only upgrades with no functional purpose.

    Maybe the Ara project approached it wrong -- rather than looking at phone upgrades from a purely geek-centric perspective of specific hardware improvement modularity, maybe they should have considered the "trend" factor would be a driving force -- ie, people would be willing to buy modules that weren't really an upgrade, but instead were popular or had some other trend factor.

    • Back in The Old Days, every last somewhat-seedy mall kiosk carried a wide variety of 'shells' that were snap on replacements for the plastics of whatever Nokia was relevant at the time. As the number of phones that either have removable parts or are designed to survive without a case has declined, cases appear to have moved into filling a similar niche.

  • This is kind of sad, really. These people lust for the new product but will fake it in order just to fool others into thinking they have it. And they even admit that there's no compelling reason to 'upgrade' to the new shiny. It's a techno-tragicomedy.

    • This is kind of sad, really. These people lust for the new product but will fake it in order just to fool others into thinking they have it. And they even admit that there's no compelling reason to 'upgrade' to the new shiny. It's a techno-tragicomedy.

      I don't know how much "lust" is going on there. A lot of it is about social status. Both for the purpose of showing off in the corporate hierarchy, as well as in social/dating life, it's important to demonstrate that you can afford the latest, and this isn't an easy cycle to break. As an American, I have a hard time relating... the closest comparison I can make would be with cars. For many, your social standing can be measured by the car you drive. (I'm glad this is finally changing among the younger genera

  • No phone port? No upgrade I say. Ether way, China will find a way to cheap out.

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