A company in North Korea named Ryonghung have released a tablet called the ‘iPad’ which explicitly exploits international trademarks in the knowledge that Apple are unlikely to knock on their door.
This tablet is a low powered machine with a quad core, 1.2 gigahertz processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM and 8 gigabytes of storage. It does come with a keyboard and HDMI, however, something not currently offered for free with the Apple iPad.
According to reports, there are over 40 apps on the Ryonghung product although some may have to be loaded through SD cards. It’s also said to have “network connection capabilities” but users will probably have to use the country’s strict intranet service.
The trademark of iPad has been a problem for Apple in the past. In 2012, the company paid $60 million to settle a dispute with the name’s Chinese owner Proview despite them no longer using the name. Additionally, this isn’t the first time that North Korea have imitated Apple products. In the past there has been an iMac clone and an operating system called Red Star 3.0 which mimicked OS X.
