Apple to stop CeBIT presentation of iPod shuffle clone

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After the company Luxpro banished its "Super shuffle" from its CeBIT stand on Friday, the iPod Shuffle lookalike again put in an appearance on Saturday. "It's not identical with the iPod Shuffle, it's better" - that at least is the way one of the people presenting the device for the Taiwanese company sees it (Hall 24, Stand C24-1). Under the name Super shuffle Luxpro is presenting an MP3 player with Flash Memory that at first sight cannot be distinguished from the iPod Shuffle.

Urged by Apple's lawyers Luxpro had taken the player out of its show cases on Friday, only to put it back in again on Saturday for the benefit of the weekend visitors to the CeBIT event. Who, moreover, did seem to show an interest in the device: The player offers besides all functions present in the genuine iPod shuffle an FM tuner, a WMA playing capability (according to the manufacturer also with digital rights management) and voice recording - only AAC support has to be dispensed with.

View: Pictures of iPod Shuffle Clone

News source: heise online

What's New in This Release:

· added support for PCI-Express cards
· fixed 16x AF mode
· fixed image sharpening status for 6xxx series GPU
· added new ForceWare Direct3D database
· updated Pixel shader settings for 6xxx series GPU
· updated Vertex shader settings for 6xxx series GPU
· updated Performance wizard
· updated Russian translation
· AGP setting page option is not show if PCI-e card is on board
· some others small fixes and changes

#1 Netrack on 14 Mar 2005 - 15:54

lmao...it looks dead on the same thing

(6 replies) #2 roxics on 14 Mar 2005 - 15:57

I'd like to see a picture if someone can find one. The links to the site aren't working.

#2.1 roadwarrior on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:00

Look at a picture of an iPod shuffle. They look identical (which is part of the reason Apple wants them shut down). The only difference is that it has two switches on the back instead of one.

#2.2 dolimite35 on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:05

try this:


whoa i just tought about something...FM tuner without a display, that sould be fun.

#2.3 Netrack on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:14

lol about the radio w. no display

#2.4 roadwarrior on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:25

As several people on the link Dolimite35 posted stated, there are only usually a few channels that you can pick up on FM in any given area, and you aren't usually going to be changing between them very often, so the lack of a display isn't really a problem (so long as it auto-tunes fairly well).

#2.5 Surr3al on 14 Mar 2005 - 21:38

A few channels??? There are a lot more than a few stations where I live, and making assumptions that someone usually won't change them frequently is wrong.

#2.6 Foub on 14 Mar 2005 - 21:41

There are many FM radios now that don't have a display, they scan for the station. You can get them for a $1.00 as well.

#3 dolimite35 on 14 Mar 2005 - 15:58

i wonder what the price will be

(5 replies) #4 roadwarrior on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:05

Before anyone criticizes Apple for pressuring Luxpro to stop showing the Super Shuffle, remember that there is such a thing as "trade dress", which means you can't sell something that looks exactly like another company's product. That is what happened to eMachines when they made an iMac clone years ago. Just imagine the confusion if Kia was to make a car that looked exactly like a Corvette. Same thing here.

#4.1 dolimite35 on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:13

very true

I cant wait for the first reply to your commet that starts off with "there not the same" or "you cant compare the two"...dont you just love thoses people

#4.2 Netrack on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:16

yOU kent CoMPAre dem 1 is white teh 0ther is EGGGshell !!!one!1!!111 2 diphrent c0lorsos

#4.3 sparkyewu on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:27

QUOTE

Eh? What are you saying? I dont speak monkey...

#4.4 krono6 on 14 Mar 2005 - 17:45

I do...He is saying that the Banana on the West Side of the Hemisphere is sometimes Purple........You needz sum Monkeh Lessonz!

#4.5 willvg on 14 Mar 2005 - 22:39

lol i still use my emachines eone 433 i love it, it is a shame that its a clone of the imac

#5 mallow on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:20

I'd buy it.

#6 thefunkymunky on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:37

OMG. That thing looks exactly the same as the iPod shuffle. These guys are taking the p**s. Although copying something is the highest form of flattery. Apple should be proud they have produced something yet again that someone wants to copy.

#7 nic on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:38

This product looks exactly like the iPod Shuffle, no doubt about that. New features or not, they are riding on the marketing campaign and success of Apple's iPod Shuffle in order to sell their product. That is wrong.

(3 replies) #8 SapUMBC on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:45

I'd love to know how someone is supposed to work that radio with the Shuffle's controls...

#8.1 roadwarrior on 14 Mar 2005 - 17:00

The same way you work most auto-tune radios (there are plenty of them on the market without displays, usually in the toy section at Wal-mart). Flip the switch on the back to the radio function and press the "next track" button on the front to select the next station till you find the one you want. Unless you have a huge number of stations in your area, you probably will only have a dozen or so to go through till you find the one you want.

#8.2 Briatic on 14 Mar 2005 - 18:14

98% of US radio stations aren't worth listening to anyway

#8.3 SapUMBC on 14 Mar 2005 - 18:25

Briatic makes a good point... I guess that's part of the reason people buy iPod's, etc.

#9 kirk26 on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:45

Wow, it looks better than the iPod shuffle! LOL.

#10 thefunkymunky on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:49

Yeah it has an extra button on the back.

#11 kaffra on 14 Mar 2005 - 16:50

i wonder hows the pricing, would get 1 if they did sell it

#12 eSouL on 14 Mar 2005 - 17:02

the sound quality is better than ipod shuffle. i've tried it.

#13 [idkfa] on 14 Mar 2005 - 17:07

I'll buy the successor (if Luxpro still does exist then

), as it will feature a display, too.
That'll be a nice player for running

#14 krono6 on 14 Mar 2005 - 17:48

Firstly, that looks exactly like an iPod Shuffle.....Jeez, leave it up for an Asian Market! Did you notice how long it takes before they release a Flood Load of Clones??
(I'm not being Rascist...Just stating the Market Issue

)

(3 replies) #15 Koyder on 14 Mar 2005 - 17:59

You're joking, right, saying you'd buy it? It's a blatant rip-off, that's what it is. If you have any regard for intellectual property or just other people's hard work, you should never consider buying this piece of crap. If I rewrote the "Lord of the Rings" novel word for word, changed its title to "King of the Rings", added a chapter in which Frodo discovers that Smeagol is his father, printed it on toilet paper and sold it for a lower price, would you buy it, too?

#15.1 Briatic on 14 Mar 2005 - 18:16

As long as it's soft toilet paper, what's the problem? I can see the book could come in very handy, especially if you don't want to read it again

#15.2 SapUMBC on 14 Mar 2005 - 18:23

I'd buy it just to read about Smeagol getting laid. There's an MP3 clip on the 'net somewhere that is Smeagol having sex, but I'm much too lazy to go find it.

#15.3 kaffra on 15 Mar 2005 - 01:05

i dont care about companies 'hard work'. if it performs well, good price, why shouldnt i buy it?

(2 replies) #16 macster on 14 Mar 2005 - 18:46

I dont mind some competition for Apple. But this is just copying...

#16.1 EduardValencia on 14 Mar 2005 - 18:58

yup,that's why i dislike asians ,masters of copying,and dumping

#16.2 slang123 on 14 Mar 2005 - 19:25

Thats why i hate all girls, coz one of them cheated on me.
Oh wait no, thats just stupid reasoning

(2 replies) #17 angrybrit on 14 Mar 2005 - 19:26

It's amazing how Wintel companies have no creative ideas of their own. I wished they'd try INNOVATING and THINKING by themselves. Wintel companies are truly freeloaders and idea thieves.

PS: More money for Apple. lol

#17.1 darksoul on 14 Mar 2005 - 22:04

how is this related to Wintel? It doesn't involve microsoft no intel in any way.

#17.2 PCyr on 15 Mar 2005 - 03:33

He's a troll (and an illiterate one as well), just ignore him.

Features copied in Panther from XP:
-Video Conferncing
-Fast User Switching
-Faxing
-File Encryption
-Zip handling
-just to name a few

So Apple isn't the saint some people make it seem to be.

(3 replies) #18 superterran on 14 Mar 2005 - 19:33

Since nobody has mentioned it yet, I'd like to point out that Apple doesn't have the best track record in the world for respecting intelectual property...

Even if they did; all cars have steering wheels, but nobody can claim ownership to that. The name might be pushing it too far, and nobody can deny the design's practically identical - but for christ sake... Apple stole the idea from Creative, Creative stole the idea from the thumb drive, the thumb drive stole the idea from the floppy disk, the floppy disk was stollen from IBM, i think, by the Woz and thrown into the Apple II; so if you really think about it - this is all apples fought. If he didn't quit a few decades beforehand, i'd fire him... f'''in pirates.

Really; cheap knock off's run rampid in our sub-culture; hell - look at every Microsoft product ever publically released. Saying you won't buy something because it's supperior to the product they stole the idea from is kind of stupid. If you're running AMD processors then you're guilty, if you're using Microsoft mice or keyboards then you're guilty... unless you're running a system from Xerox you're using cheap knock-off hardware stollen from hard working americans. Ought to be ashamed!

#18.1 Pdj79 on 14 Mar 2005 - 20:39

Please tell me you are kidding. Your comparison is flawed. You can't compare Apple's "theft" of the mouse, floppy disk, or use of a GUI to this company's obviously blatant attempt to cash in on Apple's product. First off, Xerox wasn't sold on the idea of personal computing to begin with, seeing as they were in the business of office copier solutions. So Apple wasn't trying to circumvent sales from an established product, they simply capitalized on an unrealized opportunity that Xerox missed the mark on. Its not like Xerox has a massive foothold in personal computing and Apple came along, released something that looked EXACTLY like Xerox's machine/OS and included something useless like an extra button that allowed you to view over-the-air television broadcasts on your monitor. This is exactly what Luxpro is doing. They are taking the iPod Shuffle, adding a button to listen to the radio, and supporting the major formats NOT associated with Apple. It steals the design, function, and feel of the iPod Shuffle, and with its name alone, its obviously poised to confuse the average consumer on which is which. And your calling AMD "cheap, knock-off hardware" is borderline retardedspeak. I don't see you saying this about Japanese cars...Henry Ford invented the car, which, if I use your example, would mean that the Japanese auto industry just stole the designs and the engine and make them cheaply...nevermind the fact that they have improved gas consumption 10 fold in their cars and have created more reliable vehicles than Ford or any of the other Big 3 auto-makers, of which 2 of them (Ford being one of them) are now jointly owned by foreign "thieves". Give it a rest, Apple-hater. They created a product that sells, deal with it.

#18.2 Koyder on 14 Mar 2005 - 20:57

There's a huge difference between "borrowing" an idea (show me a company that hasn't done it) and stealing a complete product design. The former involves creativity and effort (see: iPod, Mac OS, Windows), the latter is just a thoughtless disgrace to human inventiveness. Yes, all cars have a weel, all MP3 players have a "play" button, and all poems have stanzas. But if a player looks identical to the iPod shuffle, has identical earphones and in every other way strives to resemble the original, then it's nothing but a pathetic and thoughless intellectual property theft.

#18.3 superterran on 15 Mar 2005 - 19:35

You guys are missing the point. First, when you look at it; Microsoft’s Windows was a cheap knock-off of Apple’s Macintosh design. Second, five years ago, everybody thought AMD was a cheap knock-off of Intel’s Pentium II and III processors, just like 10 years ago, everybody thought the Cyrix and the Hercules was a cheap knock-off of the Pentium MMX. I mean, they ripped off everything from Intel, even the MMX architecture. How can you sit there and defend the blatant ripping of Intel’s products? Or Apple’s for that matter? Even if AMD did improve on the Pentium processor, you still shouldn’t buy it because it does the ‘EXACT SAME THING AS THE INTEL VERSION!’ Programs look exactly the same, they may run a little faster, but Intel getting the shaft because the K6-2 was half the price. I mean, hell – even when the Athlon XP came out, they did a numbering scheme designed to confuse people into thinking the processors had a higher clock speed.

You just don’t have a case. I admit the design is identical, and it is a rip into Apple’s Shuttle, but sitting there and screaming ‘I’ll never buy this superior product because it looks like the apple product I’m wanting to buy’ is really stupid. This stuff happens all the time; they took the design of a closed ended product that only supports two formats; and they put an FM transceiver on it and open the codec support, and you people are angry about it – because these guys are practicing just about the same way every big player in the technology landscape does. You’re a hypocrite. Think about this, there has to be some legality to this, companies don’t just release major products and hope they aren’t royally screwing the copyrights to hell… think; I bet this thing is completely legal.

And to the other guy: saying that all desktops have icons, but if they put the icons in the same place, that’s going to far… brilliant. Ever think that maybe, because they all use the desktop metaphor, they’re all ripping each other off? I mean, Longhorn’s going to include a bash-like command interface, just like Apple and Linux, Tiger supports fast user switching, just like Windows. Linux has WINE designed to run windows applications, and I bet that’s A O.K, right? Seriously, you’re complaining about something that happens all the time… on every computer we run, and you’re acting like this is an outrage? Were y’all just as outraged when Tiger introduced Widgets? I mean, they stole that from some poor, hapless company…

(And just to cite; the racism that’s rampid in this thread is bull****… what the hell’s wrong with you people? Just because an Asian company decides to pull a fast one, doesn’t mean that every single asian is a bad person… that’s just stupid.)

(1 reply) #19 jix on 14 Mar 2005 - 20:25

here are a few photos from CeBIT

CeBIT

But there's one thing, regardless of what happened between Apple and Luxpro, I think some people have overreacted a bit. There is no need to discriminate asian people. First, Chinese people did not do it, it was a Taiwanese company. Second, the computer that everyone's using now, more than 60% of the components are made in Taiwan. All these MP3 players are made in Taiwan, even iPod Shuffle, so Luxpro is just producing their own MP3 player from Apple's idea.

#19.1 WinXPro on 15 Mar 2005 - 02:31

yeah i've heard of workers in china (could happen in any other places as well) who work for one company may copy their plans then bring it outside the factory and produce their own fake ones to make more money.

it's sort of like betraying your company, but they don't care since they are just working in a factory and the company has nothing to do with them.

(5 replies) #20 SlakeT on 14 Mar 2005 - 21:06

Apple once again show us all how lame they really are.

#20.1 Koyder on 14 Mar 2005 - 21:21

It's comments like this one that make me want to leave this site and never go back. Seriously, if you have a point, at least try to back it up with some arguments. Provided that you have a point.

#20.2 Steven on 14 Mar 2005 - 21:30

Yes Apple is lame for wanting to protect their products. The Nerve of them!

#20.3 PCyr on 15 Mar 2005 - 03:40

double post

#20.4 PCyr on 15 Mar 2005 - 03:40

Ignore him, he is an arrogant, biased, sterotyping, and discriminating troll.

And that's coming from a Windows user.

#20.5 Jstphish on 15 Mar 2005 - 04:41

Hahaha, I was thinking that when I saw who posted it. Him and g-n-t. Don't listen to them, they always say the same old garbage.

(1 reply) #21 WinXPro on 15 Mar 2005 - 02:28

I remember a while ago i saw a clone of the iPod mini except with a few enhanced features too.

I'd be pissed if I spent time on designing the iPod shuffle then have some other company copy and modify it and make it better without my permission, and did not benefited me.

But I'm not Apple so I don't really care about how they made (copy) it, just the final product I care about, because I am a consumer.

That probably have given Apple idea(s) for the second generation shuffle seeing so many fellow Neowin members wanted one of these "Super Shuffle"s.

#21.1 Pdj79 on 15 Mar 2005 - 12:52

But why would you want this clone? Because it plays radio? I thought the whole point of shelling out $100 for one of these is because there's nothing remotely redeeming about commercial radio anymore. Had this included an XM or Sirius receiver, then I might stop for a minute and pay attention, but in the end, this is not something worth making. Its the exact same thing as the iPod Shuffle...so what if it plays radio...radio doesn't play what we want to hear...that's why we have this mp3 player. I swear some of you are obviously such Apple-phobes that you will allow your disdain to cloud your logic. And to throw in my final $.02...how do you know this product is superior to Apple's when its not even released yet? Have you used it? Do you know for a fact it has better sound quality? No. Considering the look is identical, something tells me the components are the same as well, which means it only sounds better......in your mind. Get over yourselves. And all this coming from a Windows user...the thought.

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