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The VICE Guide to Right Now Podcast

What We Learned from This $100 Counterfeit iPhone

Here's what happened when we tore it apart.
Image: Chris Kindred

Motherboard tore down a fake iPhone that reporter Sarah Emerson found while reporting in China, but while the phone was counterfeit, the find was strangely informative.

The phone looked like an iPhone X: It has the same form factor, most of the same detailing, no home button, the same volume rockers and side buttons, a working Lightning port, and the same speaker holes on the bottom of the phone. It even came with an instruction manual explaining how to set up Face ID. But on closer inspection, the phone was actually an Android reskinned from top to bottom to seem as close to an iPhone as possible.

On today's episode, Motherboard's Jason Koebler and Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai talk about how they broke open the fake iPhone, and what it told them about security, devices, and Apple.

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