This is pretty cool. The folks at Cult of Mac bought some $14 knockoff earbuds fro the iPhone. They look exactly like the iPhone earbuds but “broke down in a week.”
Advertised as genuine Apple iPhone Stereo Headsets, I bought two pairs last month on eBay because they were half the price of Apple’s. Surplus or something, I thought. The eBay seller says they are based in New Jersey, but the earbuds were sent from the Philippines. Free shipping.
At first I thought they were genuine. The packaging is perfect. The box has all the Apple branding, and the same plastic tab Apple uses to hang the boxes from hooks in its stores. Inside, there’s the same white plastic pouch and a warranty pamphlet that’s an exact facsimile of Apple’s.
Dude Ebay is full of scams like this – same with Amazon marketplace. Worst yet you can buy the same ones for like $2 on Deal Extreme.
I bought some off of eBay for like $7, and $2 shipping. They sound, look, everything the same as the original iPods that came with it. They haven’t broken yet, so I am still not sure if they are real or fact but they work great!
OK wait…
They look, sound like, and come in the same exact packaging as the earbuds you can overpay for in ye olde apple store. Your only insight into them being anything but real is that they broke in a week? Hell… Maybe it’s a stolen shipment? Maybe Apple just sells them cheaper in the Philippines?
Why not make use of the fake warranty that looks exactly like the real thing?
Or perhaps you find it impossible that an apple product may be faulty?
Give us a reason to believe these are fake please.
I’m not a fan of either. They are so uncomfortable.
I’ll take the very unsanitary headphones you jam right into your ear instead
I went through the exact same thing a couple of years ago with an XBox controller S I took a chance on from Hong Kong. It looked real until you opened it up.. Just like the walmart cheap ones inside. and didn’t work from the start, hence opening it up. I reported back to microsoft and ebay. The seller wanted to send me a replacement… I just dropped it and swore to never buy anything from that part of the world again! (like I can really avoid that!)
So, they’re exactly like the iphone headphones.
omg
i’m 100% these are fake. they are not stolen shipments or what have you, haha. there aren’t any copyright laws in China so you see fakes everywhere.
if you don’t believe me, search ‘fake ipod heapdhones’ on google; there are plenty of guides. there are knockoffs of sony headphones too.
i gotta admit though, the quality from the fake apple headphones i bought weren’t too bad, i could only tell they were fake because they broke in a week
haha!