03 June, 2017
The tablet includes a North Korean version of WebMD, that the maker says can "diagnose up to 1,200 ailments", together with other apps, including a dictionary. It looks a lot like the weird, firewalled computers the country has produced in the past, with the addition of one curious new feature: The name. The Ryonghung IPad is now being advertised in the country but its price has not been revealed.
Electronic devices such as smartphones and tablets are not rare in the country but the latest release has caught the attention of the rest of the world for having nearly the same name as one of Apple's most popular products.
Well, officially it is the Ryonghung iPad, but still, "i" + "Pad" = Apple trademark.
Apple - if it takes the effort - might be able to defend its trademark in the reclusive totalitarian state.
Frankly, you have to give the North Koreans credit for having the gall to rip off the world's richest company, seemingly while giving zero damns.
North Korea apparently loves Apple products because they have copied the California-based mobile magnate once again. Ironically, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un praised his country's IT manufacturers for their "creative ingenuity" when they duplicated an iPhone in 2014.
It's unclear what kind of software the new Ryonghung iPad runs, but it runs something. According to the picture of the product, the tablet's specs are: 1.2 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage.
It also has "more than 40 apps" reports NKnews.org, which is considerably less than the official Apple App Store, which has 2.2 million.
But the adverts do show SD cards and programmes including a calculator app, a health encyclopedia, a medical app called "Good Doctor 3.0" and a farming game.