In Zhongguancun(中关村) or the technology hub of Mainland China’s capital, a plastic cover especially designed for the iPod Touch is now getting a high sensation among gadget geeks, Beijing Daily reports[C]. This cover is named “Apple Peel(苹果皮)” and can enclose a SIM card, a battery and a microphone which is not embedded with the iPod Touch and allows you to talk on the phone via the device. It turns the iPod Touch to enable 120-hour standby/4.5-hour talk. A description given for the item on Taobao explains it enables sending/receiving phone calls and SMS as well.
Street prices at real stores in the district are around USD240 for each of the device, and it is being sold around USD75 on Taobao[C], China’s biggest B2C e-commerce site and a subsidiary of Alibaba.com. A unit of the iPod Touch 8GB costs around USD230 in Mainland China, and that of the iPhone does around USD750 there. That means, if you get the cover for as cheap as USD75, a combination of the iPod Touch and the cover can be more economical than a single device of the iPhone.
Masaru IKEDA