North Korean company launches own 'iPad,' ignoring Apple trademarks

The North Korean product is a low-powered machine with a quad-core, 1.2-gigahertz processor, 1 gigabyte of RAM, and just 8 gigabytes of storage, according to NK News. It does however come with a keyboard and HDMI, both of which are paid add-ons for Apple's iPad.

Ryonghung's product is claimed to have "more than 40 apps," although some of these may have to be loaded through SD cards. While it's also said to have "network connection" capabilities, users are likely to be forced onto North Korea's highly-restricted intranet.

Gizmodo noted that the hardware appears similar to an Android tablet seen in North Korean stores as far back as 2013.

In fact the country has sometimes seen other imitations of Apple products, such as an iMac clone, and an operating system called Red Star 3.0, which mimicked OS X.

The iPad trademark has proved problematic for Apple before. In 2012 the company paid $60 million to settle a dispute with the name's Chinese owner, Proview, despite that entity having long since stopped using the term.