You can now turn your iPod into an iPhone, only with an adapter

Calling all iPod Touch users: Now, you can make phone calls and send text messages from your music player — and in almost every other way convert it into an iPhone.

A Chinese tech start-up firm has begun marketing a low-cost adapter that makes that technological leap and allows users to convert their jail-broken MP3 player into the nearest thing to an iPhone.The ‘bumper case’, called Apple Peel 520, is a uniquely made-in-China product that caters to a price-sensitive market where intellectual property rights count for little or nothing.

Yosian Technology, a Shenzhen-based start-up, began marketing the Apple Peel for 388 yuan (about Rs2,600) last week, and Chinese tech portals, which subjected it to some rigorous testing, have given it an enthusiastic thumbs up, despite minor bugs. In particular, the fact that users get a bargain basement entry price to a 3G-ready phone with 4.5 hours of talk time and 120 hours of standby has won rave reviews.

The Peel works like an iPod wraparound dock, but additionally has a slot for a SIM card; once Yosian’s calling and texting application is installed, the erstwhile passive music player is transformed into an all-purpose cellphone — with only one downside: you have to use a headset. Somewhat ironically for a product that operates in the grey zone of propriety, it comes with a one-year warranty.

Early embracers of the ‘shanzai’ technology (a Chinese slang expression for knock-offs) say they are well pleased with what the Peel offers — and the price it comes at. Reviewers at the Chinese-language PCOnline tech portal say that after installing the applications, they made their first call — to the “most trusted” China Mobile customer service hotline, and that they “burst into tears of joy” upon realising that their iPod Touch was now a living, breathing communication device!

The call quality, the reviewers report is “very good, without any electromagnetic interference” — and in every way “just like on a regular cellphone”.

Given that it’s a made-for-China product, all the application menus are for now in Chinese. In any case, there aren’t any immediate plans for shipping internationally yet, partly because the legal ground on which the product operates is somewhat shaky.

But if there’s one thing that Chinese enterprise has proven over the years, it’s that if there’s a market for a product anywhere in the world, there will be a Chinese entrepreneur who will take it to the world.

Perhaps that iPod Touch in your hands could soon start talking and texting, thanks to an Apple Peel from China.