“Apple Killer” Smartisan “OS” Gets $11.5 Million in Funding


Smartisan OS‘ CEO Lou Yonghao announced that the so-called “Apple Killer OS” Smartisan has recently received 70 million Yuan or $11.5 million in funding from the Shanghai investment firm Buttonwood Capital, according to Tech in Asia. 

The Smartisan OS is actually just a custom Android ROM just like Cyanogenmod or Xiaomi’s own MIUI or dozens of others. The ROM has nevertheless been massively hyped in China due at least in part to Lou Yonghao who is an internet celebrity in China due to his controversial and often shut down blog network, Bulldog.cn

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Lou Yonghao reportedly said during Smartisan OS‘ reveal that “[Its] objective is to kill off Apple eventually” and that the company would release its own devices that would ship with the new Android skin. While according to the Chinese news site Sina TechChinese consumers are less than excited about it, someone at Buttonwood Capital is buying into the hype, judging by their large investment.

The Smartisan OS ROM is currently available for download in alpha form for five different phones, including the OPPO Find 5, the Samsung Note 2 and the Xiaomi  Mi 2/2S on its official site.

What do you think, can the Apple killing Android skin make any headway with the new source of funding?

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8 Comments

  1. louisclub
    December 18, 2013

    its available for the xiaomi mi2s.. but honestly i love the xiaomi OS so much that i don’t see how it can be better. with MIUI you can download any kind of theme for the phone, that changes everything including the unlock page. i’m failing what this custom android OS “smartisan” could have that is better than a good looking interface

    • Roberto Tomás
      December 18, 2013

      yeah, right now I’d say MIUI is the best mobile OS out there: iOS/Android hybrid look, with all the good stuff from google except all the stuff that shares your private data with google.

      Google’s Android is pretty good, and so is iOS. So is Amazon’s for that matter. I see no reason to sweat Smartisan over MIUI.

      The only mobile OS I’m really interested in in the next year or so is Tizen 3.0

  2. Hoàng Vững
    December 18, 2013

    How could they defeat iOS :D. I think it just another choice, and time will be the right answer 🙂

  3. Carlos
    December 18, 2013

    they wish…

  4. Airyl
    December 18, 2013

    Smartisan should learn from MIUI. First you must BE your enemy. Then you must fix everything your enemy did wrong. Only then will your enemy try to do the same thing and fail.

  5. rememberus
    December 18, 2013

    These guys are a little too ambitious no custom rom will “kill” apple or ios for that matter.

  6. December 18, 2013

    ummm… no.

  7. Stef
    December 18, 2013

    What’s with china’s love with iOS. Have they never used a Nexus phone? It makes iOS seem like last decade’s tech (which it is by the way). Why would you want to emulate *that*?

    Just because something has a high price tag and it is hard to get doesn’t mean it’s better to use or more thought went into creating it. It seems overpricing something is the way to win rep over there…

    In short release a phone running vanilla android and you’re already there, custom skins only detract from the experience…