back to article On counterfeits, fakes and Apple stores

Some stories are so unusual, you immediately wonder if they're too good to be true. On Tuesday, a Western NGO in China posted a remarkable tale, reporting that ingenious Chinese retailers in a medium-sized provincial city called Kunming had cloned an Apple Retail Store, faithfully reproducing the staff T-shirts, furniture, …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    while at the same time

    Telling us something about the ingrained racism of the NGO pehaps?

    1. Jeff Minter
      Unhappy

      Blah

      Agreed. I despise these people (and that includes foreigners in our countries too) who make themselves home, short term or otherwise, yet bitch, mock and laugh at every single thing the hosts do different. Don't like it here, go home.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    WTF?

    faithfully reproducing the staff...........????

    The mind boggles!

  3. dssf
    Joke

    The should nod to Jobs

    And wear black turtlenecks....

  4. David Webb
    Coat

    Cost

    One way to find out, if the items in question cost 10 years salary for the average Chinese worker then it's a real Apple store.

    1. The Indomitable Gall

      And if...

      If there's an operating theatre in the back room for the removal of kidneys, it's [redacted by legal counsel].

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      title

      Apple bashing aside; You'd be suprised how many people in China (at least in the major cities where I work) openly walk around with Apple gear.

      12 of the 16 employees in our Shenzhen office have an iPhone 4, the numbers are similar in our HK and Taipei offices as well. The average salary for our staff is around £200 pm, not much higher than the minium for the area; the difference is that most of the workers live in much cheaper/family accomodation and living costs are low.

      I still find it intresting how powerful the Apple marketing machine is even in a country with very little offical retail presence

  5. Chris 3
    WTF?

    Ummm...

    Where in your story is there any indication that the story might be fake? As you point out, Resellers can't call themselves Apple Stores - the photos in the original story conspicuously show the Apple Store moniker.

    So - you haven't been able to verify the story for yourself first hand, but so what?

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Wrong article title

    Ok so there is still no dispute that there are fake Apple stores in China, copying Apple down to the staff uniform and using Apple's logo and name as if it was a real Apple store.

    The only thing this new article shows is that that/those store(s) are not official Apple resellers? Well isn't that a surprise... official resellers can't do any of the above things.

    But my main question is: just how does this make the original report fake?

    The other question is should we accept that the owners of these stores are tricking customers and apparently even staff into believing their sordid little game? Well I don't think so.

  7. Rich Woods
    WTF?

    How is it a fake story?

    Not sure I understand this article. The whole point of the original story was that all the evidence points to the fact that these are not authorised resellers but that they are trading with the Apple brand and trademarks and that the staff even think they are working for Apple.

    One of the shops photographed was an "Apple Stoer" (sic).

    How does that make it a fake story?

    1. Nick Kew

      Stoer?

      That's an overpriced soft drink, innit?

  8. ZenCoder
    Facepalm

    How would that at all be rasism?

    1) Astonishment at something different in another culture isn't necessarily criticism

    2) Criticism isn't necessarily the result of Prejudice

    3) Prejudice directed at anything other than an race/ethnicity isn't Racism.

    For example if someone is critical of an NGO but that criticism isn't based on prejudice, then its definitely not racist. Being prejudiced against an NGO because of its national origin is xenophobic. Being prejudiced against an NGO because based on its ethnic makup would be racist.

    Its also important to note that not all remarks that on the surface seem Xenophobic remarks are actually Xenophobic. For example if someone makes a remark about 'Merkins', its more likely thank not an expression of reasonable criticism of some narrow aspect of American culture and society rather than an expression of xenophobic prejudice.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      FAIL

      ZenCoder

      If you must use the term 'racism' ffs please 'spull it korrektlee'.

      Thanzkz zu.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Mushroom

    while reading this

    i farted, not sure if it was real or not -- no pictures or product on display.

  10. A_B_A

    Not so fast

    Well... the first picture in this piece displays the familiar "Authorized Reseller" (in Chinese) Apple logo. The allegedly fake stores do not. Legitimate Apple resellers in Kunming and China in general have their own names (a couple of chains, mostly) with the added "Authorized/Premium Reseller" designation in Chinese (and feature on Apple's reseller list). The stores in question do not, they call themselves "Apple Store" or 苹果零售店/苹果商店.

    So at best they are independent stores that don't have their own identity (unlike resellers) and try copy the Apple Store design to a tee (again, unlike every single legitimate reseller). They may or may not sell real Apple hardware, who knows.

  11. Uncle Siggy
    Coat

    faux show

    I have a place to spend my counterfeit cash at long last!

    But seriously folks, can we refer to rip-offs as "replicants"? I'm sure Deckard would have wanted it that way.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Bah, who cares about some store

    When the Chinese are faking Steve Jobs himself:

    http://i.imgur.com/3kEoF.jpg

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Happy

      Nice..

      but it has to be pointed out the that pictur is from a very clever Piss take of apple by a rival, not actually an attempt to copy.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Boffin

    I sincerely hope...

    this reg article isn't a fake, or i won't know whether i'm coming or going

  14. XMAN

    Same in the Philippines

    I actually emailed Apple to complain about a shop in the Philippines because it's branded and styled exactly the same as a legit Apple shop but is only an authorised reseller. They have their own rules on returns/replacements which are much more restrictive than Apples' official shops.

    1. Wang N Staines

      fu*king retard

      aren't we a busybody?

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Trollface

    You sure you're not sure?

    "I'm not sure why we expect Chinese Apple resellers not to do so, too."

    Didn't you get the 'all media who want to do business in USA-UK-AUS hegemony' memo?

    ALL CHINA ARE LYING CHEATS WHO COPY STUFF AND RIP YOU OFF. LAUGH AT CHINA AT ALL TIME! IGNORE USA-UK-AUS CORPORATES WHO DO SAME THING WHILE PRETENDING TO BE GOOD HAPPY FRIENDLY CORPORATE CITIZEN! ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG RUPERT!

    There, you've got the memo now.

  16. Michael Dunn
    Happy

    Ah, Kunming!

    City of eternal spring, visited by H M the Queen during her tour of China - bet she didn't buy an ipod, though.

    1. 404
      Pint

      She already has at least two atm

      His Presidency, the Honorable Barack Hussein Obama gave her a new one not too long ago.......

  17. Purlieu

    Whatever next

    .... a fake store in China ..... who'd have thought it ..............

  18. twunt

    @XMAN - huh?

    So you complained to Apple about a bogus apple store?

    Isn't that a bit like complaining to HMV because a pirate DVD you bought from somewhere else didn't work?

    1. chr0m4t1c
      Facepalm

      No...

      It would be like complaining to HMV that you had seen a store going by the name "HMV", but which wasn't an HMV store.

      And telling isn't the same as complaining, but you'd be fairly upset if you bought some HMV vouchers from that "HMV stoer" then found they couldn't be used in a genuine store. Or not, depending on how you feel about HMV.

    2. XMAN

      They're authorised by Apple

      They're authorised and given permission by Apple to sell their products under certain circumstances and their products come direct from Apple. So it's not like it's just some random guy who's writing 'APLE' on a bunch of dell laptops and trying to flog them.

      Trying to deceive people into thinking it's a legit Apple store is probably against the conditions of being an Apple reseller.

      So yeah, I emailed Apple after being unable to return a faulty ipod under the same conditions as a regular Apple store (there were fees involved and a very limited time allowance). If resellers deceive people into thinking they're official Apple stores then Apple should seriously consider revoking the permission they granted to the reseller.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    "faithfully reproducing the staff"

    So no-one beyond their 20's then?

  20. Neill Mitchell

    Gaaah!

    The Register beat the forum to the Apple/car analogy! Shame on you.

  21. Big Bear
    Holmes

    Surely some mistake!

    These aren't counterfeit Apple stores - they clearly display the words "Apple Store" when they know that if they didn't they would appear to be an authourised reseller so they are making sure that they do not pretend to be that which they are not!

    Simples!

    PS. IANAL, in case you hadn't noticed

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Meh

    There's an innocent explanation for all this

    Maybe DHL or UPS delivered all that Apple kit to Kunming by mistake, and the gents who received it were merely doing what they thought they were supposed to.

  23. Gobhicks
    Linux

    FWIW

    The salesbod in the second pic is kinda square shaped with rounded corners, but he's leaning over quite a ways so probably no IP infringement...

  24. Equitas
    Windows

    Why are we worried? ...

    If people are crazy enough to spend that amount of money buying into an image, they've more money than sense.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Pfft.

    > The tale has been credulously reported around the world. The Guardian's blog has no doubts: "China's fake Apple stores: photos", with the subhead telling us, rather bossily, "Don't think for a minute that Apple will let this one go". It was "an astonishing piece of extreme bootlegging", according to Jemima Kiss.

    How can you ever describe this as 'bossily'. Don't like the Guardian, fair enough, but things like this just make you look petty.

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