Here’s something you don’t see everyday. A lot of people go to China to find a shopping mall full of counterfeit products in a variety of quality and price ranges, but we’re willing to bet that when you purchase an iPhone there, you probably weren’t expecting buy yourself a kitchen appliance.
China’s state police raided two warehouses in Wuhan under a company named “Apple China” and seized 681 counts of portable cooking stoves with the iPhone brand and Apple logo. If you need help visualizing, just look at the picture above and imagine the room full of those boxes behind the police officer. The bright green gas stoves also have compliance certification labels on them that read “Apple China Limited,” because China could care less about copyright infringement.
Wonder why the company thought it was a good idea to stick the Apple logo on an item Apple clearly wouldn’t make? The stove was nowhere near trying to come off as a genuine Apple product, since Apple would never produce something in that shade of green and silver or lowercase the entire name of the product. Who would even buy a cheap cooking stove just because it had an Apple name slapped across the front?
The bizarre situation makes us curious for what an authentic Apple kitchen line would be like. Perhaps a stove top with voice control heat adjustment and a touchscreen app menu, or maybe a microwave that displays a video or plays something off iTunes on the front screen while you’re nuking your food. While the possibilities are endless and fun to think about, Apple is highly unlikely to foray into the domestic industry any time soon as it still has the iTV to figure out.
China’s attempt to sell knock-off products is nothing new; In fact, the interesting thing to note is how far Chinese companies will go to replicate western brands in its entirety. Last year, police found and shut down two fake Apple stores in Kunming that tried to pass off as official stores, but sold counterfeit personal tech items. Each store ripped off the signature Apple store look from head to toe, but also oddly had Dyson (maybe they weren’t real Dysons either) fans placed around the showroom. A large display outside even advertised an iPhone 5 which clearly does not exist yet. Some of the stores’ employees, donning the blue staff shirts with white Apple logos, were also convinced they were employed by the real Apple.
Also in Kunming is a fake IKEA store, which copies the furniture giant’s blue and yellow color scheme and open air showroom layouts. Sadly, fake IKEA does not have Swedish meatballs in the cafeteria section, but rather just regular Chinese food items. Other companies that are victim of having their brands stolen in China for fake products include Disney and Lacoste.
This article was originally posted on Digital Trends
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