It's one thing to counterfeit a product as complicated as a laptop or smartphone. It's a whole new ball game to fake an entire store.

But someone's done so in China, where shiny glass houses filled expensive gadgets haven't quite cropped up to the degree they have here in the states. Apple maintains a limited presence in China, with only four stores in Shanghai and Beijing so far. They're planning to add more, and they have licensed retailers across the country, but on the whole China's not as privy to the presence of "geniuses" as we are. You'd think that with so few stores, a fake one would be quick to pop up on Apple's radar. But one store, located in Kunming, falsely operates under the pretense of official license. No one's the wiser. 

An anonymous American blogger stumbled upon the store by happenstance. After a little research, it was discovered there was no official record of the store's location. According to Apple, it just didn't exist. The blogger soon reported the finding to the internet, complete with pictures. It really is a beautiful fake. The walls are white, the tables pine, and there's even that half-spiral staircase up to the glassy building's second floor. Whoever built this thing clearly did their research.

They're also very good at pretending to be part of Apple. The employees of the store were absolutely convinced they were part of the Jobs family. Either that, or they're exceptionally well-trained liars--but why teach people to lie when you can do the easier lying yourself? If I worked in a store that looked like this one, I'd be convinced of my employer as well. The attention to detail is remarkable. 

There are plenty of unauthorized Apple retailers around China. Many of them do repairs on Apple products. Some of them even try to emulate the Apple store aesthetic with the same wooden display tables and white walls. But none of them have approached the level of authenticity that this one standout fake has reached. It's not known whether the Kunming store sells genuine or counterfeit Apple products. Either way, its customers feel secure in their seemingly legitimate purchases. For all intents and purposes, they're getting the Apple experience. The only difference (especially if the products are real) would be that their cash doesn't trickle up to Jobs eventually. 

Steve probably wouldn't be too happy about the whole arrangement. The store has only just been revealed to the internet, and I'm sure Apple's lawyers have heard about it. We'll see whether they think it's worth it to shut the operation down. In a way, they're getting free advertising from this store as more and more people carry around devices bearing the Apple logo. When more real stores do pop up in China, they might do quite well thanks to the brand visibility the fake stores have propagated. So a rip-off isn't always the most harmful thing in the world--although something tells me Jobs's lawyers probably won't see it that way.