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Apple offers three generous gifts to product bootleggers: an iconic design language, an easily replicated logo, and the most lucrative brand ID around.
These assets are irresistible to counterfeiters who want to piggyback on Apple’s success, but they rarely translate into elegant product knockoffs. Quite the opposite, in fact: The parasites that feed on Apple’s success typically create bootlegs that scoff at plausibility.
Just look at our list – it’s literally fantastic. It’s one thing to sell a bootleg product that skimps on quality material and fine details. That’s what you’ll find in Louis Vuitton and Gucci knockoffs. But it’s another thing entirely to sell a fake that Apple would never, ever create in the first place. Take the "iPhone" pictured above. It actually has an SD card slot – because, yeah, the iPhone is famous for its removable storage support.
Of course, Apple knockoffs have been around since the company’s early days, when Apple products weren’t sold in overseas locales like China. But now that Apple has an expanding presence in Asia, the fakes haven’t stopped – they’ve just become more and more creative.
With that, we give you the 9 weirdest, most unique Apple-branded bootleg items of all time. These things definitely weren’t approved by Jony Ive.
Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired