07.20.11
Chinese demonstrate they can dispense with Apple
My only question. is “What took them so long?”
The signs look real, the products look real and the staff all think they work for Steve Jobs – but this Apple store in China is a complete fake.
It was spotted in Kunming in the south-west of the country by U.S blogger … who was convinced at first that it was a real store.
But then she noticed that the signage said ‘Apple Store’ – and Steve Jobs’ electronics giant never writes that on its signs.
Since Apple makes all its iKit in China it only stands to reason, that like many many US companies, it has trained a legion of laborers to make its stuff very well. And it will have occurred to some of them that perhaps they don’t really need Apple and iSteve’s leash to make it.
This is a problem that has affected US guitar manufacturers. Having offshored most of their production to China, and supervised the upgrade of manufacturing there, they have seen counterfeiting operations. And it is difficult to know how widespread it is since Americans generally do not report on what they find in Chinese music stores — which could easily imitate Guitar Center.
At this point, about all I have to say is “they had it coming.”
What’s iSteve gonna do? Complain to the WTO? The US government?
It doesn’t matter, anyway. Apple’s quarterly statements show it’s the premier company in the US, one perfectly positioned to dominate the future of trivial gadget and status symbol manufacturing for the plutocracy.
Now if only penguins had hands. American multi-nationals could move production to Antarctica, maybe.
Which also gets me wondering, how good are mountain gorillas at shop labor?