That's NOT what the linked article says at all. It says the the founder, Lei Jun, is is positioning himself and his company as figurative heirs of Mr. Jobs by carefully cultivating a Jobsian image here, right down to his jeans and dark shirts.
It does say He is also selling millions of mobile phones that look a lot like iPhones, but they only look like iPhones in the sense they have rounded corners. If you look at a pic of a phone (eg http://p.www.xiaomi.com/zt/130718/images/m2s_26.jpg?130809) you'll see they are a lot less similar than many phones sold today - specifically the two-color shell makes it immediately obvious they aren't a complete iPhone clone.
Indeed, from that shot it seems like the rumoured iPhone 5C (the C is rumoured to stand for "China") is copying the highly succesful Chinese brand Xiaomi, not the other way round.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/05/business/global/in-china-a... .
That's NOT what the linked article says at all. It says the the founder, Lei Jun, is is positioning himself and his company as figurative heirs of Mr. Jobs by carefully cultivating a Jobsian image here, right down to his jeans and dark shirts.
It does say He is also selling millions of mobile phones that look a lot like iPhones, but they only look like iPhones in the sense they have rounded corners. If you look at a pic of a phone (eg http://p.www.xiaomi.com/zt/130718/images/m2s_26.jpg?130809) you'll see they are a lot less similar than many phones sold today - specifically the two-color shell makes it immediately obvious they aren't a complete iPhone clone.