SANCHUNG, Taipei
At the end of an alley in Taiwan's most violent city, a black Mercedes-Benz sedan blocks a sliding-glass door that opens only from within. Inside, technophiles can buy iPhone knockoffs for two-thirds the legitimate price.
With a touch-screen and Apple Inc.'s logo on the back, the "iClones" look just like the real thing. Apple won't offer iPhones — which combine a phone, music and video player with wireless Internet — in Asia until 2008. The owner of the shop in Sanchung, a Taipei suburb, says he began selling "aifungs" in December, six months before the iPhone went on sale in the U.S.