It's a bunch of crap, of course, and this weekend Xiaomi demonstrated its commitment to proving it.
Xiaomi gets compared to Apple for a number of reasons. Lei Jun, the company's founder and CEO dresses like Steve Jobs, for instance. He has a certain flare and a penchant for imitating Apple's media events and Steve Jobs's presentations during those media events.
That Seems Vaguely Familiar
The company also makes cheap smartphones that look good, especially when compared to the dreck that makes up most of the Android world. The company's most recent models achieve the stunning accomplishment of looking very much like Apple's current iPhone models (see above). Xiaomi has taken that one step further by skinning Android to look a lot like iOS 7, too. Here's a Xiamoi promotional video: