This impressive knock-off AirPods case has a touchscreen borrowed from an old Apple patent

Apple patents tons of ideas all of the time and even incentivizes its employees to apply for patents as well. But not every patent turns into a product that you will eventually buy in the Apple Store, and a lot of them never do. One patent that has so far not launched first surfaced back in 2021 and allowed for a new AirPods case with a touchscreen display on the front. Now, it seems while Apple didn't launch such a thing, someone else did.

Counterfeit Apple accessories and devices are nothing new of course, and the United States says that it deals with hundreds of thousands of counterfeit AirPods reaching its shores every year. But there's so far been nothing quite like this.

The fake AirPods case was posted to the X social network by leaker @lipilipsi and spotted by MacRumors. There's a video that shows the touchscreen in use with various different kinds of information displayed when swiping from side to side.

From what we can see information like the battery level of the AirPods as well as the current time and connectivity status is shown, and there is no doubt this all matches Apple's 2021 patent.

That patent discussed a headphone case that can be "enhanced" to add user control for their wireless earbuds. An interactive user interface was discussed that could allow people to potentially start and stop audio, skip tracks, and more.

We obviously wouldn't suggest that anyone picks this fake AirPods case up, but it sure does give us an indication of how cool Apple's patent could be if Apple chose to ship it.