A "near-riot" broke out in the crowd at a Beijing Apple store on Saturday, a day after the iPad 2 went on sale, sending four to the hospital and smashing a glass door.

Now, you might think that an iPad riot would involve people hitting each other with iPads. (Not that we thought, or hoped, that such a thing would be the case.) But no: This particular iPad riot seems to be a fairly run-of-the-mill altercation, with the additional juiciness of a "foreign Apple employee" of unspecified nationality beating up on unsuspecting Chinese Apple fans:

Angry consumers began rushing the store on Saturday afternoon after a "foreign" Apple employee allegedly stepped into the crowd to push and beat people suspected of queue jumping, the Beijing News said.

After the employee retreated back into the store, a crowd of consumers smashed the glass front door and shoved security guards as they surged forward in anger over the alleged beatings, the report said.

Do you think it was one of the Apple geniuses? It was probably an Apple genius.

[AFP; image via AP]