Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Publication
New York : Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company, 2018
Description
Describes how the inception of the iPhone has transformed society and skyrocketed Apple to the most valuable company in the world, detailing how the most current technological advances have become inseparable to everyday life.
Media reviews
“Let’s open the iPhone up, to discover its beginnings and evaluate its impact,” Merchant says, but goes on to do rather more. He provides pocket-sized histories of shatterproof glass, of popular photography, electronic music, apps that make farting noises, material on Apple Store employees’
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productivity, and much else, all sprinkled with pointless facts. The amount of lithium used in iPhones is so tiny that Chile’s annual exports of the metal would be enough for 43 billion of them. More people work for Taiwanese iPhone assembler Foxconn than live in Estonia.
The camera wasn’t originally a priority, but Merchant can’t mention that without also talking about the history of selfies, about time spent in Paris with a professional iPhone-using photographer, and about the invention of image stabilisation.
He arranges for an iPhone to be atomised for the purpose of analysis, and lists the quantities and costs of each constituent element discovered. Doing the same to his book would reveal a high proportion of kitchen sink.
Despite much globe-trotting – from Bolivian tin mines via the atom-smashing facility at CERN to a cruise ship off Papua New Guinea – and much musing on the phone’s global impact, Merchant makes this a story of American enterprise, told in slangy magazine-style techno-argot, addressing an American mindset.
But the book is never dull. Considerable effort has gone into researching the phone from every possible angle and turning material on subjects as varied as office politics, software development and chemistry into a fast-paced and easily digestible read. Show Less
User reviews
LibraryThing member banjo123
Merchant's task here was to tell as much as he could about the way that the i-phone was developed, and give some background into how the i-phone was developed, created and marketed. To be honest, there are a lot of gaps here due to Apple's and Steve Job's obsession with secrecy. Most of the
Frankly, Apple and Jobs sound awful. The intensity of the work on the i-phone destroyed marriages. Different parts of the team weren't allowed to fully talk to each other, so the i-phone was put together in pieces. Job's took credit for the idea and execution, which wasn't at all true -- he was against working on the i-phone when it was first presented to him. I-phones are made in factories in China where the workers are treated awfully.
However, the i-phone WAS and is a genius product, that really revolutionized the way we live today. It was interested to find out more about this; from the use of touch screen technology to the development of Siri. The interesting thing is that this really isn't a one person product; its the result of a team of people within Apple; plus adjuncts from within and without Apple, who worked night and day to create a new product, which they could not even imagine at the start of the process.
Merchant tells the story in a lay-person, journalistic sort of way, which fits in well with the material. There were times I wanted more, and other times I wanted less. But overall, it works.
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information comes from interviews with the few people who had worked for/with Apple and were willing to talk to Merchant.Frankly, Apple and Jobs sound awful. The intensity of the work on the i-phone destroyed marriages. Different parts of the team weren't allowed to fully talk to each other, so the i-phone was put together in pieces. Job's took credit for the idea and execution, which wasn't at all true -- he was against working on the i-phone when it was first presented to him. I-phones are made in factories in China where the workers are treated awfully.
However, the i-phone WAS and is a genius product, that really revolutionized the way we live today. It was interested to find out more about this; from the use of touch screen technology to the development of Siri. The interesting thing is that this really isn't a one person product; its the result of a team of people within Apple; plus adjuncts from within and without Apple, who worked night and day to create a new product, which they could not even imagine at the start of the process.
Merchant tells the story in a lay-person, journalistic sort of way, which fits in well with the material. There were times I wanted more, and other times I wanted less. But overall, it works.
Show Less
LibraryThing member waldhaus1
I had expected a more captivating book. The focus on prior at goes back so far as to file is impact. For instance I was left without a clear understanding of how multichannel works.
Perhaps the continuing development of iOS and the iPhone have somehow left the book behind.
I didn't get the feeling
Perhaps the continuing development of iOS and the iPhone have somehow left the book behind.
I didn't get the feeling
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the author was truly enthusiastic about the iPhone. It seems more like a kiss and tell. Show Less
Subjects
Awards
Financial Times and Schroders Business Book of the Year (Longlist — 2017)
Language
Physical description
407 p.; 21 cm
ISBN
9780316546249
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