Synopsis

Apple isnt just a brand; its the worlds most valuable company and creator of the 21st centurys defining product. The iPhone has revolutionized the way we live, work and connect. But Apple is now a victim of its own success, caught in the middle of a new Cold War between two superpowers. On the brink of bankruptcy in 1996, Apple shifted its operations offshore. By 2003 it was lured to China by the promise of affordable, ubiquitous labour. As the iPod and iPhone transformed Apples fortunes, their sophisticated production played a seminal role in financing, training, supervising, and supplying Chinese manufacturers skills Beijing is now weaponizing against the West. Investigative journalist Patrick McGee draws on 200 interviews with former Apple executives and engineers to reveal how Cupertinos choice to anchor its supply chain in China has increasingly made it vulnerable to the regimes whims. Both an insiders historical account and a cautionary tale, Apple in China is the first history of Apple to go beyond the biographies of its top executives and set the iPhones global domination within an increasingly fraught geopolitical context.