Apple dupa Steve Jobs

by Yukari Iwatani Kane

Former "Wall Street Journal" technology reporter Yukari Iwatani Kane delves deep inside Apple in the two years since Steve Jobs death, revealing the tensions and challenges CEO Tim Cook and his team face as they try to sustain Jobs vision and keep the company moving forward.

Steve Jobs death raised one of the most pressing questions in the tech and business worlds: Could Apple stay great without its iconic leader? Many inside the company were eager to prove that Apple could be just as innovative as it had been under Jobs. Others were painfully aware of the immense challenge ahead. As its business has become more complex and global, Apple has come under intense scrutiny, much of it critical. Maintaining market leadership has become crucial as it tries to conquer new frontiers and satisfy the public s insatiable appetite for insanely great products.

Based on over two hundred interviews with current and former executives, business partners, Apple watchers, and others, "Haunted Empire" is an illuminating portrait of Apple today that offers clues to its future. With nuanced insights and colorful details that only a seasoned journalist could glean, Kane goes beyond the myths and headlines. She explores Tim Cook s leadership and its impact on Jobs loyal lieutenants, new product development, and Apple s relationships with Wall Street, the government, tech rivals, suppliers, the media, and consumers.

Hard-hitting yet fair, "Haunted Empire" reveals the perils and opportunities an iconic company faces when it loses its visionary leader.

Genres: Business, Technology, Nonfiction, Apple, Biography, History, Audiobook

544 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2014

About the author

Yukari Iwatani Kane is a veteran journalist with over 20 years of experience. As a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, she covered Apple during the last years of Steve Jobs's reign.

Kane was best known for her in-depth analysis and scoops, among which include the news about Steve Jobs's liver transplant in 2009. In 2011, she was named as a Gerald Loeb Award finalist as part of a WSJ team for a series on Internet privacy.

Prior to covering Apple, Kane was a correspondent in Tokyo for the Wall Street Journal and Reuters before that.

Kane started her career at U.S. News and World Report and Reuters. She is a graduate of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.

Reviews

[Constantine · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
Genre: Nonfiction

This nonfiction is about Apple. Apple with Steve Jobs and then Apple without Steve Jobs. The reviews of this book are really polarizing. Some reviewers have a kind of compassion and loyalty to Apple and that might be a factor in making their reviews more negative. I personally feel the author has been fair in presenting all the points with enough evidence. The good thing about all this is that I have personally been following all the tech news and many of the legal battles between Apple and other firms so whatever came in this book was just consolidating the information that I already had in mind.

Haunted Empire is basically about the decline of Apple. This decline does not mean financially as many might think because Apple as a company had more growth after Jobs’ demise. I feel this is where the author did not make it explicit with the decline thing. I think it is the decline of innovation that once used to be the top priority when Jobs used to be the CEO. Along with the decline of innovation, there is a lot of struggles and challenges that the company started to face on a different level.

The first portion of the book is about Jobs’ declining health and how Apple kept its CEO’s health a secret. Then after his death how Tim Cook was the most suitable candidate to take the new position despite being totally different from Jobs. Towards the middle of the book, there will be lots of information about Apple’s legal battles with Nokia, HTC, and Samsung. I totally recall these legal cases in court. While some were related to patents other sounded more ridiculous especially Apple registering a patent that any rectangular-shaped device is an infringement to Apple’s patent! And this is what Apple was going after Samsung for. The legal cases up to this day are still going on between Apple and other parties. An example is the recent one between Cupertino and Epic Games in which Apple got a major blow to its domination of its own App Store! Developers of applications after the final judgment can direct their customers to an external link for them to make the purchases avoiding payment via the App Store to avoid Apple’s 30% fee.

Another important subject that the author sheds some light on is the Foxconn suicides and working conditions and how Apple was dealing with all the bad press in that subject matter. Then there is Apple forming an alliance with many publishers to fight Amazon in regards to the sale of ebooks. This one didn’t work well for Apple. Overall, this was a very informative book and still relevant. Ironically Apple announced its new devices yesterday including the iPhone 13. It took Apple about five years to reduce that big notch on the iPhone’s screen! If that is not slow then what it is? The bigger a company gets the heavier and slower it will be.

[Amar Pai · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book tries to make Apple's legal battles over patents exciting. Does not succeed.

[Per Sjofors · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m an Apple guy. I write this on my Mac Pro using Apple’s Pages word processor, my laptop is a MacBook Pro. I run my music library from another MacBook Pro. I have an AppleTV and an iPad. My wife uses an iMac. We both have iPhones.

In 2002, I decided I had enough of the unreliability of Windows and I switched back to using Macs. For years I followed the company. I read blogs and magazines about Apple. I read or listened to announcements they made. Watched the keynote speeches from MacWorld and the Word Wide Developers Conference. These were all full of excitement and hope. Hope for products that made my life better. I was fully immersed in Steve Jobs’ reality distortion field.

Because of that, and despite being expected, Jobs’ death affected me personally much more than I thought it would. It felt almost like loosing a friend. From an emotional point of view, I very much wanted to believe that the processes he put in place and the Apple University would continue his legacy of a company that inspires, that develop great products and is a great innovator. From a rational point of view, I knew this would not happen...

Yukari Iwatani Kane’s book is an excellent review on what has gone on at Apple after Jobs’ death. How the company lost its mojo. How the company’s eternal “patting itself on the back” as a marketing stunt does not work when it cannot innovate anymore. She manages to explain why I do not longer follow blogs and media who write about Apple. Why I don’t care anymore about the keynotes. Why the company is not longer an inspiration.

Tim Cook’s reaction to the book is also telling. He says "This nonsense belongs with some of the other books I've read about Apple," Cook said. "It fails to capture Apple, Steve, or anyone else in the company.”

However reality tells a different story. No innovation since Jobs died, no new products, just refinements, declining profits, declining market share and declining share price. In fact, the company’s recent accelerated share buy-back program is another warning sign - companies who cannot pump up their share price with great products and innovation anymore, resort to the old supply and demand rule.

It turns out that Tim Cook lives in another reality distortion field; an internally focused reality distortion field that prevent him to see Apple’s position in the marketplace as it is. He appear to truly think that product refinements and improvements are the same as innovation, and, of course, it is not.

Sad.

[Darrell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book focuses more on things that Apple faced when Steve Jobs was still alive. For example: antenna gate, lawsuit with Samsung, Nokia , Motorola & HTC. Siri's shortcomings, the fight against Android, the firing of Forstall and the importance of Ive. Not really any new information for Apple watchers. Didn't like the extensive author blame for Foxconn working conditions when there are other companies involved. Yes, Apple could put pressure on other companies but can do little to change labor law in China without diplomacy from our government.

There was too much focus on the Samsung trial and Apple's tax strategy, which were both initiated under Jobs and have very little to do with innovation. All in all, this book does very little to present a case about the future of Apple. I'm not sure of Mr. Kane's motivation but it didn't really seem like a very objective review of Apple's future innovation. It didn't even give a great insight into the management or the future of Apple. This book is a review of the recent struggles of Apple and is a book for those that want to be brought up to speed on the past few years of challenges. It is not a book that will give you much more than most Apple followers/fans hadn't already been aware of.

[Bart-Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

Being quite an avid reader of company bio's and an enthusiastic user of anything Apple produces, I looked forward to reading this book. With Microsoft, after Bill Gates left we saw the company decline significantly, precisely as Clayton Christensen had predicties and described in the 'Innovator's Dilemma'. I believe Jobs and Apple have learned a lot from those lessons. Time will tell wether it's true or not. In Cook's own words: 'The best day's lay ahaid for Apple'.

Kane doesn't provide the reader with very convincing contrary evidence. Especially when comparing Apple with Samsung. As if the latter is the saint and Apple the villain. The fact is that both companies are huge players in the market and fierce competitors. Kane draw some dubious conclusions from most of the 'evidence' she uncovered which doesn't do the balance of the book a good favor.

I think there's an interesting story to be told by an author with more inside knowledge from the Apple side. Especially if they manage to rise to new hights in the post-Jobs era. I believe it can be done and I hope Christensen will be involved in the research behind it.

Although I enjoyed reading 'Haunted Empire', I think I would recommend waiting for the next, more balanced bio of the post-Jobs era.

[Tim · Rating 1 out of 5]

I heard the author was a well-respected reporter on the tech beat, and I was interested in reading more about the post-Jobs era at Apple. I was genuinely surprised by how much this book disappointed me. First, there was very little new information (define irony: much of her criticism was how Apple fails to innovate). Second, I found the sourcing to be disturbingly weak for a reporter of her pedigree - "some bloggers said..." appeared far too frequently to support a point. Not that bloggers can't support a point, but unnamed bloggers as a source just doesn't cut it as a way to suggest even a degree of conventional wisdom in my opinion.

This book read like the author developed the premise first and then cherry-picked facts to support the premise rather than truly reporting the nuances that exist within the post-Jobs Apple. I particularly question the characterization of Tim Cook before Congress and the All Things D interview - there was a lot of projection that fit the author's point of view on his demeanor that I don't think was really there when I watch the same thing.

I would have considered the "Apple is doomed" thesis with more facts, but this didn't come close to doing that. Knowing what was excluded from the book makes me question the book itself.

[Susana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pensé que era un libro más reciente, pero concluye en el año 2013, cuando todavía quedaban muchas interrogantes sobre el futuro de Apple. Aproximadamente una tercera parte del libro se va en reconstruir los último años de Jobs y la selección de Cook como su sucesor.

El panorama no queda claro, aunque apunta a confirmar la teoría del gurú de la innovación en empresas Clayton Christensen, en términos prácticos "todo lo que sube, tiene que bajar", es decir, Apple no puede mantener su liderazgo en innovación disruptiva una vez crece y se convierte en un gigante, está condenada a perder su capacidad de innovación, de marcar tendencias, de adelantarse al futuro.

[Selvaratnam Uthaiyashankar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another side of Apple and its struggles. Lots of learning points for companies.

[Jay French · Rating 4 out of 5]

My first thought after finishing this book is that I need to short Apple stock and buy Google and Samsung if available. This is clearly not your typical Apple book by a fan. Kane has a premise and relentlessly provides story after story to illustrate the decline of Apple that began before Jobs died. In fact, Jobs death comes roughly 1/3 of the way through the narrative, which given the title was a little later than I would have thought, but it helps bolster her argument of decline. Are the specifics cherry-picked to make the case? Yes, to some extent, but the number and depth of examples to make her case are overwhelming. And reflecting that I just haven't seen that much breathtaking coming from Apple where others like Google and IBM are talking about grand challenges to change the world, well, that is telling.

This is not focused on the technology, but on the business of Apple. Since the story revolves around supply chain issues, court cases, patent law, government testimony, and trade show speeches, you'd think this would be a boring read. It is not. The author does a very good job telling the story. It is very readable. While reading the extensive sections on Apple's foreign assemblers, I was thinking the description of the book was a "supply chain drama", to coin a new type of book. There is a bit of a feeling of "The Goal" here in that it feels like a story about running a business. It also feels a bit like a lengthy business case in that you can see some of the strategic choices being made, like succession planning and single-sourcing, and their long-term results. I would have liked to see more thought around how Apple came back from the Sculley/Spindler/Amelio era and if there were similarities to today's situation. Apple has come back before, and I hope we can see an American Apple come back again.

I would read another by Kane. I hope, though, that she finds and tells a happier ending. Reading this story of the decline of a great American business was disheartening.

I received this book from Goodreads First Reads program.

[Karim Lama · Rating 3 out of 5]

After having read Steve Jobs’s Biography, this seemed like a logical choice to read. I enjoyed it very much, although some parts more than others, especially the first few chapters that included details about Steve Jobs that were not included in Walter Issacson’s Biography of him. That being said, the author offers virtually no positive outlook on Apple’s future; most of the book is just criticizing Apple for not innovating like it used to. In addition, although the facts stated in the book were true, they were only one side of the story, and it seems like the author was deliberately trying make readers think that “Apple is doomed to fail”. I also question the conclusions that the author made about Tim Cook, for they seemed quite different in some ways than what Walter Issacson concluded. Despite all that I really did enjoy reading it, which is why I’m giving 3 stars.

[Rich · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an Apple user I was shocked to the in depth details of this book. Yes , we heard all about how Jobs was an a-hole to employees (the elevator dress downs come to mind), but the breath of arrogance that the Company possesses is mind blowing. I couldn't help but think of the parallel between Cook and Jobs and Popes Benedict and John Paul Ii. Both walk in the shadow of giants. Neither Cook or Benedict can satisfy the general public either in their writings or the public appearances. Both are the heads of large institutions. Both were/are under constant scrutiny. The question is, will Cook be as humble as Benedict and step down for the better of the Company?
This book is a must read for all Apple users . We have to ask ourselves, is Apple delivering great products that change the world or are they just riding on past glories.

[Anamaria Budai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Întâmplarea a făcut să citesc această carte înainte de biografia Lui Steve Jobs.
Mi-a plăcut mult, a creat un studiu de caz, se vede că a fost multă documentare în spate. Încă citesc biografia, dar parcă "Apple După Steve Jobs" mi-a plăcut mai mult.

[Iain Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very compelling, if often worrying....read my review here
http://bookfacereturns.blogspot.co.uk...

[Douglas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Out of date and its predictions having been proven largely wrong. One should always expect this for most such books, but this one's performance appears to be particularly bad. Debatably, the most revolutionary is that MacBooks and iMacs now use Apple's own silicon, running faster and with a fraction of the energy usage as the previous Intel CPUs.

The main knock is that it has the gossipy, manipulative, damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't tone of an Andrew Morton bio. When the paragraph needs it, Apple is great/timeless/exceptional-in-the-past, or Apple is domineering/declining/lost. Tone shifts wildly. Tim Cook is a good manager, or tense. When discussing an interview with a jury foreman, why does the author dig through the bottom of a comments section for content? Using commentary from The Onion? Comedians? Stock price changes appear inconsistently, with no financial or market context, only when the author wants to use them to point out the supposed consequences of missteps, but 2x/3x increases in its price in the interim occur without comment. It is tiring to read.

The problem for me is that there appears to be some good content here, and I believe I did learn quite a bit after ignoring the author's imprints. I haven't read any other bios of Jobs, or Tim Cook, or of Apple, so much of this was new to me. Maybe that's the only reason it appears to have some merit. If you have other ways to learn this information, avoid this book.

[Elizabeth Tai · Rating 4 out of 5]

Main takeaways:
- the book was unfairly trashed. Culprits were likely Apple fanboys
- Yukari's book came at a time when Apple did seem to slide down in regard and profits. It has since become a trillion dollar company. However, her points about Apple being caught in the "innovator's dilemma" still stands. I can't remember any innovative products coming out of Apple anymore. It has become a mature company, far from the disruptor it was. It is now operated by operators instead of the creatives, so innovation will be stifled.
- it's sad that we celebrate people who prize profits over people
- the "heroes" caused so much of suffering and environmental damage. For what? Human greed, alas.

[Devina Tjandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as informative as I'd like it to be. The book focuses mainly on the courtroom battles Apple had to go through and emphasises on the horrors of the manufacturing of Apple products in the China factories. However, I did enjoy how the book describe people involved (Jobs, Cook, Ive, Forstall, etc.) on a personal level.

The book was slightly depressing and maybe even biased. I am not very familiar with Apple history, and this book contradicts most of what I've heard from others.

[Ryan_hg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Truly fascinating. The author takes you for a ride to the post Steve Jobs Era of Apple. It reveals how Apple had transformed, sadly from a magnificent company to just another company due to lack of leadership and innovation. Not to mention the grueling uphill battle that it faced with competitors like Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi etc

In short, this book grabs your attention and the case studies that it presents are fascinating

[Thomas Hunt · Rating 4 out of 5]

A rather depressing recounting of Apple's stumbles post-Jobs. Lousy Siri, the Apple Maps debacle, Apple v. Samsung and the disasterous defeat in ebooks, just to name a few. Great read though. Good follow up to the Jobs book.

[Nadirah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very interesting but somewhat depressing read about the rise and decline of the Apple “empire”, and a very interesting look into the ruthless business cycle. I wish this book covered recent years but a very good read regardless.

[Shuyi Wang · Rating 5 out of 5]

insightful recount of the Apple legacy from Steve Jobs to after Steve Jobs

[Mehdi Arian · Rating 1 out of 5]

Basically it’s sort of collecting data from here and there, no any direct involvement from author. Not recommend to put time on it.

[Ramil Ramirez · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book to read to know what happened at Apple after the death of Steve Jobs. Very well researched!!!

[meow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally finished. Such interesting stories & insights about the company’s growth & development. Loooove ittttt

[Randall Harris · Rating 5 out of 5]

A well researched book detailing Apples slow decline at the time of intense Market competitor competitiveness and it's lack of vision that Steve Jobs offered

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Author's takeaways aged like milk lol

[Teodora Doncheva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Quite impressive and thought-provoking reading for a tech-outsider like me.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t own an Apple product. Wait, that’s not true; I have an old iPod. But I’m not an Apple-ophile and have remained agnostic on the debate about the company’s engineering genius v. corporate malevolence. But I live in the 21st century and close to Silicon Valley and wanted to know more about the iconic company that has redefined how we engage with each other and cast a hypnotic, Brave-New-World-kind of spell among its devotees. I've walked by the long stream of fans who queue at dawn in downtown San Francisco, in all kinds of weather, waiting to buy the latest Apple product.

It turns out – perhaps obvious, but still – that in our collective ethos of obsessing over, buying up, tossing out and buying again the latest, most awesome-est Apple device, we are making an ethical choice. This doesn't apply just to Apple, but to Samsung, IBM and so on. And those company products I do own.

Now I should say that the book isn't a scold. It’s WSJ reporter Yukari Iwatani Kane’s fascinating and disturbing overarching account of the passing of the company crown from Steve Jobs to Tim Cook. It includes the missteps, the tyrannical attempt at control (remember the lost iPhone 4 prototype? Do you also remember the police ransacking the apartment of the bartender who the company thought had stolen it?) and Apple’s overall indefatigable approach to being king and tzar of the corporate world.

Highlights include; aggressive pursuit of Samsung over patent infringement (both sides come off as obstinate, but patent law is more thoughtful than you might imagine), shuttling profits to Ireland to avoid paying U.S. taxes, and the early Siri and mapping system snafus.

But what has remained with me is the account of the factory conditions at Apple’s Chinese manufacturing partner, Foxconn. Workers have tedious assembly tasks, long hours, low wages. Some are exposed to hazardous chemicals that act as neurotoxins. Most Foxconn workers could never afford an iPhone. And in those chapters is the nut of it all - the human cost of assembling the world’s most desired objects (maybe not anymore, and that’s also part of the story).

As reported in the New York Times, despondent factory workers began committing suicide in 2010. Protective nets were then attached to buildings. Weirdly, in a review of the book for the WSJ, the reviewer described the suicides as a “disaster,” as though significant only as a P.R. nightmare for Apple.

But they were obviously more than that. Although it is never stated outright, the book leaves us with a dilemma; is it ethical to own these products? I couldn't stop wondering what would happen if we had to buy our digital devices straight from the factory floor, collecting them from the hands of Foxconn workers themselves. Would these objects continue to delight? Would we then pressure Apple and other companies (I assume) to change how their objects are manufactured?

But the factory workers are tucked far away from the consumers of these products. They are ghost slaves. Maybe this book will help make them less so. I have not given up my computer devices. But I now have a vivid image of what it took to produce them. And somehow I need to reconcile those two things.

[Rick · Rating 1 out of 5]

Shocked at some of the positive reviews on here. I found this book lacking in many respects. Firstly, for such an in-depth acknowledgements and overview of their reporting methods, there was almost nothing here that a talented college student couldn't have uncovered in the press. Really very little new reporting at all. Lots of weird referencing of tweets and non-notable blog posts.

Next, the central premise of the book is, essentially, crazy. The whole thesis is around how Apple has stopped innovating post-Steve Jobs. While I concede this is a worry, there's really no way to know if this has happened yet. And what's worse, the author effectively concedes it in several small ways. First, Kane mentioned the amount of time between Apple's last few tentpole innovations, the iPad, the iPhone, the iPod, etc. Simple math reveals that the amount of time from their last innovation till now is shorter than any of the previous gaps. That is, even if Apple was innovating on historical pace, there'd be no new invention yet. Elsewhere in the book, Kane acknowledges that Apple is WORKING on several new inventions. But they're not out yet. Nor, it seems clear from this. actual. book. would they be out even IF jobs were still alive. It literally makes no sense.

Next, Kane displays almost no understanding of how a CEO actually works, painting a picture where somehow Tim Cook's entire life is spent on the Samsung patent lawsuit, rather than, apparently, hunkering down and THINKING. One of the central conceits of this book is to use the patent lawsuit as an illustration of how Apple has gotten off track. When in reality... whatever. Apple writes a check, lawyers take care of things, and once in a great while someone has to spend part of a day testifying or being deposed. In reality this lawsuit has absolutely zero bearing on Apple's ability to innovate. I'm sure that lawsuit is really distracting the product designers at Apple.

Then we have the playing fast and loose with what Jobs may have done before he died and what Cook did. Somehow things Jobs did that Cook has continued are proof that Cook isn't Jobs. Apple's still cleaning up the mess Jobs made with the price fixing publishing imbroglio, but somehow current management's clean up of Job's mess is evidence that current management isn't as innovative as Jobs. What?? The same sort of illogical mental jujitsu is somehow used to paint Tim Cook's stellar testimony to congress as evidence of his lesser manliness than Jobs, who supposedly would never have bothered testifying at all?

If this book spent one tenth of the time talking about Apple's current work pipeline around television and wearables instead of their lawsuits and Foxconn's labor relations it might have been insightful. Alas, while the whole premise is that Apple doesn't innovate on product anymore, this book literally doesn't actually talk, at all, about their current product pipeline. Go figure.

It's not Apple who spends too much time on lawsuits. It's this book.

[Lorca Damon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I expected a lot from Haunted Empire, and I did get a lot of information. It just wasn't the stuff I thought I would read about. Where was the controversy? Where was the speculation about Apple's downfall? Basically, where was the information that CEO Tim Cook took issue with?

There was a lot of background information, and I will say that the beginning of the book contained an even closer look at Steve Jobs. It's funny to read a book that contains information on how Jobs fought with the guy writing his book! There was a lot of really in-depth and thrilling--both heartwarming and negative--information on who Jobs was, told only through the most hidden conversations that made me ask several times, "How did the author find this out?" That's not to question Kane's veracity, but to really highlight that she included conversations no one else would have known about.

But while the content within the book gave detailed information about Apple's woes since the untimely passing of Jobs--I'm not above admitting that I cried several times during Kane's depiction of the CEO's last few months and final death--there was nothing of note about where the company is headed with Cook at the helm, at least not in terms of the uproar that followed the book's publication. Yes, there is certainly mention that Apple hasn't released anything profound since losing its original dreamer, but it's also understandable. Kane even paints a picture of a company that is still reinventing itself as a new company, having gone through downturns in the past with various underwhelming CEOs.

At the same time, Kane herself gives so much insight into not only the legal woes that have plagued Apple lately (and kept the company fairly busy with its leadership and its finances tied up in courtroom drama), but also unintentionally details the cyclical nature of Apple's innovations. It's hardly newsworthy that the company that brought us the iPhone, iPod, iPad, and resulting app and music stores in the space of such a short time frame would rest on its laurels for a moment before attempting to launch anything quite as world changing again.

Haunted Empire was insightful and interesting, but hardly earned its reputation as the tell-all, "bearer of bad tidings" book that the hype told us to expect.

[Vanessa Hua]

Smart and insightful, and given everything that's befallen Apple now, incredibly prescient.