9780062326973
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Haunted Empire audiobook

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Haunted Empire Audiobook Summary

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

Steve Jobs’s 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’s 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.

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Haunted Empire Audiobook Narrator

Arielle DeLisle is the narrator of Haunted Empire audiobook that was written by Yukari Iwatani Kane

Yukari Iwatani Kane is a veteran journalist with nearly fifteen years of experience writing about the technology industry. As a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, she covered Apple during the last years of Steve Jobs's reign. In 2011 she was named a Gerald Loeb Award finalist as part of a Journal team responsible for a series on Internet privacy. She started her career at U.S. News & World Report and Reuters. She lives in San Francisco.

About the Author(s) of Haunted Empire

Yukari Iwatani Kane is the author of Haunted Empire

More From the Same

Haunted Empire Full Details

Narrator Arielle DeLisle
Length 12 hours 33 minutes
Author Yukari Iwatani Kane
Category
Publisher HarperAudio
Release date March 18, 2014
ISBN 9780062326973

Subjects

The publisher of the Haunted Empire is HarperAudio. includes the following subjects: The BISAC Subject Code is Biography & Autobiography, Business

Additional info

The publisher of the Haunted Empire is HarperAudio. The imprint is HarperAudio. It is supplied by HarperAudio. The ISBN-13 is 9780062326973.

Global Availability

This book is only available in the United States.

Goodreads Reviews

Constantine

September 17, 2021

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐Genre: NonfictionThis 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.

Per

March 22, 2014

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.

Selvaratnam

January 25, 2020

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

Jay

April 19, 2014

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.

Rich

November 11, 2014

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.

Iain

March 14, 2014

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

Elizabeth

September 18, 2022

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

August 21, 2018

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

June 12, 2019

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

Thomas

June 29, 2017

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.

Shuyi

May 26, 2019

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

Molly

June 27, 2014

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.

Shashank

May 25, 2014

I quite enjoyed reading this book. This is my second book on Apple and it did bring out some inside stories I did not know. Although I have not read Issacson's biography on Jobs yet, people who have read it have also found certain new things in the book. I particularly enjoyed Chapter 11 where the author has tried to map Apple's Journey through the perspective of Clayton Christensen, author of 'The Innovator's Dilemma'. Apart from that, the chapters on Foxconn were also quite insightful and would serve to break some myths associated with Apple. That apart, the author does seem a little biased in her assessment of Cook. It almost felt that she was coming from the standpoint Jobs>Cook and there was no way Cook would do anything great for the company. That's why I give it a 4/5. However, for anybody interested to know more about Apple, this book is a must-read.

Harlan

May 05, 2014

For someone who is not an Apple fanboy and hasn't followed the company closely, this is a pretty shocking look at the house that Steve built, and what it has been up to in recent years. What isn't clear, and never will be, is what might have happened if Jobs had survived. Had their remarkable run of innovation peaked already, and were they headed for a future as a big, profitable but ordinary corporation? That seems to be where they are if the author's view is accepted. The revelations about their abuse of their suppliers is disturbing, though covered elsewhere. What stands out more is their apparent reliance on litigation to stifle competition, rather than continuing to develop exceptional products. For the investor, the question is: Is AAPL a short?

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