RaveThe Telegraph (UK)Eye-opening ... McGee... breaks down in much greater detail the relationship between this capitalist company and communist nation ... Apple is notoriously secretive, but McGee proffers dozens of first-hand accounts of how the company essentially bumbled its way into becoming hooked on China ... McGee gives Apple, to my mind, too easy a ride over how it has largely decided to ignore the terrible working conditions in Chinese factories in favour of getting its products made as quickly and cheaply as possible. There is, as well, too much detail on some of the smaller characters who helped build up Apple’s manufacturing power. But as an insight into how this odd couple became so entwined—in Apple’s manufacturing and engineering processes, design secrets, business partnerships and a large chunk of its sales—Apple in China is astonishing.
Sarah Frier
PositiveThe Times (UK)... deeply researched and highly entertaining ... packed with anecdotes and insider accounts ... As a reader it becomes infuriating to see how many times issues of cyberbullying on the app are only sorted when a celebrity such as Ariana Grande raises the issue with Instagram management. Frier, a tech journalist at Bloomberg, gives Instagram too much of a free ride here. I could have done with a few dissenting voices showing how posts encouraging self-harm and anorexia were largely ignored for many years ... What the book does do well is show how the relationship between Instagram and Zuckerberg steadily broke down, with the Facebook boss presented as increasingly jealous and bitter about his acquired app’s success ... There have been a series of books about Silicon Valley’s giants in recent months...While Frier’s book lacks some of the drama of these, it eloquently describes how the app changed millions of lives, generating a new industry of \'Instagram influencers\' .
