Ondrej Holzman It is difficult to write about a book dealing with Apple, which the head of this company himself called a waste of time. "It's the same nonsense over and over again (…) The book completely fails to capture Apple, Steve or anyone else in the company." Tim Cook honored the book with these words The cursed empire - Apple after the death of Steve Jobs by Yukari Iwatari Kane.
It is true that we could understand this move by Cook as a tactical dodge against sharp criticism. Apple's PR machine is notorious for its indiscriminateness towards uncomfortable questions or journalists who are not very "careful" in their handling of the Apple brand. However, upon opening The Cursed Realm, it becomes clear after a few pages that this publication indeed je very problematic.
At the same time, if we take into account the premise of the book and the history of its author, this project did not have to turn out badly at all. Yukari I. Kaneová is no newcomer to the topic of Apple, she has been dealing with the Californian company for many years and, by the way, she was the one who for the paper Wall Street Journal he was the first to discover that Steve Jobs had secretly undergone a liver transplant.
Also, the concept of the Cursed Empire is relatively original in the avalanche of boring and unimaginative books about Apple. Kane went on the path of portraying the iPhone maker as a crumbling empire that has yet to recover from the loss of its main glue – Steve Jobs.
The premise that it is no longer possible to continue without the founding father is undoubtedly compelling - and given the circumstances of recent times it is quite justified - but Kane lacks the necessary consistency in her defense. She looks too little for facts to support her claims, and her conclusions are hard to believe without real arguments. This is the main shortcoming of this book, which gives you the feeling that the author is not even trying to find the truth.
The line outlined in this way, from which Kane does not seem to want to deviate even an inch on either side, could be really interesting. How Apple will survive after the death of Steve Jobs is a topic that the entire technology world is dealing with. Moreover, who else would have a better idea about this topic than someone who has followed the company in detail for years? And especially at the end of Steve Jobs' life, when the key moment of the company's takeover by new management was approaching?
Kane's very fundamental problem is that in his narrative he de facto does not deal at all with what actually happened or is happening with Apple. It is not a question of searching for the real mood in the company, the attitudes of its management, the employees' faith in it, and so on. Instead, Kane carefully selects those moments where she can a priori demonstrate how society is going downhill. Unfortunately, drama wins out over the ability to use years of experience to present a confusing, fragmented topic as a coherent and (as far as possible) objective story.
Instead, Kane contradicts herself in her claims and sometimes even fails to avoid outright denial of her original assumption. In addition, if the author approaches an important topic that could bring relevant arguments to the table, it is prematurely and completely incomprehensible. It is simply not possible to read the book Zakletá říše unbiased, because it is already inherently biased.
If we want to take something away from the latest addition to the wide family of publications about the Apple company, we have no choice but to focus on its reporting part. As already mentioned in the introduction, Yukari Kane has been involved with the apple company for many years, which can bring the reader a unique insight into certain aspects of the company's functioning.
For example, a detailed description of Apple's operations in China, the conditions in the factories there, and life in Shenzhen are topics that we could previously only read about through scant and rarely objective fragments. Kaneová, on the other hand, can present this issue in a comprehensive form thanks to her extensive experience and her own experiences.
A passage describing in detail a pair of major legal battles that the Californian firm has been through in recent years can also be useful. It's both the notorious "war" with Samsung over copying mobile devices and a high-profile e-book price-fixing case. It must be said that Kane basically does not bring anything that we do not already know, but she is able to present this part of the apple story again in a comprehensive and comprehensible way.
At a somewhat lower level, a number of stories from the lives of Apple's top executives can further engage, whether it's a look back at the last years of Jobs' life or notes about other key figures in the company. Even in this case, however, there is a tendency to select individual examples that underline the main, negative line of the book. Also missing are key events such as the dismissal of Jobs' key colleagues, drastic changes in iOS or Cook's shaky beginnings. Unfortunately, Kaneová mentions these society-shaping events only marginally, even though she could most support her premise on them.
When all these flaws are taken into account, it is clear that the book as a whole has no chance of standing up. At the same time, it is not that it is negative (as it might seem at first glance, given the focus of this server). Of course, any author has the right to his subjective beliefs, from completely celebratory to overwhelmingly negative, but the Cursed Empire directly exudes its calculated first-planning, when it is decided in advance how everything will end.
Thanks to her experience as a reporter, Yukari Kane was able to take stock of Apple's results from a distance, criticize its decisions and perhaps even declare that the Cupertino company has long since passed its best. If it were supported by real findings and meaningful arguments, it would be a completely legitimate opinion on the functioning of the most watched technology company today. However, Kane failed in her task and confirmed that even she has no idea what the future holds for Apple.
To the credit of her and the entire book, we can attribute practically only her reporter's part, and if we can extract it from an otherwise biased story, we can get a fairly convincing idea of how Apple operates in China, how the workers there live, or read interesting information about the way Steve Jobs phoned reporters about his health. It is not possible to select specific chapters, these beneficial fragments are scattered practically throughout the book, so despite the criticism mentioned above, there is no point in reading the book. However, do not expect an objective assessment of the current state of the apple company.
Filip Novotný collaborated on the review.
Book in Czech translation named The cursed empire - Apple after the death of Steve Jobs (in the original Haunted Empire: Apple After Steve Jobs) should be published at the beginning of December, and Jablíčkář will be available to you in the following weeks in cooperation with by Blue Vision publishing house will bring exclusive excerpts directly from the book. Readers of Jablíčkář also have a unique opportunity to order a book The cursed empire - Apple after the death of Steve Jobs pre-order for a cheaper price of 360 crowns and get free shipping. You can pre-order on a special page apple.bluevision.cz.
Will there be an electronic version of the book?
He's going to.
hands off this crap! that woman is completely swept away…. I read quite a lot of that book in EN on other sites, I watched a TV interview where she babbled on and on like a broken gramophone, saying something that probably didn't come out of her own head
Agree, it is not only a waste of time, as quoted in the beginning of the article, but it is also a waste of money. It's just that "someone" else "wants to do" on Apple Inc.'s wave.
Things go downhill after steve's death. it would not allow a larger iPhone or a smaller iPad.
You are a clairvoyant or a friend of S. Jobs, that you know what he would have committed and not committed. The fact that someone's thinking is stagnant does not mean that the opinion of others is not developing.
Who knows what Jobs would want... How about going to Apple? You could replace him there - if you knew what he would want. :)
did they let you on the computer again?? hop hop to the pacifiers and the jacket