Patrick McGee

For what it's worth, the very best books of 2025, in no particular order. Thank you @johnharris1969.bsky.social @stuartgillespie.bsky.social @duncanweldon.bsky.social @johncassidysays.bsky.social @patrickmcgee.bsky.social @jonawils.bsky.social

Apple to beat Samsung in smartphone shipments for first time in 14 years Apple will ship about 243 million phones this year, compared to Samsung’s 235 million, according to CNBC....

Apple will ship about 243 million phones this year, compared to Samsung’s 235 million, according to CNBC.
https://sherwood.news/tech/apple-to-beat-samsung-in-smartphone-shipments-for-first-time-in-14-years/

A great book with a great title about this: Red Carpet.

Why Did Apple Remove China’s Gay Dating Apps? Patrick McGee, author of ‘Apple in China,’ on how the company’s quiet removal of two major gay dating apps shows how deeply the company is entangled in Beijing’s political agenda.

www.thefp.com/p/why-did-ap...

Just finished “Apple in China” by @patrickmcgee.bsky.social – holy shit it was a brilliant read. A densely researched story of how Apple drove the rise of China’s tech industry and advanced manufacturing capability, creating a tonne of geopolitical risk in the process.

(Sent from my iPad.)

Patrick McGee on Apple in China Register now to hear Patrick McGee talk about the story of how Apple became dependent on China for its manufacturing, and what that means for China’s technology rivalry with the United States.

On October 22 (Wed), I'll be talking to @patrickmcgee.bsky.social about his book on how Apple became inseparable with the Chinese market and factories. Come see us in person at @asiasociety.org! You can register below 👇🏻

On Oct. 22, @chinabooksreview.com hosts a conversation with @patrickmcgee.bsky.social and @zeyiyang.bsky.social of @wired.com to discuss the story of how Apple tied its fortunes to America's biggest rival and how that transformed both company and country.

YouTube video by Nieuwsuur Hoe Apple van China een technologische supermacht maakte

Niet zo lang geleden betekende 'Made in China' vooral: goedkoop. Tegenwoordig staat het juist voor kwaliteit.

Een cruciale factor in China's tech-succes is, verrassend genoeg, het Amerikaanse megabedrijf Apple. Hoe dat zit, zie je hier:

I spent most of the day in the car listening to Apple In China by @patrickmcgee.bsky.social and it's wild how much money, talent, and intellectual property was shipped to China by Apple over the last few decades. Imagine if that had been spent here.

Highly recommend the book!

The Bluesky-ization of the American left Progressives discovered a seemingly invincible weapon. One day it stopped working.

Fantastic piece: the Bluesky-ization of the American Left.

I envy how consistently good Noah’s writing is. @noahpinion.blogsky.venki.dev

open.substack.com/pub/noahpini...

Apple in China *** THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ***  ‘Absolutely riveting’ Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads‘Disturbing and enlightening’ Chris Miller, a...

Just finished the really excellent book "Apple in China", by @patrickmcgee.bsky.social - highly recommend!

www.simonandschuster.co.uk/books/Apple-...

“Apple in China” by @patrickmcgee.bsky.social is easily the best book I’ve read about modern-day Apple. By a mile.

★★★★★

I say that as someone who makes a living talking about Apple.

Apple in China *** THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ***  ‘Absolutely riveting’ Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk Roads‘Disturbing and enlightening’ Chris Miller, a...

Great book and fantastic read by @patrickmcgee.bsky.social, w lots of impressions. For varieties of capitalism nerds, a really interesting insight into incremental improvement in production process over time - something more appropriate to coordinated market economies than liberal market ones...

Solid review from a fellow Calgarian 🍁

Apple in China: Patrick McGee Unpacks a High-Stakes Global Story TOI Bookmark · Episode

*New* podcast about APPLE IN CHINA with Jaya Bhattacharji Rose for the The Times Of India:

open.spotify.com/episode/0A1o...

@jbhattacharjirose.bsky.social

Yeah I think that’s fair

China book recommendations for summer and fall according to
Table.Briefings: new work by @evadou.bsky.social,
@patrickmcgee.bsky.social, my own "The Party's Interests Come First: The Life of Xi Zhongxun, Father of Xi Jinping," and others

table.media/en/china/fea...

Time is running out for Tim Cook

Read the whole essay here:

unherd.com/2025/08/time...

And, of course, much more in my book: AppleInChina.com

So it’s disconcerting that 15 months after the announcement, a personalised Siri still doesn’t exist, the ads promoting it have been pulled, and Apple has been forced to acknowledge it doesn’t know when the features might be ready.

If Apple can make it work, it could offer 1.5bn users a compelling reason to upgrade their device every 24 months, as on-device chipsets improve.

That would justify Apple’s high valuation. But, says Craig Moffett, “that whole logic disappears if Apple ends up capitulating to a cloud-based model”.

When Cook unveiled “Apple Intelligence” last year, the promise was an assistant that could mine texts and emails to deliver personalised answers — not by taking data from the cloud, but mining for data “on device”. That’s something ChatGPT can’t do on the iPhone, because apps are sandboxed.

Apple’s AI missteps are the most glaring.

Siri, once a pioneer among voice assistants, now feels “as dumb as a rock”, to quote Microsoft’s Satya Nadella.

Apple killed its decade-long electric car project just as Chinese rivals Huawei and Xiaomi expanded their own. Apple’s only meaningful new product this decade is the Vision Pro, a tech marvel lacking content. Apple has superb tech capabilities, held back by a lack of strategic vision.

Today the tired criticism resonates.

Cook achieved growth, but innovation has tanked.

The iPhone’s design has barely changed since 2019, when Jony Ive departed as design chief (a position that remains vacant).

Fringe murmurings that Cook might no longer be the right CEO have moved from fringe Internet forums to investment bank notes and news segments on CNBC and Bloomberg TV.

Their main criticism — that Cook isn’t a product visionary — has always rung hollow; his mandate was always to scale

Apple’s market valuation is still enormous, at $3.1 trillion, but it has inched up less than 5% in three-and-a-half years.

But Apple has since stagnated: Annual revenue growth in the past three fiscal years averaged just 2.3%, versus 11% to 14% for Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft, 24% at Tesla, and 80% at Nvidia.

The idea that Cook, who was appointed CEO in 2011, might step down was anathema in January 2022, when Apple first reached a $3 trillion market valuation. Profits during his tenure had soared 3.7 times and shareholder returns had increased twentyfold.

They could also highlight Cook’s statesmanship.

Trump, in 2016, said he’d force Apple to build products in the US and once urged his supporters to boycott Apple. But Cook gained his ear, achieved important tariff exemptions, and avoided backlash from Beijing even after Washington attacked Huawei.

Supporters of Cook, when challenged, used to be able to point to Apple’s unmatched supply chain, the success of the Apple Watch and AirPods, and the enduring dominance of the iPhone.