-
The One Device
- The Secret History of the iPhone
- Narrated by: Tristan Morris
- Length: 14 hrs and 29 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Buy for $24.95
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Publisher's summary
The secret history of the invention that changed everything - and became the most profitable product in the world.
Odds are that right now, an iPhone is within reach. But before Steve Jobs introduced us to "the one device", as he called it, a cell phone was merely what you used to make calls on the go.
How did the iPhone transform our world and turn Apple into the most valuable company ever? Veteran technology journalist Brian Merchant reveals the inside story you won't hear from Cupertino - based on his exclusive interviews with the engineers, inventors, and developers who guided every stage of the iPhone's creation.
This deep dive takes you from inside One Infinite Loop to 19th century France to WWII America, from the driest place on earth to a Kenyan pit of toxic e-waste, and even deep inside Shenzhen's notorious "suicide factories". It's a firsthand look at how the cutting-edge tech that makes the world work - touch screens, motion trackers, and even AI - made their way into our pockets.
The One Device is a road map for design and engineering genius, an anthropology of the modern age, and an unprecedented view into one of the most secretive companies in history. This is the untold account, 10 years in the making, of the device that changed everything.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Blood in the Machine
- The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech
- By: Brian Merchant
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The most urgent story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley but two hundred years ago in rural England, when workers known as the Luddites rose up rather than starve at the hands of factory owners who were using automated machines to erase their livelihoods. The Luddites organized guerrilla raids to smash those machines—on punishment of death—and won the support of Lord Byron, enraged the Prince Regent, and inspired the birth of science fiction. This all-but-forgotten class struggle brought nineteenth-century England to its knees.
-
-
The bias of the author can not be understated
- By Donald Campo on 11-17-23
By: Brian Merchant
-
Jony Ive
- The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products
- By: Leander Kahney
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Inside Steve's Brain profiles Apple's legendary chief designer, Jonathan Ive. Jony Ive's designs have not only made Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world; they've overturned entire industries, from music and mobile phones to PCs and tablets.
-
-
Was hoping to get to know the man behind the name.
- By Idan B. on 06-15-14
By: Leander Kahney
-
After Steve
- How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost its Soul
- By: Tripp Mickle
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Steve Jobs called Jony Ive his “spiritual partner at Apple.” The London-born genius was the second-most powerful person at Apple and the creative force who most embodies Jobs’s spirit, the man who designed the products adopted by hundreds of millions the world over: the iPod, iPad, MacBook Air, the iMac G3, and the iPhone.
-
-
Disappointing & full of faked fiction
- By Peter Keller on 05-06-22
By: Tripp Mickle
-
Creative Selection
- Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs
- By: Ken Kocienda
- Narrated by: Ken Kocienda
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Creative Selection recounts the life of one of the few who worked behind the scenes, a highly respected software engineer who worked in the final years of the Steve Jobs era - the Golden Age of Apple. Ken Kocienda offers an inside look at Apple’s creative process. For 15 years, he was on the ground floor of the company as a specialist, directly responsible for experimenting with novel user interface concepts and writing powerful, easy-to-use software for products including the iPhone, the iPad, and the Safari web browser.
-
-
Just the 20%
- By matthewolf on 09-20-18
By: Ken Kocienda
-
Steve Jobs
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Dylan Baker
- Length: 25 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.
-
-
Good Biography, Fine narrator
- By Chris on 10-27-11
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Elon Musk
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Jeremy Bobb, Walter Isaacson
- Length: 20 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Elon Musk was a kid in South Africa, he was regularly beaten by bullies. One day a group pushed him down some concrete steps and kicked him until his face was a swollen ball of flesh. He was in the hospital for a week. But the physical scars were minor compared to the emotional ones inflicted by his father, an engineer, rogue, and charismatic fantasist.
-
-
megalomania on display
- By JP on 09-12-23
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Blood in the Machine
- The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech
- By: Brian Merchant
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 15 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The most urgent story in modern tech begins not in Silicon Valley but two hundred years ago in rural England, when workers known as the Luddites rose up rather than starve at the hands of factory owners who were using automated machines to erase their livelihoods. The Luddites organized guerrilla raids to smash those machines—on punishment of death—and won the support of Lord Byron, enraged the Prince Regent, and inspired the birth of science fiction. This all-but-forgotten class struggle brought nineteenth-century England to its knees.
-
-
The bias of the author can not be understated
- By Donald Campo on 11-17-23
By: Brian Merchant
-
Jony Ive
- The Genius Behind Apple's Greatest Products
- By: Leander Kahney
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The best-selling author of Inside Steve's Brain profiles Apple's legendary chief designer, Jonathan Ive. Jony Ive's designs have not only made Apple one of the most valuable companies in the world; they've overturned entire industries, from music and mobile phones to PCs and tablets.
-
-
Was hoping to get to know the man behind the name.
- By Idan B. on 06-15-14
By: Leander Kahney
-
After Steve
- How Apple Became a Trillion-Dollar Company and Lost its Soul
- By: Tripp Mickle
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 14 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Steve Jobs called Jony Ive his “spiritual partner at Apple.” The London-born genius was the second-most powerful person at Apple and the creative force who most embodies Jobs’s spirit, the man who designed the products adopted by hundreds of millions the world over: the iPod, iPad, MacBook Air, the iMac G3, and the iPhone.
-
-
Disappointing & full of faked fiction
- By Peter Keller on 05-06-22
By: Tripp Mickle
-
Creative Selection
- Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs
- By: Ken Kocienda
- Narrated by: Ken Kocienda
- Length: 7 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Creative Selection recounts the life of one of the few who worked behind the scenes, a highly respected software engineer who worked in the final years of the Steve Jobs era - the Golden Age of Apple. Ken Kocienda offers an inside look at Apple’s creative process. For 15 years, he was on the ground floor of the company as a specialist, directly responsible for experimenting with novel user interface concepts and writing powerful, easy-to-use software for products including the iPhone, the iPad, and the Safari web browser.
-
-
Just the 20%
- By matthewolf on 09-20-18
By: Ken Kocienda
-
Steve Jobs
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Dylan Baker
- Length: 25 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—as well as interviews with more than a hundred family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Walter Isaacson has written a riveting story of the roller-coaster life and searingly intense personality of a creative entrepreneur whose passion for perfection and ferocious drive revolutionized six industries: personal computers, animated movies, music, phones, tablet computing, and digital publishing.
-
-
Good Biography, Fine narrator
- By Chris on 10-27-11
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Faraday, Maxwell, and the Electromagnetic Field
- How Two Men Revolutionized Physics
- By: Nancy Forbes, Basil Mahon
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two of the boldest and most creative scientists of all time were Michael Faraday (1791-1867) and James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879). This is the story of how these two men - separated in age by 40 years - discovered the existence of the electromagnetic field and devised a radically new theory which overturned the strictly mechanical view of the world that had prevailed since Newton's time.
-
-
Amazing narration of an incredibly well told story
- By Paul de Jong on 03-01-21
By: Nancy Forbes, and others
-
Becoming Steve Jobs
- The Evolution of a Reckless Upstart into a Visionary Leader
- By: Brent Schlender, Rick Tetzeli
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
There have been many books - on a large and small scale - about Steve Jobs, one of the most famous CEOs in history. But this book is different from all the others. Becoming Steve Jobs takes on and breaks down the existing myth and stereotypes about Steve Jobs. The conventional, one-dimensional view of Jobs is that he was half genius, half jerk from youth, an irascible and selfish leader who slighted friends and family alike.
-
-
"Design is How it Works" -SJ
- By Cynthia on 03-29-15
By: Brent Schlender, and others
-
Losing the Signal
- The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
- By: Jacquie McNish, Sean Silcoff
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Losing the Signal is a riveting story of a company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway.
-
-
Fascinating
- By Gerardo A Dada on 09-05-15
By: Jacquie McNish, and others
-
Build
- An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making
- By: Tony Fadell
- Narrated by: Tony Fadell, Roger Wayne
- Length: 11 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Tony Fadell led the teams that created the iPod, iPhone and Nest Learning Thermostat and learned enough in 30+ years in Silicon Valley about leadership, design, startups, Apple, Google, decision-making, mentorship, devastating failure and unbelievable success to fill an encyclopedia.
-
-
Best guide for start up founders, ever!!!
- By Curly Beard on 05-28-22
By: Tony Fadell
-
Insanely Simple
- The Obsession that Drives Apple's Success
- By: Ken Segall
- Narrated by: Ken Segall
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Simplicity isn’t just a design principle at Apple - it’s a value that permeates every level of the organization. The obsession with Simplicity is what separates Apple from other technology companies. It’s what helped Apple recover from near death in 1997 to become the most valuable company on Earth in 2011. Thanks to Steve Jobs’s uncompromising ways, you can see Simplicity in everything Apple does: the way it’s structured, the way it innovates, and the way it speaks to its customers.
-
-
The inner workings of Apple revealed
- By Stefan on 05-28-12
By: Ken Segall
-
The Innovators
- How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 17 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Following his blockbuster biography of Steve Jobs, The Innovators is Walter Isaacson’s revealing story of the people who created the computer and the Internet. It is destined to be the standard history of the digital revolution and an indispensable guide to how innovation really happens. What were the talents that allowed certain inventors and entrepreneurs to turn their visionary ideas into disruptive realities? What led to their creative leaps? Why did some succeed and others fail?
-
-
A History of the Ancient Geeks
- By Mark on 10-21-14
By: Walter Isaacson
-
We Are the Nerds
- The Birth and Tumultuous Life of Reddit, the Internet's Culture Laboratory
- By: Christine Lagorio-Chafkin
- Narrated by: Chloe Cannon
- Length: 16 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Reddit hails itself as "the front page of the Internet". It's the third-most visited website in the US—and yet, millions of Americans have no idea what it is. We Are the Nerds is an engrossing look deep inside this captivating, maddening enterprise, whose army of obsessed users have been credited with everything from solving cold-case crimes and spurring tens of millions of dollars in charitable donations to seeding alt-right fury and landing Donald Trump in the White House.
-
-
NEWSPAPER'S FUTURE
- By chetyarbrough.blog on 10-10-23
-
Trailblazer
- The Power of Business as the Greatest Platform for Change
- By: Marc Benioff, Monica Langley
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 8 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
What’s the secret to business growth and innovation and a purpose-driven career in a world that is becoming vastly more complicated by the day? According to Marc Benioff, the answer is embracing a culture in which your values permeate everything you do. In Trailblazer, Benioff gives listeners a rare behind-the-scenes look at the inner workings of one of the world’s most admired companies. He reveals how Salesforce’s core values - trust, customer success, innovation, and equality - and commitment to giving back have become the company’s greatest competitive advantage.
-
-
Most useless business book
- By Todd on 10-22-19
By: Marc Benioff, and others
-
Jefferson
- Architect of American Liberty
- By: John B. Boles
- Narrated by: Michael Johnson
- Length: 24 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From an eminent scholar of the American South, the first full-scale biography of Thomas Jefferson since 1970. Not since Merrill Peterson's Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation has a scholar attempted to write a comprehensive biography of the most complex Founding Father. In Jefferson, John B. Boles plumbs every facet of Thomas Jefferson's life, all while situating him amid the sweeping upheaval of his times. We meet Jefferson the politician and political thinker - as well as Jefferson the architect, scientist, bibliophile, paleontologist, musician, and gourmet.
-
-
Makes Jefferson Human
- By MichaelBuffalo on 06-23-20
By: John B. Boles
-
Console Wars
- Sega, Nintendo, and the Battle That Defined a Generation
- By: Blake J. Harris
- Narrated by: Fred Berman
- Length: 20 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A mesmerizing, behind-the-scenes business thriller that chronicles how Sega, a small, scrappy gaming company led by an unlikely visionary and a team of rebels, took on the juggernaut Nintendo and revolutionized the video-game industry. In 1990, Nintendo had a virtual monopoly on the video-game industry. Sega, on the other hand, was just a faltering arcade company with big aspirations and even bigger personalities. But all that would change with the arrival of Tom Kalinske, a former Mattel executive who knew nothing about video games and everything about fighting uphill battles.
-
-
Was hoping for so much more...
- By Rob G. on 11-17-14
By: Blake J. Harris
-
The Idea Factory
- Bell Labs and the Great Age of American Innovation
- By: Jon Gertner
- Narrated by: Chris Sorensen
- Length: 17 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Idea Factory, New York Times Magazine writer Jon Gertner reveals how Bell Labs served as an incubator for scientific innovation from the 1920s through the1980s. In its heyday, Bell Labs boasted nearly 15,000 employees, 1200 of whom held PhDs and 13 of whom won Nobel Prizes. Thriving in a work environment that embraced new ideas, Bell Labs scientists introduced concepts that still propel many of today’s most exciting technologies.
-
-
Great story -- horrible pauses
- By Rodney on 01-29-13
By: Jon Gertner
-
In the Plex
- How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
- By: Steven Levy
- Narrated by: L. J. Ganser
- Length: 19 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Few companies in history have ever been as successful and as admired as Google, the company that has transformed the Internet and become an indispensable part of our lives. How has Google done it? Veteran technology reporter Steven Levy was granted unprecedented access to the company, and in this revelatory book he takes listeners inside Google headquarters - the Googleplex - to explain how Google works.
-
-
Just ok for me
- By Everyday Mom on 04-23-11
By: Steven Levy
Critic reviews
Related to this topic
-
Broad Band
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
- By: Claire L. Evans
- Narrated by: Claire L. Evans
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Women are not ancillary to the history of technology; they turn up at the very beginning of every important wave. But they've often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize. Vice reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the Internet what it is today. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can't imagine life without.
-
-
Inspiring
- By Jean on 03-29-18
By: Claire L. Evans
-
The Friendly Orange Glow
- The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture
- By: Brian Dear
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 21 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At a time when Steve Jobs was only a teenager and Mark Zuckerberg wasn't even born, a group of visionary engineers and designers - some of them only high school students - in the late 1960s and 1970s created a computer system called PLATO, which was not only years but light-years ahead in experimenting with how people would learn, engage, communicate, and play through connected computers.
-
-
Memory lane for the cyberist.
- By Robert C. Hickcox on 08-08-18
By: Brian Dear
-
The World Is Flat
- Further Updated and Expanded
- By: Thomas L. Friedman
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 27 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, what will they say was the most crucial development in the first few years of the twenty-first century? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations?
-
-
If you like cliches...
- By Jonathan Shultz on 09-08-07
-
Losing the Signal
- The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
- By: Jacquie McNish, Sean Silcoff
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Losing the Signal is a riveting story of a company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway.
-
-
Fascinating
- By Gerardo A Dada on 09-05-15
By: Jacquie McNish, and others
-
Trade-Off
- Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don't
- By: Kevin Maney
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Trade-Off, Kevin Maney shows how these conflicting forces determine the success, or failure, of new products and services in the marketplace. He shows that almost every decision we make as consumers involves a trade-off between fidelity and convenience between the products we love and the products we need.
-
-
No Trade-Offs for Reading Trade-Off
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: Kevin Maney
-
You Only Have to Be Right Once
- The Unprecedented Rise of the Instant Tech Billionaires
- By: Randall Lane
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the last three years, Forbes has published in depth profiles of this new batch of billionaires, including the founders of Spotify, Dropbox, Tumblr, and Twitter. Now, in a compilation introduced and updated by Forbes editor Randall Lane, fans and critics alike will get a comprehensive look at who these super-entrepreneurs are and what they say about their own success and their plans for the future.
-
-
Awesome book!
- By Jamal Love on 06-17-15
By: Randall Lane
-
Broad Band
- The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the Internet
- By: Claire L. Evans
- Narrated by: Claire L. Evans
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Women are not ancillary to the history of technology; they turn up at the very beginning of every important wave. But they've often been hidden in plain sight, their inventions and contributions touching our lives in ways we don't even realize. Vice reporter and YACHT lead singer Claire L. Evans finally gives these unsung female heroes their due with her insightful social history of the Broad Band, the women who made the Internet what it is today. Evans shows us how these women built and colored the technologies we can't imagine life without.
-
-
Inspiring
- By Jean on 03-29-18
By: Claire L. Evans
-
The Friendly Orange Glow
- The Untold Story of the PLATO System and the Dawn of Cyberculture
- By: Brian Dear
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 21 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
At a time when Steve Jobs was only a teenager and Mark Zuckerberg wasn't even born, a group of visionary engineers and designers - some of them only high school students - in the late 1960s and 1970s created a computer system called PLATO, which was not only years but light-years ahead in experimenting with how people would learn, engage, communicate, and play through connected computers.
-
-
Memory lane for the cyberist.
- By Robert C. Hickcox on 08-08-18
By: Brian Dear
-
The World Is Flat
- Further Updated and Expanded
- By: Thomas L. Friedman
- Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
- Length: 27 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When scholars write the history of the world twenty years from now, what will they say was the most crucial development in the first few years of the twenty-first century? The attacks on the World Trade Center on 9/11 and the Iraq war? Or the convergence of technology and events that allowed India, China, and so many other countries to become part of the global supply chain for services and manufacturing, creating an explosion of wealth in the middle classes of the world's two biggest nations?
-
-
If you like cliches...
- By Jonathan Shultz on 09-08-07
-
Losing the Signal
- The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry
- By: Jacquie McNish, Sean Silcoff
- Narrated by: William Hughes
- Length: 11 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Losing the Signal is a riveting story of a company that toppled global giants before succumbing to the ruthlessly competitive forces of Silicon Valley. This is not a conventional tale of modern business failure by fraud and greed. The rise and fall of BlackBerry reveals the dangerous speed at which innovators race along the information superhighway.
-
-
Fascinating
- By Gerardo A Dada on 09-05-15
By: Jacquie McNish, and others
-
Trade-Off
- Why Some Things Catch On, and Others Don't
- By: Kevin Maney
- Narrated by: Dennis Holland
- Length: 6 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Trade-Off, Kevin Maney shows how these conflicting forces determine the success, or failure, of new products and services in the marketplace. He shows that almost every decision we make as consumers involves a trade-off between fidelity and convenience between the products we love and the products we need.
-
-
No Trade-Offs for Reading Trade-Off
- By Joshua Kim on 06-10-12
By: Kevin Maney
-
You Only Have to Be Right Once
- The Unprecedented Rise of the Instant Tech Billionaires
- By: Randall Lane
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 5 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Over the last three years, Forbes has published in depth profiles of this new batch of billionaires, including the founders of Spotify, Dropbox, Tumblr, and Twitter. Now, in a compilation introduced and updated by Forbes editor Randall Lane, fans and critics alike will get a comprehensive look at who these super-entrepreneurs are and what they say about their own success and their plans for the future.
-
-
Awesome book!
- By Jamal Love on 06-17-15
By: Randall Lane
-
Where Wizards Stay Up Late
- The Origins of the Internet
- By: Katie Hafner, Matthew Lyon
- Narrated by: Mark Douglas Nelson
- Length: 10 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty-five years ago, it didn't exist. Today, 20 million people worldwide are surfing the Net. Where Wizards Stay Up Late is the exciting story of the pioneers responsible for creating the most talked about, most influential, and most far-reaching communications breakthrough since the invention of the telephone. In the 1960s, when computers where regarded as mere giant calculators, J.C.R. Licklider at MIT saw them as the ultimate communications devices.
-
-
Absolutely fascinating and we'll researched
- By Elsa Braun on 10-01-16
By: Katie Hafner, and others
-
Electronic Dreams
- How 1980s Britain Learned to Love the Computer
- By: Tom Lean
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 10 hrs
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Electronic Dreams, Tom Lean tells the story of how computers invaded British homes for the first time, as people set aside their worries of electronic brains and Big Brother and embraced the wonder technology of the 1980s. This book charts the history of the rise and fall of the home computer, the family of futuristic and quirky machines that took computing from the realm of science and science fiction to being a user-friendly domestic technology.
-
-
Awesome outline of electronic history
- By Johnny on 09-28-17
By: Tom Lean
-
Thinking Machines
- The Quest for Artificial Intelligence - and Where It's Taking Us Next
- By: Luke Dormehl
- Narrated by: Gus Brown
- Length: 8 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When most of us think about artificial intelligence, our minds go straight to cyborgs, robots, and sci-fi thrillers where machines take over the world. But the truth is that artificial intelligence is already among us. It exists in our smartphones, fitness trackers, and refrigerators that tell us when the milk will expire. In some ways the future people dreamed of at the World's Fair in the 1960s is already here. We're teaching our machines how to think like humans, and they're learning at an incredible rate.
-
-
Mostly platitudes with no depth
- By Gary on 03-24-17
By: Luke Dormehl
-
Group Genius
- The Creative Power of Collaboration
- By: Keith Sawyer
- Narrated by: Jonathan Marosz
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In this authoritative and fascinating new audiobook, Keith Sawyer, a psychologist at Washington University, tears down some of the most popular myths about creativity and erects new principles in their place. He reveals that creativity is always collaborative: even when you're alone. Sawyer's audiobook is filled with compelling stories about the inventions that changed our world.
-
-
Worth reading
- By Glenn on 12-29-10
By: Keith Sawyer
-
The Art of Innovation
- Lessons in Creativity from IDEO, America's Leading Design Firm
- By: Tom Kelley, Jonathan Littman - contributor, Tom Peters - foreword
- Narrated by: Nick Podehl
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
IDEO, the widely admired, award-winning design and development firm that brought the world the Apple mouse, Polaroid's I-Zone instant camera, the Palm V, and hundreds of other cutting-edge products and services, reveals its secrets for fostering a culture and process of continuous innovation.
-
-
This is an old book!
- By EPR review on 01-05-17
By: Tom Kelley, and others
-
No Better Time
- The Brief, Remarkable Life of Danny Lewin, the Genius Who Transformed the Internet
- By: Molly Knight Raskin
- Narrated by: Christine Marshall
- Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
No Better Time tells of a young, driven mathematical genius who wrote a set of algorithms that would create a faster, better Internet. It's the story of a beautiful friendship between a loud, irreverent student and his soft-spoken MIT professor, of a husband and father who spent years struggling to make ends meet only to become a billionaire almost overnight with the success of Akamai Technologies, the Internet content delivery network he cofounded with his mentor.
-
-
An Overlooked Hero of 9-11
- By Jean on 05-27-16
-
Autonomy
- The Quest to Build the Driverless Car—and How It Will Reshape Our World
- By: Lawrence D. Burns, Christopher Shulgan
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 11 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Autonomy, former GM executive and current advisor to the Google Self-Driving Car project Lawrence Burns offers a sweeping history of the race to make the driverless car a reality. In the past decade, Silicon Valley companies like Google, Tesla and Uber have positioned themselves to revolutionize the way we move around by developing driverless vehicles while traditional auto companies like General Motors, Ford, and Daimler have been fighting back by partnering by with new tech start-ups.
-
-
Easy listen, non-technical perspective
- By James S. on 09-14-18
By: Lawrence D. Burns, and others
-
Automate This
- How Algorithms Came to Rule Our World
- By: Christopher Steiner
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It used to be that to diagnose an illness, interpret legal documents, analyze foreign policy, or write a newspaper article you needed a human being with specific skills - and maybe an advanced degree or two. These days, high-level tasks are increasingly being handled by algorithms that can do precise work not only with speed but also with nuance. These "bots" started with human programming and logic, but now their reach extends beyond what their creators ever expected.
-
-
good start, book runs out of sustenace
- By RealTruth on 02-15-13
-
The Department of Mad Scientists
- Inside DARPA, the Path-Breaking Government Agency You've Never Heard Of
- By: Michael Belfiore
- Narrated by: Michael Belfiore
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The first-ever inside look at DARPA - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - the maverick and controversial group whose futuristic work has had amazing civilian and military applications, from the Internet to GPS to driverless cars
-
-
meh
- By Patrick on 12-22-09
By: Michael Belfiore
-
Technically Wrong
- Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech
- By: Sara Wachter-Boettcher
- Narrated by: Andrea Emmes
- Length: 5 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Buying groceries, tracking our health, finding a date: whatever we want to do, odds are that we can now do it online. But few of us ask how all these digital products are designed, or why. It's time we change that. Many of the services we rely on are full of oversights, biases, and downright ethical nightmares. Chatbots that harass women. Signup forms that fail anyone who's not straight. Social media sites that send peppy messages about dead relatives. Algorithms that put more black people behind bars.
-
-
Pretty good but not complete
- By Casey on 10-29-17
-
Eat People
- An Unapologetic Plan for Entrepreneurial Success
- By: Andy Kessler
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here's how entrepreneurs find the next big thing-and make it huge. The era of easy money and easy jobs is officially over. Today, we're all entrepreneurs, and the tides of change threaten to capsize anyone who plays it safe. Taking risks is the name of the game - but how can you tell a smart bet from a stupid gamble? Andy Kessler offers 12 surprising and controversial rules for these radical entrepreneurs.
-
-
One of the best business books!
- By Wayne on 11-24-15
By: Andy Kessler
-
The Starfish and the Spider
- The Unstoppable Power of Leaderless Organizations
- By: Ori Brafman, Rod Beckstrom
- Narrated by: Sean Pratt
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
If you cut off a spider's leg, it's crippled; if you cut off its head, it dies. But if you cut off a starfish's leg it grows a new one, and the old leg can grow into an entirely new starfish. The Starfish and the Spider argues that organizations fall into two categories: "spiders", which have a rigid hierarchy, and "starfish", which rely on the power of peer relationships.
-
-
Centralized and decentralized models
- By Chan Meng on 12-07-07
By: Ori Brafman, and others
What listeners say about The One Device
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Walid Taha
- 12-27-18
Highly informative, eye opener
Just like Down and Out in London and Paris, this is the author’s first work. With a bit of mischief and a lot of intellectual honesty, the author travels to the ends of the world to better understand the most remarkable product of our time. Unlike Orwell’s first work, this book feels much more polished. It reads like a documentary very well executed. Well done to the author!
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Leonard A
- 08-26-18
Bist Apple Book I've Read to Date (August, 2018)
An excellent book on all the various elements that went in to creating the iPhone. And by "elements" we really do mean, at times in this book, elements. Like, periodic table elements! This may turn a lot of people off but I urge you to give it a chance. This book truly tells a complete story, debunks a lot of well-established myths and gives credit to a lot of key people whose names you may not know, even if you consider yourself an Apple fan-person. In short, this is the best book about what goes on inside Apple that I've ever read.
One note: The audiobook version of The One Device once again brought on my ire that audiobooks are not provided with the same level of editing as print books. There were sentences re-read. (And not for emphasis.) There were pronunciations that show an ignorance of subject matter by the reader/editor ("OS X" pronounced as oh-ess-ecks instead of oh-ess-ten.)
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- AmySP
- 07-11-17
TECH PORN AT ITS BEST
Any additional comments?
This book was so much fun. I loved it. It teaches the history of every element of iPhone. a glimpse into how it all came together. The soap opera that is Steve Jobs.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
8 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Michael Hommer Sr.
- 08-31-20
History with a bit of opinion
Great overall history and story of the vast number of events that came together to be the iPhone. Looks at it from angles but occasionally strays into opinion and commentary.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jeff Grimes
- 08-19-17
Factual history? Makes you think, beware bias
Is there anything you would change about this book?
There is a lot of great content to this book, but the way it is organized presents issues. I would have grouped the chapters in a different fashion. At times it felt like two books. One story is the actual development of the iPhone and the other book is the technological advances that made the individual components possible. As a result, the narrative feels disjointed.
Would you ever listen to anything by Brian Merchant again?
Yes, He has given a different viewpoint. However, I would not consider his works as an unbiased history of event.
Merchants work reminds me more of Capote's work than a strict history.
Which scene was your favorite?
I really enjoyed the parts of the book that explored the development of the technology that made the iPhone possible. With this being said, the editorializing from the author could have been omitted. I think that everyone knows that Jobs did not invent glass :)
Was The One Device worth the listening time?
For an accurate depiction of how the iPhone was developed from the early 2000 on, I would say it is lacking. Not that the facts are incorrect, but they are presented out of context. Consider the chapter on GPS that explores the origins of this system. When the author ties it back to the launch of the original iPhone, it is implied that GPS is present in the hardware. This is not true as the first GPS radio included in the iPhone did not occur until the iPhone 3G. While this should not be a huge issue for the average reader, if you want an easy to follow accurate historical accounting, this book falls short.
As far as a good use of time reading this book, I did enjoy it. If you can understand bias from fact (which in this book the author does not hide), and follow the disjointed narrative, it would not be a waste of time.
One thing I would like to point out, is that this is not a "pro-Jobs" book which I find refreshing. However I do not feel that it was balanced in giving Jobs credit to bringing this device to fruition.
Any additional comments?
Very interesting book. It does sing the praises of the individuals that originated the technologies that comprise the iPhone, however it does downplay Job's role in bringing it to market.
There is a very liberal bias (not knocking liberals as I consider myself more liberal than conservative). This mitigates the value of this book as a historical account. With this being said, this is the only source that I have read about Apple that "married" the cost of technological advancement with the impact on humans and human life.
Some of the facts I would consider suspect, however this could just be the way the book is structured. However this may be attributed the natural way the narrative had to flow.
And apologies for a disjointed review, this was unavoidable as I am still of "two minds" about this book. This is the first detailed review I have written about a book. As such, If the authors intention was to make me "Think Different". He succeeded
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bernard Chaves
- 07-06-17
Fascinating!
Great story. Very enjoyable and entertaining.
Would recommend this book to anyone who interested in iPhones.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
4 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Cody Konior
- 07-27-17
Extremely mixed feelings
Would you listen to The One Device again? Why?
No. It just wasn't that good.
How would you have changed the story to make it more enjoyable?
I felt like it was a very good attempt at making a book about the iPhone and it had many interesting facts and moments.
But I felt that the book was a little meandering and not very cohesive. I like to start a non-fiction book with some kind of mental map of where we're going. In this book I often found myself getting bored and frustrated and just hanging on waiting until the next change in topic (which was often not far around the corner).
So I would have liked a stronger introduction laying out the format.
Did the narration match the pace of the story?
I wasn't a fan of the narrators voice - it felt like listening to someone with a blocked nose for hours upon hours. I know this is a personal feeling though, and I don't want to knock them, but it made me uncomfortable.
Any additional comments?
I rated the book and the narration 3 stars. But I felt that the book overall was worth 4 stars. Yes - despite not being great, or having a great narrator, there's just no other source like this and I think it's worth listening to.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Paul Frew
- 02-27-19
Very, very good!
Excellent book, definitely not an Apple brownnoser, but still an admirer of all the iPhone is, and those who brought it about. And how much effort it took to make it. Great structure to the book, and amazing amount to detail. Solid writing, great narration. Hats off to author, narrator and production team.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Caitlin Summars
- 04-16-21
Interesting
It's a good book. Covers from beginning to end how the iPhone was made. Disheartening to learn a lot of the tragedy behind it though. I didn't find it captivating enough to finish it without struggle.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Hassan
- 10-05-17
Slow Start, But Good Read
Am a developer, specially in the iOS field, and really enjoyed learning about how the development of the first iPhone went and how it happened.
I didn't enjoy the starting bit when it was all about the material used to make the iPhone. The reason I bought is to know more about the birth of the iPhone.
If you are interested in knowing that, then go of it. It will be a bit slow thought at the start.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
7 people found this helpful