The One Device

The One Device is a tour de force. Brian Merchant has dug into the iPhone like no other reporter before him, travelling the world to find the untold stories behind the device’s creation and to uncover the very real human costs that come with making the iPhone. Packed with vivid detail, the book carries the reader from one unexpected revelation to the next with a fast-paced edge and heaps of analytical insight.

Ashlee Vance, New York Times bestselling author of <i>Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future

This is a stunning book—a comprehensive, fascinating, and compulsively engaging account of how the most revolutionary product of our age was invented. Brian Merchant sets off on a journey around the globe, from design studios in California to mines in South America to factories in China, to tell the human stories—the ruined marriages, the lost lives—behind this iconic device. You will never look at your iPhone the same way again.

Dan Lyons, author of <i>Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble

Brian Merchant has written a fascinating biography of the iPhone, the most important single product ever created. If you’ve ever looked at the glowing screen in your hand and wondered where the hell it came from, this book provides rich, unexpected, and unusually sophisticated answers.

Alexis Madrigal, author of <i>Powering the Dream: The History and Promise of Green Technology </i>

Compressing decades of competitive invention and behind-the-screen intrigue, Brian Merchant looks deep into the black mirror of the iPhone to tell us the prehistory—and cultural future—of Apple’s addictive device. This is the true science fiction of our time: how everyday experience was reinvented by a gadget.

Geoff Manaugh, New York Times bestselling author of <i>A Burglar’s Guide to the City

Merchant tells a far richer story than I — having covered Apple for years as a journalist — have seen before.

Lev Grossman, New York Times

Brian Merchant is a lovely writer... formidable... fascinating.

Hugo Rifkind, The Times

Apple's culture of reverence and secrecy is no match for Brian Merchant in The One Device.

New York Times Book Review

A wild ride

San Francisco Chronicle

A remarkable tale... the story it tells is compelling, even addictive - almost as addictive as the iPhone itself

The Wall Street Journal

Delivers its quota of compelling anecdotes... Merchant's investigations have great depth... I have no doubt this book will fly off the shelves.

Evening Standard

Brian Merchant’s The One Device dives deep into the making of Apple’s iPhone on its 10th anniversary, and [analyses] the implications of this worldchanging innovation.

Andrew Hill, FT </i> Business Book of the Year 2017

A deep dive into the decisions and breakthroughs behind the development of the historic smartphone.

Business Insider, Best Business Books of 2017

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.

Financial Times

The best account of the contemporary world’s single greatest technological miracle.

Bloomberg, Must Reads of 2017

In terms of breath and depth of research, The One Device is impressive.

Irish Times

Apple's culture of reverence and secrecy is no match for Brian Merchant in The One Device.

New York Times Book Review

A wild ride.

San Francisco Chronicle