iPhone

"The super single-item strategy strengthened consumers’ high brand awareness of Moutai liquor while creating ample and leisurely marketing and profit space for channel merchants. Globally, only Apple’s iPhone in the United States achieved similar success."

"Process knowledge is hard to measure because it exists mostly in people’s heads and the pattern of their relationships to other technical workers. We tend to refer to these intangibles as know-how, institutional memory, or tacit knowledge. They are embodied by an experienced workforce like Shenzhen’s. There, someone might work at an iPhone plant one year, for a rival phone maker the next, and then start a drone company. If an engineer in Shenzhen has an idea for a new product, it’s easy to tap into an eager network of investors. Shenzhen is a community of engineering practice where factory owners, skilled engineers, entrepreneurs, investors, and researchers mix with the world’s most experienced workforce at producing high-end electronics."

"Process knowledge is hard to measure because it exists mostly in people’s heads and the pattern of their relationships to other technical workers. We tend to refer to these intangibles as know-how, institutional memory, or tacit knowledge. They are embodied by an experienced workforce like Shenzhen’s. There, someone might work at an iPhone plant one year, for a rival phone maker the next, and then start a drone company. If an engineer in Shenzhen has an idea for a new product, it’s easy to tap into an eager network of investors. Shenzhen is a community of engineering practice where factory owners, skilled engineers, entrepreneurs, investors, and researchers mix with the world’s most experienced workforce at producing high-end electronics."

"To secure Apple’s China business, Cook amended its warranty policy in the country, pledging that eligible customers with broken phones would be given new units. The enhanced policy was like a godsend to the yellow cows. It turbocharged their illicit scheme to such an extent that Apple Stores in China soon had a separate line just for iPhone returns. When their turn came, some migrant workers would unpack entire backpacks filled with iPhones, returning each for a brand-new unit. The updated warranty policy had given the yellow cows a new source of iPhone supply: existing models. They began stealing them from consumers, in China and abroad, and then deployed special tools to amend the fifteen digit IMEI number—which in those days was printed on the back of the iPhone and again on the SIM tray inside. In some cases, the yellow cows would obtain a top-tier iPhone, take it apart and separately sell pricey components like the memory chip, replace them with inexpensive lookalike parts, and then return the tampered unit for a brand-new model. The yellow cows became so adept at this that even a well-trained Genius Bar worker couldn’t detect which phones had been tampered with."

"It was the first time Steve did something like this at the store. Sensing his feelings, the product he had poured his heart and soul into for several years was out in the world, and he was probably very happy. The iPhone sold explosively, transforming the mobile phone industry with its power, but this event made it an impressive product for us too. In December of that year, I thought of buying an iPhone and getting Steve’s autograph."