In this post, we explore the human cost of the iPhone. We explore the lives of the various people — in China, Congo, and California — who turn ideas and atoms into iPhones. The aim of this post is to assess the human cost of the iPhone and smartphones more broadly.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, the founders of Apple Computers, were ultimately responsible for helping middle-class families, like mine, get access to personal computers in the 1980s. Jobs’s first stint at the company lasted a few years. Part of it had to do with his “management style”, which was difficult on the people he led. As Bob Belleville, who was his head of the Mac engineering team, summarized the three years he worked for him as follows:
“I packed in a decade or two of experience. Steve packed in a couple of centuries in his 56 years. He did everything he wanted and all on his own terms. It was a life well and fully lived, even if it was a bit expensive for those of us were close.”[1]
Belleville’s emotional reading of his reflections on Jobs’s death provides a preview into what the Cupertino and Foxconn employees would endure in the future.
And that future began with Steve Jobs returning to Apple in 1997. Jobs revitalized the Apple product line-up. He led the development of Apple’s own line of artistically oriented software, such as Final Cut Pro, Garage Band, and iTunes. He saw the iMac — as it was now called — as the digital hub that would organize the customer’s life. [2]
In 2001, Apple unveiled the iPod. Arguably, “the device that jump-started Apple’s modern fortunes”.[3] This was, but a prelude to 2007: the year that the “one device” was unveiled. Soon to dominate the smartphone market, Steve Jobs noted the following:
“Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything,” he said. “Well, today, we’re introducing three revolutionary products of this class. The first one is a wide-screen iPod with touch controls. The second is a revolutionary mobile phone. And the third is a breakthrough internet communications device. An iPod, a phone, and an internet communicator… “Are you getting it? These are not three separate devices; this is one device, and we are calling it iPhone. “Today,” he added, “Apple is going to reinvent the phone.”[4]
Arguably, they did. They also brought the “annual model release”. We have been accustomed to this in the world of automobiles. But now Apple brought this to the world of smartphones. Annually, Apple invites its devotees to buy. Each year Apple promises the “best iPhone ever” or something to that effect:[5]
2007: “Today Apple is going to reinvent the phone” on the first iPhone
2008/3G: “It’s really, really great and it feels even better in your hand if you can believe it”
2009/3GS: “This is the most powerful, fastest iPhone we’ve ever made”
2010/4: “…one of the most beautiful things we’ve ever made”
2011/4S: “…has an incredible stainless steel band around it making it the thinnest smartphone”
2012/5: “it is an absolute jewel it is the most beautiful product we have ever made, bar none”
2013/5S: “…the most beautiful phone ever made”
2014/6: “they are without a doubt the best iPhones we’ve ever done[6]
2015/6S: “most advanced smartphones”
2016/7: “it’s the best iPhone that we have ever created”
2017/8: “… most powerful and smartest chip ever…”
2017/10: “it is the biggest leap forward since the original iPhone. This really is the future”
2018/10S: “most advanced iPhone we’ve ever created”
2019/11: “…most advanced iPhone that we have ever built” [7]
2020/12: “…new era for iPhone. Today we’re bringing 5G to iPhone”[8]
2021/13: “…and we’re not done yet… Let’s take a look at our most Pro iPhone ever”[9]
The ability to enchant the consumer through these product releases cannot be underestimated. It’s the core of the Apple brand. Blackberry, Microsoft, Nokia, and others couldn’t even come close. Apple’s domination would eventually pave the way for Android based devices, such as Samsung, Google, and OnePlus. But at what cost?
iCost: The Hidden Bill in our Electronics
As Malcolm X said, “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock…Plymouth Rock landed on us!”[10]. Within these few words, Malcolm X succinctly summarizes how there are two sides to a story. The “feel good narrative” does not apply to all. It’s a similar situation with the iPhone. The iPhone landed on some. And others landed on it.
Brian Merchant, author of The One Device, interviewed “David Michaud, a mining consultant who runs 911 Metallurgist” to understand what the iPhone was actually composed of.[11] Michaud smashed the iPhone with “an impact machine” and put it “an industrial blender”. This led him to concluding that “aluminum and iron were the most abundant metals in the phone accounting for 38.5 percent of the iPhone mass. Other metals, such as copper, cobalt, chromium, and nickel accounted for 17.1 percent of the mass. Lithium was measured to be about 0.67 percent of the iPhone mass. Other elements of interest were carbon, at 15.4 percent, and silicon at 6.3 percent. There’s even a trace amount of arsenic in the phone, though not enough to be toxic.” [12] Michaud also found small amounts of gold, tin, tantalum, tungsten, and nickel, who also noted that “[t]he raw metals in the whole thing are worth about one dollar total, and 56 percent of that value is the tiny amount of gold inside”.[13]
The Vice article also notes:
“The iPhone’s hundreds of components require a suite of rare earth metals — such as cerium, which is used in a solvent to polish touchscreens and to color glass, and neodymium, which makes powerful, tiny magnets and shows up in a lot of consumer electronic parts — and mining these elements is a complex, sometimes toxic affair.”[14]
The smartphone also contains “yttrium and europium [that] are crucial to your iPhone’s function — they’re used in the phone’s battery, as well as to help give the display screen color and make the phone vibrate when you get a text, among other uses.”[15]
We can almost imagine giant yellow diggers pulverizing the earth to get at those precious minerals. It takes about “34 kilograms (75 pounds) of ore… to produce the metals that make up a 129-gram iPhone”[16]. But what about artisanal mining? Do not let the term mislead you. It can conjure images of a fancy hipster with chic sunglasses, a chapeau, and a carefully chiseled goatee. Instead, it is the work of Congolese miners who mine the cobalt with “hand tools”.
For more on this, we are referred to the expose published by the Washington Post on cobalt mining. They reported that “60 percent of the world’s cobalt originates in Congo”[17] and that hand-based mining yields “an estimated 10 to 25 percent of the world’s cobalt production and about 17 to 40 percent of production in Congo”. They go on to explain:
“The world’s soaring demand for cobalt is at times met by workers, including children, who labor in harsh and dangerous conditions. An estimated 100,000 cobalt miners in Congo use hand tools to dig hundreds of feet underground with little oversight and few safety measures, according to workers, government officials and evidence found by The Washington Post during visits to remote mines. Deaths and injuries are common. And the mining activity exposes local communities to levels of toxic metals that appear to be linked to ailments that include breathing problems and birth defects, health officials say.”[18] [Emphasis added].
The article was honest enough to admit there’s no good data around how many children work the mines. The best they could get was a 2012 UNICEF study that estimated about 40,000 children were involved.
In terms of wages, miners “make an average of $2 or $3 a day”, with no benefits:
“Last year, after one digger’s leg was crushed and another suffered a head wound in a mine collapse, Nsenga was left to raise the hundreds of dollars for treatment from other diggers. The companies that buy the minerals rarely help, Nsenga and other diggers said.”
So, we have 100,000 workers, 40,000 children, and a pay rate of $2 to $3 a day. Sadly, Nsenga was one of the lucky ones who survived the work. Many do not make it out of these disaster-waiting-to-happen workplaces. The article noted that between 2013 and 2015 about 44 died.
But the question remains, how does this cobalt make it from the Congo to the batteries installed in our iPhones?
According to the Post, “[a]bout 90 percent of China’s cobalt originates in Congo, where Chinese firms dominate the mining industry”. They go on to explain:
“The Post traced this cobalt pipeline and, for the first time, showed how cobalt mined in these harsh conditions ends up in popular consumer products. It moves from small-scale Congolese mines to a single Chinese company — Congo DongFang International Mining, part of one of the world’s biggest cobalt producers, Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt — that for years has supplied some of the world’s largest battery makers. They, in turn, have produced the batteries found inside products such as Apple’s iPhones — a finding that calls into question corporate assertions that they are capable of monitoring their supply chains for human rights abuses or child labor.”[19] [Emphasis added]
The poor working conditions are just part of the problems. There are also the health issues that the Congolese endure due to the pollution caused by the mining. According to the New Yorker: [20]
“Other women wash raw mining material, which is often full of toxic metals and, in some cases, mildly radioactive. If a pregnant woman works with such heavy metals as cobalt, it can increase her chances of having a stillbirth or a child with birth defects. According to a recent study in The Lancet, women in southern Congo “had metal concentrations that are among the highest ever reported for pregnant women.” The study also found a strong link between fathers who worked with mining chemicals and fetal abnormalities in their children, noting that “paternal occupational mining exposure was the factor most strongly associated with birth defects.”
A SkyNews article also noted health issues related to cobalt mining in the Congo:[21]
“the World Health Organisation says exposure to cobalt and breathing in its dust fumes can cause long-term health problems… Certainly, many of those involved in the mining industry believe they’re suffering poor health as a result…Makumba Mateba has a huge tumour on his throat which he believes has grown because the water in his village is contaminated by cobalt mining.”
The Congolese Miners attempt to get Justice
The Congolese attempted to bring legal action against the big tech companies. It is ultimately they who benefit from this state of affairs. As noted in Forbes, 13 families attempted to sue not just Apple, but Google’s parent company (Alphabet), Microsoft, Tesla, and Dell. According to Forbes:
“The lawsuit alleges that “the young children mining Defendants’ cobalt are not merely being forced to work full-time, extremely dangerous mining jobs at the expense their educations and futures; they are being regularly maimed and killed by tunnel collapses and other known hazards common to cobalt mining in the DRC” as well as “that the companies “are knowingly benefiting from and providing substantial support to this ‘artisanal’ mining system in the DRC. Defendants know and have known for a significant period of time the reality that DRC’s cobalt mining sector is dependent upon children, with males performing the most hazardous work in the primitive cobalt mines, including tunnel digging. These boys are working under stone age conditions for paltry wages and at immense personal risk to provide cobalt that is essential to the so-called ‘high tech’ sector, dominated by Defendants and other companies.”
The case did not resolve in favour of the miners. In November 2021, U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols threw out the case. Of course, he acknowledged it was “tragic” but decided that the case “has several flaws, including the fact that the alleged harm isn’t traceable to the companies.”[22]
The judge’s ruling is not surprising, given how lax regulation is around the precious ore. The Washington Post citing an analyst from Benchmark noted that he believes that the reason why cobalt has not been designated a conflict mineral would cause a “crimp in the cobalt supply chain would devastate companies”. It’s only through such a designation would make the harm “traceable to the companies”. And there’s no way for the people of Congo to make that happen.[23]
Designed by Californian Capitalists, made by Chinese Communists
According to the Walter Isaacson biography about Steve Jobs, the “Designed in California” moniker goes back decades. Jobs held a contest back in the early-1980s to identify “world-class designer who would be for Apple what Dieter Rams was for Braun.”[24] The winner, Hartmut Esslinger, “proposed that there should be a “born-in-America gene for Apple’s DNA” that would produce a “California global” look”. [25] It was from that “from then on every Apple product has included the proud declaration “Designed in California.” [26]
Apple did originally make its products in the US. However, they ultimately outsourced all its manufacturing. Jobs had to explain the loss of American jobs to the US President:
“In 2011, President Obama held a dinner meeting with some of Silicon Valley’s top brass. Naturally, Steve Jobs was in attendance, and he was discussing overseas labor when Obama interrupted. He wanted to know what it would take to bring that work home. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” Jobs famously said. It wasn’t just that overseas labor was cheaper — which it was — it was also that the sheer size, industriousness, and flexibility of the workforce there was necessary to meet Apple’s manufacturing needs.”[27]
What’s interesting is that the executives claim is that it’s not about money. For example, they estimate it would only raise the cost by $10 per phone[28]. Instead, they claim it’s about “speed and flexibility”[29]:
“Apple executives say that going overseas, at this point, is their only option. One former executive described how the company relied upon a Chinese factory to revamp iPhone manufacturing just weeks before the device was due on shelves. Apple had redesigned the iPhone’s screen at the last minute, forcing an assembly line overhaul. New screens began arriving at the plant near midnight.
A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company’s dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day… “The speed and flexibility is breathtaking,” the executive said. “There’s no American plant that can match that.” [emphasis added]
And that’s where Foxconn comes into the picture.
Foxconn hires a 1.3 million people. How does that compare to Apple’s workforce? About 66,000. That’s like a rounding error to millions hired by the Chinese manufacturing giant. Even if you add up the workers at Apple, Google’s parent Alphabet, Amazon, Microsoft, and Facebook you get just below 500,000. [30] Foxconn also manufactures tech for “Alphabet (formerly Google), Amazon, BlackBerry, Cisco, Dell, Fujitsu, GE, HP, IBM, Intel, LG, Microsoft, Nintendo, Panasonic, Philips, Samsung, Sony, and Toshiba, as well as such leading Chinese firms as Lenovo, Huawei, ZTE, and Xiaomi”. [31] However, it’s “largest customer by far is Apple”. [32]
Why is there such a large pool of labour at the company? China has undergone a massive migration from the rural areas to the city, where 250 million people have relocated. This creates a massive pool of dislocated people working.
As one would expect, this results in really low wages.
Workers get paid about 2000 Yuan a month. That’s just over $300 a month. Workers have to work 55 to 60 hours a week, plus over time. The schedule is quite intense as they sometimes only get two days off in a month. Foxconn also “hires” student interns. In 2010, “Foxconn employed 150,000 student interns nationwide — 15 percent of its entire million-strong Chinese workforce”. [33] In terms of wages, “were paid the same 950 yuan per month as other minimum-wage workers, but unlike their fellow workers, interns were not entitled to a 400-yuan-per-month skills subsidy” [34]. The company also saved “from not providing them with social security”. [35] This amounts to “30 million yuan — a figure reached by multiplying the number of persons (150,000) and an average per-person payment (200 yuan)”. [36]
These workers live onsite in dorms and send money “back home”. The dorms are cheaper to rent at the rate of 150 yuan-per-month compared to 350–580 yuan-per-month for a small room in the “densely packed migrant quarters”.[37]
Why would someone sign-up for this? One ex-Foxconn worker put it this way: [38]
“They call Foxconn a Fox Trap,” he says. “Because it tricks a lot of people.” “I was tricked to work for Foxconn,” Xu says. “I intended to work for Huawei,” he adds, referring to the Chinese smartphone competitor. “People feel way better working for Huawei, better corporate culture, more comfortable.” In fact, he says, “Everyone has the idea of working in Foxconn for one year and getting out of the factory and going to work for Huawei.”
What is China’s share of the money made from the iPhone?
After all is said and done the total Chinese component only accounts for 1.8% of the total revenue made by the iPhone. Apple, on the other hand, walks away with 58.5%.[39]
Working at the factory is quite intense. They have to attend an unpaid morning meeting where, they are, according to Tian Yu an ex-employee, pressed to “maintain high productivity, reach daily output targets, and keep discipline.”[40] Yu also noted that “[f]riendly chit-chat among coworkers is not very common even during the break. Everyone rushes to queue up for lunch and eat quickly.” [41] You also have to pretend to be happy. When “workers prepare to begin a shift, managers call out: “How are you?” Workers must respond by shouting in unison, “Good! Very good! Very, very good!”. [42]
Merchant, interviewing a Foxconn worker, also noted that:
“At the end of the day, the manager will ask everyone on a team to stand up and gather around. In addition to praising productive workers and offering a general debriefing, the manager will single out anyone he or she believes made mistakes. “It’s insulting and humiliating to people all the time,” his friend says. “Punish someone to make an example for everyone else. It’s systematic,” he adds. “There are bonuses, and if you get scolded you won’t get the bonus.” In certain cases, if a manager decides that a worker has made an especially costly mistake, the worker has to prepare a formal apology. “They must read a promise letter aloud — ‘I won’t make this mistake again’ — to everyone.” One of his colleagues, who took the blame for someone else’s mistake to protect them, “cried, [he was] scolded so badly.” [43]
And that takes us back to Tian Yu, who was quoted earlier. Yu was one of the workers who survived her attempted suicide after working just over a month at Foxconn. She threw herself off “of the fourth floor of a Foxconn factory dormitory” back in March 2010. [44] In 2010, there were 18 suicide attempts. Of them 14 were dead and four “survived with crippling injuries”. [45]
Jobs, when confronted back in 2010 about suicides, dug deep into his infamous “reality distortion field”[46]:
“We are on top of this. We look at everything at these companies,” Steve Jobs said after news of the suicides broke. “Foxconn is not a sweatshop. It’s a factory — but my gosh, they have restaurants and movie theaters… but it’s a factory. But they’ve had some suicides and attempted suicides — and they have 400,000 people there. The rate is under what the U.S. rate is, but it’s still troubling.” [47]
By making it about average suicides he side-stepped any criticism that the work in the iPhone factories was the problem. That’s not to say Apple did nothing: [48]
“a team of suicide prevention experts assembled by Apple recommended a series of quick Foxconn actions, “including hiring a large number of psychological counselors, establishing a 24-hour care center, and even attaching large nets to the factory buildings to prevent impulsive suicides… “Apple [also] made recommendations to Foxconn “for supporting workers’ mental health,” as well as for “better training of hotline staff and care center counselors and better monitoring to ensure effectiveness.” [49]
The “large nets” were referred in the press as “suicide-nets”. This received negative publicity at the time. Furthermore, it appears that offering higher wages or better working conditions were not part of the suicide prevention measures.
Apple also conducted a survey of “more than 1,000 workers about their quality of life, sources of stress, psychological health, and other work-related factors.” The researchers also “interviewed workers face to face, met separately with their managers, and evaluated working and living conditions firsthand.” [50]
But the survey was not published. And the measures seemed to have failed in preventing the suicides. Merchant — who published his book in 2017 — noted the following from Xu, a former Foxconn worker:
“Xu says there was another suicide a few months ago… “I was out for lunch, and saw everyone making a scene. He was on the ground surrounded in blood.” So why didn’t the suicide get any media coverage? I ask. Xu and his friend look at each other and shrug. “Here someone dies, one day later the whole thing doesn’t exist,” his friend says. “You forget about it.” [51] More chillingly, Xu went on to say that “[i]t wouldn’t be Foxconn without people dying…Every year people kill themselves. They take it as a normal thing.” [52]
Merchant’s trip to China validates Foxconn’s anti-media stance. He was continually turned away by security guards and other Foxconn employees. He did manage to get into one of the factories, by asking to use the bathroom. He described the factory as follows:
“After leaving “downtown” we begin seeing towering, monolithic factory blocks — C16, E7, and so on, many surrounded by crowds of workers. This is when it starts to feel truly impressive… Look, a lot of factories skew dystopian; they are, after all, places constructed with the sole purpose of maximizing the efficiency of human and machine labor. But Longhua is different by virtue of its sheer expanse alone — it is block after block of looming, multiple-story, gray, grime-coated cubes. It is factories all the way down, a million consumer electronics being threaded together in identically drab monoliths. You feel tiny among them, like a brief spit of organic matter between aircraft carrier–size engines of industry. It’s factories as far as you can see; there is simply nothing beautiful in sight.” [53]
How fast must workers produce iPhones? The factories pump out about 1,700 iPhones in a 12 hour shift.[54] Merchant, who interviewed the worker that gave him this number, estimated that she was “polishing about three screens a minute for twelve hours a day”.
The work is also encumbered with health and safety issues. For example, it took about 4 years for Apple to ban the use of n-hexane. [55] The substance is “used to clean Apple components including iPhone touch screens”. [56] Obviously, Apple did not confirm its use of the chemical in its factories overseas. However, N-hexane was blamed for a variety of health issues, including “deep and painful muscle cramps”, headaches, and blurry vision. The GlobalPost investigation also noted that “many of the workers simply couldn’t walk right, staggering across the factory grounds”.[57]
To understand the journey from innovation to the realities of manufacturing, we need to look at how Apple’s started using aluminum. This how Isaacson summarizes how much attention Jobs and Ive paid to integrating aluminum into Apple products:[58]
“Jobs became infatuated with different materials the way he did with certain foods. When he went back to Apple in 1997 and started work on the iMac, he had embraced what could be done with translucent and colored plastic. The next phase was metal. He and Ive replaced the curvy plastic PowerBook G3 with the sleek titanium PowerBook G4, which they redesigned two years later in aluminum, as if just to demonstrate how much they liked different metals. Then they did an iMac and an iPod Nano in anodized aluminum, which meant that the metal had been put in an acid bath and electrified so that its surface oxidized. Jobs was told it could not be done in the quantities they needed, so he had a factory built in China to handle it. Ive went there, during the SARS epidemic, to oversee the process. “I stayed for three months in a dormitory to work on the process,” he recalled. “Ruby and others said it would be impossible, but I wanted to do it because Steve and I felt that the anodized aluminum had a real integrity to it.”
What’s it like to actually work with the aluminum? To understand that, we need to look at the daily grind in China that’s required to get that aluminum into a usable format: [59]
“Foxconn’s polishing workers are responsible for transforming raw aluminum into shiny, stainless iPad casings. Each polishing machine produces metallic dust as it grinds the casings with ever-greater refinement. Microscopic aluminum dust coats workers’ faces and clothes. A worker described the situation this way: “I’m breathing aluminum dust at Foxconn like a vacuum cleaner.” With the workshop windows tightly shut, workers felt that they were suffocating.”
Sure, they are given masks and gloves. But the masks don’t prevent the workers from complaining about sore throats. The dust gets through the gloves and coats their hands. But that’s not all. When those particles get in the air, they can explode. And they did. Not once, but twice. In the first explosion, 4 were killed “and dozens were injured”. [60] In the second explosion, 61 workers were injured. [61] This, however, was at Pegatron, another one of Apple’s outsourcing partners.
Back in California: What’s the social cost?
Back in the US, it appears that Belleville’s traumatic experience at Apple was not an isolated incident.
Consider the sacrifices that were asked of Johnny Ive, Apple’s Chief Design Officer.
As we know by now, travelling while a plague is spreading is no joke. And yet, Ive — despite his criticality to Apple — was expected to travel during the 2003 SARS epidemic. If Ive was expected to risk his life for the company, just imagine what was done to others. Scott Forstall issued the following warning to Apple employees before they joined his iPhone team:
“What I can tell you is if you choose to accept this role, you’re going to work harder than you ever have in your entire life. You’re going to have to give up nights and weekends probably for a couple years as we make this product.” [62]
This was not hyperbole, but reality:
“My experience of looking back and thinking about it is not a pleasant one,” [Andy] Grignon says. He was working every day of the week, constantly stressed, and he gained fifty pounds. “It was especially hard on the married guys,” one engineer says. “There were a lot of divorces.” [63]
Andy Grignon, a senior iPhone engineer, claims that he owes his divorce to the iPhone. [64] Merchant explains that he “heard that sentiment more than once throughout [the] dozens of interviews with the iPhone’s key architects and engineers. “Yeah, the iPhone ruined more than a few marriages,” says another.” [65]
Furthermore, the work was so stressful that it caused health issues. For example, 36 people who worked on the iPhone didn’t even survive a decade after its release: [66]
“Brett Bilbrey, who wasn’t a core member of the iPhone team but who was involved in some of the research and engineering projects around it at the time, puts it like this: “I retired because of many reasons. And stress was one of them. It was a time of chaos, politics gone wild, fiefdoms. Steve was the one ring to rule them all. And people around me were dying. From heart attacks, from cancer. I do miss Apple. It was my dream job,” he says, and his wife chimes in from the background, “Until it almost killed you!” His doctor, he says, gave him an ultimatum. Do these two things or risk dying — lose weight and quit. “Thirty-six people I worked with at Apple have died,” he says. “It is intense.”
This is not to equate the difficulties that American workers with the Foxconn factory personnel. For example, Chinese workers injured their eyes trying to examine “scratches on the casing of a particular batch of new iPhones” [67]:
Li Meixia, a 19-year-old female worker, recalled: “We had no time off during the National Day celebrations, and we were forced to fix the defective products. The precision requirement for the screens of the iPhone, measured in two-hundredths of a millimeter, cannot be detected by the human eye. We use microscopes to check product appearance. It’s impossibly strict.”
That probably could not happen in the US — even if the manufacturing occurred in the US. The larger point is to recognize that the social cost is not limited to China, but also extends to Apple’s American workers as well.
Further Reading
When it comes to the human cost of the iPhone, check out Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai’s Dying for an iPhone. The book collects the human stories that are hidden behind the Foxconn wall of secrecy. The book delves deeper into the lives of the people that make our electronic gadgets. The book also discusses the social unrest that is brewing in China.[68]
The One Device is also a key read on the topic of Apple. Published in 2017, the book provides a grand tour of what literally and figuratively goes into the iPhone. The book provides a good summary of the ecological and human cost that is the One Device. On the ecological side of things, it speaks to the minerals and elements that go into the iPhone. It also peels back some of the layers of secrecy that Apple hides behind to give us a greater glimpse of the company that has manufactured billions of smartphones. The journey also takes us to some of the underlying innovations that end-up in the iPhone, such as multi-touch. For example, he explains how multi-touch was originally invented by a company called FingerWorks, to help people deal with repetitive strain injuries. The company was bought out by Apple — leaving the people the dependent on those devices to figure out a new way of dealing with those issues. The details around the cost Californians pay were largely taken from this book. Merchant did try to get Apple’s side of the story. He did try to talk to Tim Cook, even emailing him directly. However, Apple chose to maintain its veil of secrecy.
[1] Gibney, Alex, et al. Steve Jobs : the Man in the Machine. Magnolia Home Entertainment, 2016.
[2] Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs (Kindle Locations 6085). Simon & Schuster, 2011/2013. Kindle Edition.
[3] Pendlebury, Ty. “The Ipod Is Improbably Still Around As It Turns 20”. CNET, 2022, https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/apples-ipod-still-on-sale-after-20-years-but-whos-buying/. [Accessed March 4, 2022]
[4] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 3). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[5] Taken from CNET’s compilation for iPhone events from 2007 till 2019; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WcjWxW2W2Y [Accessed January 5, 2022]
[6] This year Apple introduced the Plus sized, with the 6 Plus
[7] This year Apple introduced the Pro line up with the 11 Pro
[8] Taken from the 2020 Apple Event; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KR0g-1hnQPA [Accessed January 5, 2022]
[9] Taken from the 2021 Apple Event; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvGOlAkLSLw [Accessed January 5, 2022]
[10] X, MALCOLM. The Autobiography of Malcolm X (p. 232). Random House Publishing Group, 1964. Kindle Edition.
[11] https://www.vice.com/en/article/433wyq/everything-thats-inside-your-iphone [Accessed January 26, 2022]
[12] https://www.vice.com/en/article/433wyq/everything-thats-inside-your-iphone [Accessed January 26, 2022]
[13] https://www.vice.com/en/article/433wyq/everything-thats-inside-your-iphone [Accessed January 26, 2022]
[14] https://www.vice.com/en/article/433wyq/everything-thats-inside-your-iphone [Accessed January 26, 2022]
[15] https://www.businessinsider.com/how-much-metal-in-an-iphone-2018-6 [Accessed January 28, 2022]
[16] https://www.vice.com/en/article/433wyq/everything-thats-inside-your-iphone [Accessed January 26, 2022]
[17] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/ [Accessed March 9, 2022]
[18] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/ [Accessed January 26, 2022]
[19] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/ [Accessed January 26, 2022]
[20] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/05/31/the-dark-side-of-congos-cobalt-rush [Accessed January 30, 2022]
[21] https://news.sky.com/story/meet-dorsen-8-who-mines-cobalt-to-make-your-smartphone-work-10784120 [Accessed June 10, 2022]
[22] https://www.law360.com/articles/1437141/apple-google-tesla-microsoft-beat-child-labor-mine-suit [Accessed January 28, 2022]
[23] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/batteries/congo-cobalt-mining-for-lithium-ion-battery/ [Accessed January 26, 2022]
[24] Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs (Kindle Locations 2287). Simon & Schuster, 2011/2013. Kindle Edition.
[25] Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs (Kindle Locations 2300). Simon & Schuster, 2011/2013. Kindle Edition.
[26] Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs (Kindle Locations 2300). Simon & Schuster, 2011/2013. Kindle Edition.
[27] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 283). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[28] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 376). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[29] https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/business/apple-america-and-a-squeezed-middle-class.html [Accessed February 11, 2022]
[30] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 264). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[31] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 100). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[32] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 100). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[33] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 1666–1668). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[34] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 1674–1675). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[35] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 1666–1668). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[36] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 1666–1668). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[37] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 2157–2161). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[38] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 270). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[39] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 1051–1054). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[40] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 351–358). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[41] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 351–358). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[42] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 1337–1339). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[43] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (pp. 271–272). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[44] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Location 273). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[45] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 157–159). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[46] The “reality distortion field” was something that Jobs was known to project. Per the Isaacson biography: “To some people, calling it a reality distortion field was just a clever way to say that Jobs tended to lie. But it was in fact a more complex form of dissembling. He would assert something — be it a fact about world history or a recounting of who suggested an idea at a meeting — without even considering the truth. It came from willfully defying reality, not only to others but to himself. “He can deceive himself,” said Bill Atkinson. “It allowed him to con people into believing his vision, because he has personally embraced and internalized it.” See; Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs (Kindle Locations 2062–2069). Simon & Schuster, 2011/2013. Kindle Edition.
[47] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (pp. 272–273). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[48] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 1266–1277). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[49] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 1275–1277). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[50] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 1272–1275). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[51] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 272). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[52] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 269). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[53] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 280). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[54] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 270). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[55] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Location 2654). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[56] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/may/07/chinese-workers-sickness-hexane-apple-iphone [Accessed February 14, 2022]
[57] https://theworld.org/stories/2010-03-17/silicon-sweatshops-illness-suzhou [Accessed February 13, 2022]
[58] Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs (Kindle Locations 7479–7485). Simon & Schuster, 2011/2013. Kindle Edition.
[59] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 2030–2034). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[60] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 2060–2066). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[61] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 2085–2087). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[62] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 198). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[63] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 360). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[64] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 199). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[65] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 199). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[66] Merchant, Brian. The One Device (p. 376). Little, Brown and Company, 2017. Kindle Edition.
[67] Jenny Chan, Mark Selden, and Pun Ngai. Dying for an iPhone (Kindle Locations 3186–3190). Haymarket Books, 2020. Kindle Edition.
[68] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56448688 [Accessed March 14, 2022]
