Battle of the Titans

The story behind the bitter rivalry between Apple and Google – and how an an epic battle is reshaping the way we think about technology. This book, previously published as ‘Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution’, explores the real reasons beneath the world’s biggest deathmatch.

The rise of iPhones, smartphones and tablets has changed the world. At the centre of this are Apple and Google, two companies who have steamrolled the competition. In the age of the Android and the iPad, these corporations are locked in a battle that will play out beyond the marketplace, in the courts and on screens around the world.

Fred Vogelstein has reported on this rivalry for more than decade and has rare access to the boardrooms where company dogma translates into ruthless business; to outsize personalities like Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt; and inside the deals, transactions, lawsuits and allegations. Apple and Google are brazenly poaching each other’s employees. They bid up the price of each other’s acquisitions for spite, and they forge alliances with major players like Facebook and Microsoft in pursuit of market dominance.

‘Dogfight’ is not just a story about what devices are going to replace our TVs, phones, laptops, and music players. It’s about who will control what we see on those devices and where that content will come from. This is the future of media, entertainment, communication and information around the globe.

Reviews

‘[‘Dogfight’ is] reshaping the way we think about technology’ Observer Tech Monthly, Book of the Month

‘Every half generation there is a revolution in Silicon Valley that turns the world on its ear. In the 1980s there was the PC. In the 1990s there was the Internet browser. Now in the 21st Century there is the smartphone. In ‘Dogfight’, Fred Vogelstein supplies a riveting and previously untold account of how Apple and Google came to dominate this new world – and became mortal enemies’ Chris Anderson, former editor-in-chief, Wired, author of ‘The Long Tail’

‘This is a big book. Not in size but in scope. It is not just a business book … Fred Vogelstein has written a crisp and compelling narrative about how the digital earthquake disrupts all companies in the communications business, be they young or old, and how it upends many of our familiar habits. If you want to understand why the ground you are standing on is unsteady, and what the future might look like, read this superb book’ Ken Auletta, author of ‘Googled: The End of the World as We Know It’

‘No battle in the business world is more important than Apple versus Google in the quest for smartphone supremacy, and now Fred Vogelstein has provided the essential blow-by-blow. Dogfight has teeth!’ Steven Levy, author of ‘In the Plex: How Google Thinks, Works and Shapes Our Lives’

About the author

Fred Vogelstein has reported on the technology world’s greatest rivalry for more than a decade and enjoys rare access to its major players. He is a contributing editor at Wired magazine, where he writes about the world of high-tech business and finance. His writing has appeared in Fortune magazine, the New York Times Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal.