423: ‘Sewing Machine Repair Shop’, With Patrick McGee

Patrick McGee, author of Apple in China—welcome. You have been everywhere, but now you have hit the big time. I have a stack of index cards in the book. First things first: is this your first book, and what exactly is your Financial Times beat?

First book—and based on the strain, maybe my last. I cover Apple at the FT, plus adjacent hardware. My path was Hong Kong for China, Germany for autos and supply chains, then Apple. The book is the culmination, and I wanted to spotlight manufacturing design engineers—the people who turn Ive’s sketches into mass production.

You wrote it in Apple Notes. I live in Notes now; underrated. Makes sense for sensitive sources.

I did. End-to-end encryption, seamless across devices, quick voice notes. When confidentiality matters, it is ideal.

Your book is dense, not padded—no reheated anecdotes. Even the chapter titles—Sewing Machine Repair Shop, Yellow Cows, Five Alarm Fire—pulled me in.

That was the aim: show, not tell. Especially how MDEs audit, train, and install Apple-owned machines in other people’s factories to make the impossible, at scale.

The early history lands. China does not arrive until around page ninety—and it works. The iMac G4 fiasco is a key setup.

Apple tried eight or nine countries; results were mixed. The iMac G4 supply web stumbled so badly Jobs raised prices. That is why China’s unique blend of scale, policy, and capability became decisive.

Publishing is slow; meanwhile Trump’s tariffs hit. Your timing felt uncanny.

I turned in a draft in September, cut twenty thousand words, added two chapters, rewrote the ending after the tariff shock, and folded in fresh TSMC insight. Distance helped me solve riddles like why CCTV ambushed Apple. While everyone chased AI, China was ignored.

I know the scoop anxiety. Your Five Alarm Fire chapter floored me.

Discovery produced thousands of pages: internal emails, depositions. In late twenty eighteen, Chinese carriers told Apple to stop shipping iPhone X R. Internally it was called a disaster days before earnings. One day after, operations slashed production; eight weeks later came the first revenue warning in sixteen years. Apple later paid five hundred million dollars to settle the investor suit.

The iPhone X staggered launch, plus leaks, gave Chinese rivals a head start.

By November, rivals had lookalikes. Apple had trained suppliers; the halo narrowed quickly. China’s speed is the story.

Radically thin phones—do we even want that?

I would trade thinness for battery life. Bigger point: we over-cover what Apple will announce and under-cover what Apple would prefer to keep quiet.

Thinness is Apple’s DNA and the line keeps proliferating. Maybe an ultrathin Air slots in while the Pro models keep the battery.

Your prologue floored me: by twenty twelve Apple owned more manufacturing equipment in China than all U.S. buildings and stores. They ran the orchestra without owning the hall.

Beijing initially saw exploitation—Foxconn’s margins collapsed while Apple’s soared. Apple’s gang of eight explained the tuition-free training poured into factories, which in turn lifted Huawei, Oppo, Xiaomi, and Vivo. Those brands now hold over fifty percent of global smartphone share.

China’s quality went from junk to world-class. Apple was the catalyst.

Apple was late to outsourcing but unique. Pushing unprecedented designs meant flying engineers to audit, teach, and install machines. Dell chased cost; Apple chased unconstrained design at scale.

The original iMac saga: Jobs nearly blew a gasket; Acorn confirmed the first design was unbuildable; Ive evolved, brought engineers in earlier, and you shipped a revised design the same year.

That lesson—integrate design, manufacturing, and ops from sketch to ramp—became Apple’s muscle. iPod and iPhone cycles moved in nine months. At peak, Apple shipped approximately five hundred fifty thousand iPhones a day. A single Foxconn big line did roughly five hundred ninety units per hour across more than sixty lines.

Which is why the iPhone, at this price and scale, could only exist via China; otherwise it becomes a multi-thousand-dollar niche.

A fair counterfactual is a Mexico-first bet—NAFTA-style integration keeps more value stateside. But China consolidated the whole stack. Once Apple scaled there, it was tied.

When did Apple realize it was tied?

March twenty thirteen. Xi consolidates power; CCTV blasts Apple on Consumer Day. Apple is blindsided, apologizes in Mandarin, and Tim flies in. That was the power-switch moment.

Give me the yellow cows.

Yellow cows—scalpers tied to triads—bused thousands to buy two phones each, smuggled units, spoofed U.S. carrier contracts, and swapped replica parts. To stop hemorrhaging, Apple moved to refurb replacements in China and serialized parts to the motherboard. The scam was so good Genius Bars needed X-ray-level tools. CCTV weaponized the visible warranty difference; it looked like arrogance, but it was anti-fraud policy.

I saw those odd Portland lines—no sales tax explains it. Also explains Apple’s right-to-repair caution.

Exactly. Authorized parts can be serialized and verified—threading the needle between repair and fraud prevention.

Where should people buy the book?

Wherever you like—just start reading.

It is fantastic—original reporting that finally ties the weird threads together into a story.

Thank you. Let us do this again once we know what is really happening inside the glass walls in Cupertino.