(Kansas City, Missouri) - Today, amid the many manufacturers of smartphones, tablets, and apps, two names tower above the others: Apple and Google, whose philosophies, leaders, and commercial acumen have steamrolled the competition - and now threaten to steamroll each other.
But their battle is just not a story of corporate competition. It's a tale of friendships gone sour, of trust betrayed, and agreements breached.
Wired magazine's Fred Vogelstein examines this high-stakes, high-tech struggle for handheld superiority on Wednesday, January 28, 2015, discussing his book Dogfight: How Apple and Google Went to War and Started a Revolution at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th St. The presentation begins at 6:30 p.m.
Vogelstein has reported on the Apple-Google rivalry for more than a decade and, in reporting Dogfight, had rare access to each side's major players. The book takes us into offices and board rooms where company dogma translates into ruthless business. It gets behind the outsized personalities of Steve Jobs, Apple's now-lionized CEO, and Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. And it goes inside the deals, allegations, and lawsuits that have molded the way we communicate.
Apple and Google are poaching each other's employees. They bid up the price of each other's acquisitions for spite. And they forge alliances with major players such as Facebook and Microsoft in pursuit of market dominance.
Vogelstein is a San Francisco-based contributing editor at Wired, writing about the tech and media industries. He has been a staff writer for Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, and U.S. News & World Report, and his work also has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post.
A native of New York City, he studied political science at Pomona College in Los Angeles and was a Knight-Bagehot Fellow at Columbia University's Graduate School of Business.
His presentation is preceded by a 6 p.m. reception. Admission is free. RSVP at kclibrary.org or call 816.701.3407.
Free parking is available in the Library District parking garage at 10th & Baltimore.