Jobs Biographer Walter Isaacson: 'Execution is What Really Matters,' Apple is the Best

[Daalseth]

I know I'll get a ton of comments on how Apple has Pages or Office, but for power users (not basic users), Office on a Windows machine is still the most sophisticated and efficient.

Well, this writer (several books, numerous short stories and essays, currently working on writing two plays) has to disagree.
Office WAS the best. When they went to the Ribbon they totally blew it. The Ribbon is, for me at least, so illogical, so irrational, so confusing and clumsy that I won't use Office any more. We kept Office.X running for as long as we could and then I started looking around. OpenOffice, Pages, I've tried all sorts of things and I agree Office has a few nice features that are superior. But the Morons From Mars interface they now use makes it a non starter for me. I found that I spent more time trying to find the function I needed than using it.
Oh and I should mention that my wife who works with taxes and tax planning HATES Excel with the Ribbon. She would be off it too but the company she works with has gone the Office365 rout so she has no choice.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, where I work we have a writer. He's responsible for creating and updating the Product Owner's Manuals. He has to use Office2010 on Windows 7 and he HATES it. Nearly every day I hear him muttering and cursing about something and it's almost that he can't find a function he needs, can't figure out how to work some function that he needs, or in doing something Office decided that something else had to be updated. He adds a picture and it decides to top-left-right-bottom justify it at random. He edits something and it either updates the Table of Contents incorrectly or doesn't do it when it should. He highlights something and changes the font and it decides to do the whole section, page, or document even though it wasn't what he hi lighted. He fights WITH office2010 more than he USES office 2010. Unfortunately, given what he does and who he shares it with he has no choice but using Office. Office's AI is like an Autistic Savant. It's smart enough to do some things very efficiently, but it lacks any commons sense as to when to do it so usually it's wrong. Then fixing the mistake takes longer than it would have to just do it manually.

 

[BootsWalking]

Wow.

To read these threads, Apple products are behind (smaller screens, no expandable storage, no configurability), Apple doesn't innovate anymore, and Tim Cook is a dullard in execution, particularly as it rlates to supply chain.

And yet, Apple reported record revenue and profits, record sales for iPhone and iPad.

I wish my employer and its CEO could fail and be as disappointing as Apple and Tim Cook are. It would make me a rich man.

Apple didn't report record profits. Earnings for the quarter were flat vs the same quarter last year, and Apple's full-year earnings were down vs the prior year, the first time this has happened at Apple in a decade. The only "record" was the earnings per share, which was the result of Apple buying back its own shares.

 

[kerryb]

I can drink to this. The tech world in general isn't turning out very much innovation at the moment, that's coming from what you could say is a tech splinter, video games. But yeah, Cook is a bean counter, everything Apple has done has been evolutionary, even iOS 7 was really just a new set of graphics. I thought it was hilarious when the iPhone 5S's slogan was "Forward thinking" when all it was was a spec bump and finger print scanner.

How fast does innovation have to come? When is new not new anymore? Look at what you take for granted in technology today vs 3 years ago. Companies like Apple or Google cannot pull rabbits or revolutionary products and technologies out of their hats every 6 months. There is something called maturity in a product's lifespan sometimes its is obvious when little profits are being made, sometimes a product group is made obsolete overnight as with the into of the first iPhone.

 

[Iconoclysm]

Walter Isaacson, back peddler.

By the way, writing a book about Einstein doesn't mean that you are smarter than Einstein.
Thus, writing about Steve Job doesn't mean you can be a better CEO.

Similarly, commenting on something a writer says doesn't mean you can be a better writer.

----------

Shut up Walter. Just because you wrote a book on Steve Jobs doesn't make you an expert on the tech industry.

You don't need to be an expert on the tech industry to realize you're being handed a piece of crap with "innovation" inside. In fact, the biggest problem with the tech industry is probably that it pays too much attention to the tech.

 

[kdarling]

Hypercritical #42: The Wrong Guy

John Siracusa and Dan Benjamin discuss Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs. Topics include Isaacson's failings as an author and biographer, the technical cluelessness on display in the book, and Steve Jobs, Enemy of Progress.

Interesting audio interview. Thanks.

And utterly true about Isaacson not knowing enough to ask the right tech questions.

Of course, him asking Jobs technical questions would be like the blind leading the blind anyway.

So perhaps a Jobs-aided biography had no choice than to be more social than technical.

 

[Wiesenlooser]

It's ironic because he was the one guy who had the chance to write an authorized biography about steve jobs and he totally blew it.


Also - please stop thinking that you're an expert. You don't know **** about the industry and you proved that by your incability of writing a book about it

 

[Rogifan]

Touch ID is a clever implementation of a standard technology. Considering its consistent quality and clever use, I'd be willing call it innovative. At the very least, it's a feature that makes the 5S a more attractive option.

But 64-bit isn't. The instruction set and basic design were already hammered out by the ARM Group before Apple got ahold of it, and for the moment, it's a rather pointless spec on a sheet. Just because Apple was the first to implement it doesn't make them any more forward thinking or innovative than Samsung for being the first to offer octo-core mobile processors in their phones and tablets.

Well based on your definition then nothing happening now is very innovative.

----------

Apple didn't report record profits. Earnings for the quarter were flat vs the same quarter last year, and Apple's full-year earnings were down vs the prior year, the first time this has happened at Apple in a decade. The only "record" was the earnings per share, which was the result of Apple buying back its own shares.

Apple's revenues for the quarter were higher than they've ever reported before.

 

[Consultant]

Similarly, commenting on something a writer says doesn't mean you can be a better writer.

Where did I claim that I am a better writer?

Please don't make things up to defend the back peddler.

 

[IJ Reilly]

Walter, your 15 minutes were up a long time ago...

The man wrote a detailed biography of one of the most important figures in the last century, and already you've lost interest?

----------

While walter Issacson was chosen by Steve Jobs for his autobiography why do people think Issacsons opinion is so important. We've seen him in a role of an author but to assume his knowledge gives him analytical superiority is a mistake. He makes a good point but lets see how it all plays out.

Because insight comes from studying a subject closely. Perhaps that's why he makes a good point (and why so many here fail at the same exercise).

 

[Renzatic]

Well based on your definition then nothing happening now is very innovative.

I just said I thought TouchID was pretty cool, and...I daresay...innovative.

But 64-bit mobile? Not so much. I don't think it's bad exactly, but it's so exasperating seeing people here bash everything else everyone does as a pointless spec race that doesn't do anything for the user experience, then turn around and praise Apple to high heaven for doing literally the exact same thing.

Also, I've said this before, but I feel it bears repeating. The word "innovative" is becoming a little too overplayed, and I'm kinda getting tired of it. Especially when it's used mostly to praise some random thing someone's favorite company does, rather than something actually truly innovative.

 

[Above The Gods]

I have loads of respect for Isaacson as a writer, historian, and general human being, but his comments here are rather nonsense. While Google and Apple are both tech companies and have products in the same market space, their M.O.s are 180 degrees from each other.

Both are innovating in the way each needs to be according to their respective business model. Apple is (was) better at execution because thats how the hard goods business is, you either hit it or don't. Google OTOH has hundreds of projects in the "lab" and it just waits to see what sticks and what slides off the wall. In the meantime it's churning everyone's data & making boatloads on it.

Now of late I don't think one can honestly say Apple has been great at execution. Tim Cook, 3 times in his short tenure as CEO, as had to make a public mea culpa because slow product ramp or poor demand calculations caused product contstraints resulting in revenue or sales shortfalls. For someone who's known as being brilliant at supply chain management Cook has been a dullard.

The thing is, Apple may in fact have "hundreds of projects in the lab" as well, but they simply don't publicize it. But I disagree with the assertion that Google, in general, is innovative. You can only be innovative if your idea, product, or methods are accepted in the marketplace. You can't really say they're innovative because they have great ideas in a lab, or/and bought a bunch of smaller, innovative companies.

Outside of the original Android launch, what makes Google innovative?

 

[Renzatic]

You can only be innovative if your idea, product, or methods are accepted in the marketplace.

Wrong. There have been plenty of great, innovative products that never gained a foothold in the marketplace for one reason or another. Sometimes, the lesser product wins out.

Innovation is simply doing something new or better, and being able to do something new or better has absolutely nothing to do with popularity.

 

[orwell]

Edit: Apparently a lot of people here donut understand what the word "innovation" means either. The definition of innovation is not forward-thinking, it's not execution, it is to introduce something new.

in·no·vate verb \ˈi-nə-ˌvāt\
: to do something in a new way : to have new ideas about how something can be done

transitive verb
: to introduce as or as if new

intransitive verb
: to make changes : do something in a new way

I think you're using the transitive definition of the work rather than the more appropriate intransitive definition for innovation. If you meant the transitive definition then perhaps I donut understand your point...

 

[IJ Reilly]

Wrong. There have been plenty of great, innovative products that never gained a foothold in the marketplace for one reason or another. Sometimes, the lesser product wins out.

Innovation is simply doing something new or better, and being able to do something new or better has absolutely nothing to do with popularity.

True, but more to the point, innovation is not inherently important. I could develop a new and innovative method for peeling a grape, but would it make any difference? Issacson is making the valid point that innovating and delivering things that matter are different exercises.

 

[numlock]

Two points:
2. Some of you are confusing a slight miss-reading of product demand with Apple not understanding the market. The 5S may have outsold the 5C "2 to 1", but that still means a third of customers are choosing the 5C. Even if it was 4 to 1, that's still 20% of sales! No matter how illogical the decision may appear to you, there are a lot of people who shop for phones mostly on price. If Apple can still offer a great phone that appeals to at least a portion of those customers, that's a win for them.

it means a third of iphone customers are buying the 5c which does not prove anything at all. there is nothing in the 2 to 1 ratio that says whether its taking from 5s sales or competitors.

What do you know of Apple's internal business? Have you ever even been to an Apple office, let alone their HQ in Cupertino? Do you know what is going on behind the scenes?

Because if you don't, then how do you know that Apple's recent success is not directly attributable to Tim Cook's stewardship?

Even Steve Jobs can't measure up to "Steve Jobs". Steve Jobs was floundering with NeXT before being reunited with Apple. Then sprinkled with the revolutionary products released under SJ's second stint as CEO, there were:

- iphone 4 and antenna gate.
- mobileme
- ipod hifi
- hockey puck mouse

That's just off the top off my head. And let's not forget that during the initial releases of iphone and ipad, there were availability issues as well - even though SJ was in charge.

So yeah, if you consider a CEO leading his company to record revenues and profits (two years after its founder and visionary died) as failing and a disappointment, then you are indeed confused.

you are absolutely right that there were lots of misses under sj and there are no fewer now.

surprised you mention availability issues since the current ceo was in charge of that.

the results you speak are from products released under sj and brought to the world by sj. the iphone and ipad numbers wont last forever and it dosent matter how many times you say "double down" or "we are full of innovation" sooner or later something has to arrive

 

[Renzatic]

True, but more to the point, innovation is not inherently important. I could develop a new and innovative method for peeling a grape, but would it make any difference?

Exactly. Innovation isn't always a direct indicator of functionality or usefulness. Though in the smartphone industry, it generally tends to be associated with such.

 

[Above The Gods]

Wrong. There have been plenty of great, innovative products that never gained a foothold in the marketplace for one reason or another. Sometimes, the lesser product wins out.

Innovation is simply doing something new or better, and being able to do something new or better has absolutely nothing to do with popularity.

You're conflicting innovation with invention; they are not necessarily the same. There's no example of something being "innovative", yet unacceptable to the general marketplace.

For something to be innovative, it's economical cost must be such that it is reproducible enough to be accepted in market. In other words, it has to create value for customers; turning your inventions into something people use. You can't sit at home, invent product X, and call it innovative. It is not. It's inventive, sure, but not innovative.

 

[samcraig]

The man wrote a detailed biography of one of the most important figures in the last century, and already you've lost interest?

In him, yes. Steve Jobs' life and Apple, no. There's a difference.

I didn't find Isaacson's biography well written. Perhaps you felt differently. And having seen Isaacson speak in person and all the interviews he's done since the biography came out - I'm not a big fan. Clearly his attention around the biography was deserved. I don't think he has any more "value" beyond that. Like I said - his 15 minutes are, in my opinion, done.

 

[robertcoogan]

Um...wrong

With the exception of how to mine data (and they excel at that, and I am not judging them for it), what have they really innovated on? What forward thinking advancement have they really made? On their own, even?

I'll ignore the "on their own" part"...the best work comes about through collaboration, not in a vacuum. But here's a sampling:

Google Earth/Maps. Both offer a seemingly unending view of not only geographical information, but ties it into news and weather - plus other more in-depth and educational content.

Google Sketchup. Please tell me what other company offers such a solid CAD-type application for free. As far as I know, only Google.

Google Books. Offers TONS of free reading material online, much of it previously unavailable, or hard to access.

Google Art Project. Similar to Google Books, it offers a great deal of content online.

That's all I could think of off the top of my head. They are Google sites I use myself.

Don't think of it in terms of "What have they done?" but look at in terms of what will development of these technologies lead to?

I don't like Google's attempts to gather personal information and then act all shady about it, though. But you cannot deny what they have done. Apple seems more geared towards a look nowadays anyway.

 

[Renzatic]

You're conflicting innovation with invention; they are not necessarily the same. There's no example of something being "innovative", yet unacceptable to the general marketplace.

For something to be innovative, it's economical cost must be such that it is reproducible enough to be accepted in market. In other words, it has to create value for customers; turning your inventions into something people use. You can't sit at home, invent product X, and call it innovative. It is not. It's inventive, sure, but not innovative.

It depends on what you're talking about. Around here, people talk about innovation in the mobile market, where something that has come before has been streamlined and tailored to work better, do more, and be easier to handle for most people. Like the iPhone itself would be an example of innovation. It didn't invent the smartphone. There had been plenty of smartphones before it arrived on the scene. But it did innovate the smartphone. Made them sleeker, more stylish, and a good deal easier to use.

But what if it didn't take off? It only had tepid sales, and was only bought up by a select few of the Apple faithful? Would it be less innovative because it wasn't accepted by the public at large? Does it have to reach a certain percentage of the marketplace before it's classified as such?

I don't think so. Even if the iPhone was a flat out failure, it'd still did some things better than the smartphones that came before it. It's still just as innovative. Sometimes, doing something better doesn't instantly equate to market success.

 

[Above The Gods]

It depends on what you're talking about. Around here, people talk about innovation in the mobile market, where something that has come before has been streamlined and tailored to work better, do more, and be easier to handle for most people. Like the iPhone itself would be an example of innovation. It didn't invent the smartphone. There had been plenty of smartphones before it arrived on the scene. But it did innovate the smartphone. Made them sleeker, more stylish, and a good deal easier to use.

But what if it didn't take off? It only had tepid sales, and was only bought up by a select few of the Apple faithful? Would it be less innovative because it wasn't accepted by the public at large? Does it have to reach a certain percentage of the marketplace before it's classified as such?

I don't think so. Even if the iPhone was a flat out failure, it'd still did some things better than the smartphones that came before it. It's still just as innovative. Sometimes, doing something better doesn't instantly equate to market success.

If the iPhone was a flat out failure in terms of being non-acceptable in the market, then it wouldn't have been an innovation. Like Wikipedia says, "The term can be defined as something original and, as consequence, new that 'breaks into' the market or society." If it does not "break into the market", it was just a good idea; a nice invention.

 

[Karma*Police]

Voice recognition, wearable computing, self-driving cars, tons of back-end technologies/tools that allow them to scale and return results as fast they do, and efficiency (think of gmail offering 1GB storage when hotmail was offering 10MB) to name a few. There's a lot more if you want to get into smaller details of various products (Android, Chrome, etc).

It's not just about mining data, it's being able to turn that data into something people want. Google Search and Google Maps are great examples. Google does a great job at spidering the web and collecting map data, but they turned that data into products that that were *way* ahead of their competition when they were released. For search, they had the most data and the highest relevancy of results. For maps, well, do you remember what the other mapping sites looked like? The UI for Google Maps was on another level entirely.

Don't fool yourself into selling Google short. They've had/will have flops, but their successes have been huge.

I would agree with you that Google's biggest contribution was pagerank and tech to enable a better cloud/service experience. But I wouldn't consider them more innovative than a lot of other tech companies.

For example, voice recognition, wearable computing, self-driving cars; they've all been done by or are being worked on by others. Even Google maps, when it debuted, wasn't as fully featured as mapQuest, but it took off because of Google's ubiquity and cool factor.

Personally, I think Google has a rep for innovation because unlike most companies, they have a willingness to throw every half-baked solution into the wild, including things like Google Glass and even the original Android smartphone, the G1, which was pure junk.

They can afford to do this because as gatekeepers of the Internet, they have a pretty powerful monopolistic position and revenue stream to fund all those mistakes.

 

[AppleScruff1]

I just said I thought TouchID was pretty cool, and...I daresay...innovative.

But 64-bit mobile? Not so much. I don't think it's bad exactly, but it's so exasperating seeing people here bash everything else everyone does as a pointless spec race that doesn't do anything for the user experience, then turn around and praise Apple to high heaven for doing literally the exact same thing.

Also, I've said this before, but I feel it bears repeating. The word "innovative" is becoming a little too overplayed, and I'm kinda getting tired of it. Especially when it's used mostly to praise some random thing someone's favorite company does, rather than something actually truly innovative.

I can't imagine anyone here doing that.

 

[IJ Reilly]

In him, yes. Steve Jobs' life and Apple, no. There's a difference.

I didn't find Isaacson's biography well written. Perhaps you felt differently. And having seen Isaacson speak in person and all the interviews he's done since the biography came out - I'm not a big fan. Clearly his attention around the biography was deserved. I don't think he has any more "value" beyond that. Like I said - his 15 minutes are, in my opinion, done.

I happen to respect the effort required to write any book, let alone a biography. Like it or not (and you haven't provided any reasons not to like it), this is the most comprehensive accounting of his life, and it will be a standard reference on that topic for decades to come. That kind of "fame" lasts for more than 15 minutes. If you don't happen to agree with his opinions, then say why, but don't tell me the media should have lost interest in talking to him. I can understand why they haven't.

 

[samcraig]

I happen to respect the effort required to write any book, let alone a biography. Like it or not (and you haven't provided any reasons not to like it), this is the most comprehensive accounting of his life, and it will be a standard reference on that topic for decades to come. That kind of "fame" lasts for more than 15 minutes. If you don't happen to agree with his opinions, then say why, but don't tell me the media should have lost interest in talking to him. I can understand why they haven't.

We can simply have a different opinion. I never said I didn't respect the effort. I simply didn't care for his writing. I thought it was poorly organized. The sentence structure was often poor, and it was often filled with what I felt was Isaacson drooling over Jobs - even when he was writing about Job's not-so-nice qualities.

Should the media want to talk to him sure. But that doesn't mean the public has any interest in what he has to say. Why did you assume I meant that the media should have lost interest. I never said it.

I've lost interest in anything he has to say. You can disagree with me. That doesn't make my opinion less valid.