Steve Jobs' Biographer Left Out Details on Vision for 'Next Apple TV'

[MacRumors]

While Steve Jobs' official biographer Walter Isaacson created a stir last October with his disclosure of Jobs having "finally cracked" how to develop a revolutionary television set product, it now appears that Jobs shared even more about the product that Isaacson has so far declined to make public.

The revelation came in an interview with Brazilian television yesterday, and The Next Web highlights Isaacson's comments about holding back the information because it would have been "unfair to Apple" to share it before the company's plans were publicly known.

[Isaacson] says that he left a few things out of the book, one of those being details of "what [Steve Jobs] thought the next Apple TV should be."

He says that he left it out of the book "because Apple hadn't yet done it and I thought that, maybe, that was unfair to Apple before they produce the TV...reporting what Steve thought it should be."

Apple has been rumored to be working on a Siri-enabled television set that could be set to launch late this year or early next year. The company has reportedly been investigating components for the product, with various prototypes sitting in Jony Ive's design lab.

Article Link: Steve Jobs' Biographer Left Out Details on Vision for 'Next Apple TV'

 

[Peace]

Wow. Is this guy being interviewed or interrogated ?
And is he talking about the Apple TV or the Apple Television ?

 

[SandboxGeneral]

What the heck is that awful setting they have him in?

 

[trainwrecka]

Wonder what else was left out.

 

[macrumorsuser10]

Didn't Isaacson have to sign an NDA or anything that prohibits him from writing about unreleased products in detail? I think that Apple would have a made that a requirement.

 

[DarkWinter]

Would Steve have gone into so much detail during the interviews if he did not want them to be published in the book and thought it gave the competition an advantage?

As he always stated: "Isn't it funny a ship that leaks from the top?"

 

[ks-man]

Kudos to Walter Isaacson for not publishing it b/c he thought that it wasn't fair to Apple (and to Jobs). He knows how big of selling point discussing a pre-release product would be to the book yet he respected the secrecy of Apples development chain.

I'm sure a lot of authors wouldn't have been so honorable.

--Edit--
Yes, there probably was some form of NDA but I'm guessing he could have found some loopholes to get the details into the book in some form or another.

 

[kyjaotkb]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

He'd better watch his back... He could well be samsung'd on his road to work any day!

 

[mpick92]

Hopefully we see Steve's Apple tv future tomorrow.

 

[Peace]

Kudos to Walter Isaacson for not publishing it b/c he thought that it wasn't fair to Apple (and to Jobs). He knows how big of selling point discussing a pre-release product would be to the book yet he respected the secrecy of Apples development chain.

I'm sure a lot of authors wouldn't have been so honorable.

Well after reading the book. Well.. Part of the book. It seems like Isaacson started to really like Steve. He saw a part of him that nobody else saw. Except for Steve's family. So i'm gonna guess he did it out of respect not some NDA agreement.

And darn it. I'm 58 years old and I want to cry again..

Steve we do indeed miss you.

 

[Mjmar]

Who else is more excited about Apple's new TV endeavor than the iPad 3?

 

[gugy]

hummm this seems a lot of BS.
Steve was very protective of his secrets and I doubt he would spill the beans like that to Isaacson.
For me Steve was just playing with his words because he knew the stir would cause once his book was out.
Steve was a master manipulator until the end.

 

[sk8ordie]

Traditional TV is on its way out. Streaming/Apps is the future.

 

[nemaslov]

Didn't Isaacson have to sign an NDA or anything that prohibits him from writing about unreleased products in detail? I think that Apple would have a made that a requirement.

The book was about Steve Jobs and Not Apple per se. The only stipulation Jobs gave was to approve the book cover. Any NDA would be between Apple and Jobs and you know that never happened.

 

[newagemac]

Isaacson specifically said "before they product the TV..."

So didn't he basically just confirm that Apple is in fact planning to make an actual television?

 

[ilovedrums]

i still don't understand why apple would need to make it's own tv in order to implement a new tv product. why can't it be something like the current apple tv that plugs into your existing tv? it doesn't make sense that i would have to go out and buy a brand new tv just to use apple's service. what if i bought one not too long ago?

 

[iBreatheApple]

Very interesting! I'll bet that man is now receiving monetary offers to leak info from many tech sites and media outlets.

 

[bag of kittens]

Very classy move by Isaacson. An unscrupulous writer would have likely divulged those secrets in order to ship more units of his/her book. I respect him immensely.

He did a masterful job of writing that biography and I'm glad Steve Jobs chose him.

 

[Matthew Yohe]

This set is like bizarro Charle Rose.

 

[jlc1978]

What the heck is that awful setting they have him in?

Looks like a Portuguese or Brazilian studio...

 

[Battlefield Fan]

Good for him. Plus I imagine this could make for an extended version of the book which I long for after completing the first book.

Steve's legacy isn't over yet...

 

[DavidLeblond]

i still don't understand why apple would need to make it's own tv in order to implement a new tv product. why can't it be something like the current apple tv that plugs into your existing tv? it doesn't make sense that i would have to go out and buy a brand new tv just to use apple's service. what if i bought one not too long ago?

I know that's what *I* would prefer, but Steve said "No one wants to buy a box" didn't he?

 

[dethmaShine]

I really wonder why Steve Jobs, a person so obsessed with success and secrecy, would tell something about the future to this guy. I just don't buy it.

Steve Jobs on so many occasions has tried so hard to keep things away from the media. Something so big, something so critical cannot be discussed to an untrustworthy biographer. I don't buy it. Sorry.

 

[dwman]

I actually ran into Walter Isaacson last week walking home. Stopped long enough for a quick hello...nice guy.

 

[DavidLeblond]

I really wonder why Steve Jobs, a person so obsessed with success and secrecy, would tell something about the future to this guy. I just don't buy it.

Steve Jobs on so many occasions has tried so hard to keep things away from the media. Something so big, something so critical cannot be discussed to an untrustworthy biographer. I don't buy it. Sorry.

He trusted Isaacson though. Plus, he was dying and he knew it.