'Steve Jobs' Poised to Become Amazon's Top-Selling Book for 2011

[WeegieMac]

I wished I hadn't bought this book now, I know this is gonna get minus votes in the hundreds. But I really respected Steve, but after seeing what he thought about the other people in the tech world and rival companies, he really seemed to be an arrogant, lying, self-loving man.

Im sorry but thats just how I feel about him now.

Well, Gates sat back and watched Jobs do all the work on GUI before ripping it off.

Then he watched Schmidt hoover up ideas from iPhone before quitting the Apple board and reporting the ideas back to Google who would implement most of them into the recently purchased Android framework.

He's quite right to be bitter towards these guys, because they ripped off his ideas. There's no denying that. And before someone brings up Xerox, don't forget that Xerox had a GUI but no idea what to do with it, no plans for it, nothing. It was Steve who seen it in action and seen the future of home computing and done the hard part assembling the team to make it a home user experience. And then along came Gates and ripped it off.

 

[MikhailT]

I wished I hadn't bought this book now, I know this is gonna get minus votes in the hundreds. But I really respected Steve, but after seeing what he thought about the other people in the tech world and rival companies, he really seemed to be an arrogant, lying, self-loving man.

Im sorry but thats just how I feel about him now.

That's how you know the book is balanced. If it just list all of his positive things, than it's not a true biography of Jobs and the book won't be that good.

Don't assume that Jobs is the only arrogant ass in the whole tech industry, the other people thinks just the same about him.

He is at least being honest here.

What did you respect him for before? The odds are he's still respectable for the things you'll list for respecting him.

Nobody's perfect, and this book points it out, that even the most lovable CEO on the planet has his own demons and is a human being.

 

[apolloa]

I can see this selling well! Very well!! I may get it but books have never been my thing really.
I tell you what though, I just watched the Discovery documentary called 'iPod Revolution' and it's by far the best documentary I have seen about Apple or Steve Jobs at it concentrated on what Apple and Jobs did best! Made for a much more entertaining watch then the short 1 hour documentary about Jobs himself, I think it's because an hour is too short to sum him up or maybe it wasn't produced very well?

Either way if you see it advertised I recommend you watch it, great story about arguably Apple's greatest product and the one that helped save the company and how Steve pushed it to market and revolutionised how we listen to music.

 

[CrackedButter]

I wished I hadn't bought this book now, I know this is gonna get minus votes in the hundreds. But I really respected Steve, but after seeing what he thought about the other people in the tech world and rival companies, he really seemed to be an arrogant, lying, self-loving man.

Im sorry but thats just how I feel about him now.

POSSIBLE SPOILERS BELOW

Consider the fury thrown against the book iCon. I don't understand what was so bad (bad as in taste) about it, that Apple went to the effort of removing the publisher's other books from it's retail stores. I'm a third of the way into the SJ's book and it's no different really with regard to the big Apple events like the creation of the Macintosh, his feud with Sculley.

So far iWoz is the better book because so much of Steve W is in it, you get that feeling and personality from reading it. From SJ you don't so far, yet all the annoying excerpts released last week lead me to believe it would be. Then again this history is so well documented what else is there to say?

Anyway, I'm still optimistic for the final two thirds (exile years, Pixar and onward).

UPDATE: I was right to be optimistic ;-).

 

[GenesisST]

Although I'm sure it is a great read, I'm sure it will go next to an equally unread Sun Tzu's The Art of War on the shelves of managers that only want to LOOK good.

Edit: I'm not saying that ALL books will be unread and be used like that. Just that it might become a show off book like Art of War. Had I time, I would definitely read it.

 

[jontech]

Half of them are just there as OEM-shells, ready to churn out the next plastic button-laden junk-ware to run software that is very nearly as bad.

Agreed


just visit any Best Buy

 

[D3lta]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

Can't decide whether to buy it and read it on my ipad or get the printed version. What would Steve want?

Same here. I can't decide whether I want the digital or hard copy but I am leaning towards the hard copy.

 

[greytmom]

I wished I hadn't bought this book now, I know this is gonna get minus votes in the hundreds. But I really respected Steve, but after seeing what he thought about the other people in the tech world and rival companies, he really seemed to be an arrogant, lying, self-loving man.

Im sorry but thats just how I feel about him now.

I'm one third of the way through, and finding it utterly fascinating, for more than one reason. He was so very different, and definitely a little bit crazy. I wonder if he was undiagnosed bipolar. But it's also fascinating to me that he decided to let the whole story be told, from more than one perspective.

And what is really mind-boggling is that he seemed to have premonitions about a lot of things, including the ouster from Apple, the fact that he would be invited back, and even that he would die a relatively young man.

You are disappointed because you had him on a pedestal, like a god, and you've learned the pedestal was undeserved in a lot of ways. Now, just look at him as a flawed, but brilliant human being.

 

[samcraig]

The TRUTH can be downright painful. Steve told it like it is, and as usual, the man was right. Most of Apple's rivals, to this very day, are slow, flat-footed, unimaginative, and sometimes shockingly so in the face of obvious change.

I don't feel sorry that Jobs slagged on a bunch of nitwits and boring, generic box-makers. It is ridiculously obvious that they were holding consumer tech back, and would still be doing it were it not for Apple.

Screw em. Half of them are just there as OEM-shells, ready to churn out the next plastic button-laden junk-ware to run software that is very nearly as bad.

At least Jobs actually gave a damn about what he was doing.

You might feel that way - but that's not very humanistic. You can criticize without being an A%^&Y about it. You can motivate without being one too. Steve Jobs was no doubt an amazing visionary and got things done. But I don't agree with every way he did it nor everything he did.

You, LTD - are commenting only on the "competition" which he slammed. How about family, friends and colleagues who he belittled, raged against and was an over prat to.

In that regard - I'm sorry - he wasn't always RIGHT.

 

[marcusj0015]

The price is ridiclously high, IMO.

what did it cost them to put the epub on itunes? nothing.

with a hardcover book, you have to pay for material and shipping and all that stuff. but $17 for an epub is way too damn high.

i think $5 is fair for the epub, $10 because it just came out.

 

[Nothlit]

I debated which format to buy and ultimately decided on the hardcover since Amazon was selling it for only 89 cents more than the ebook edition. If the Kindle or iBookstore editions had been more like $9.99 I might have opted for that instead, but I figure a book like this is iconic enough to own in hardcover. In the meantime, I'll just read the first (free) sample chapter on my Kindle to tide me over until the hardcover arrives in a couple of days.

 

[Oletros]

Well, Gates sat back and watched Jobs do all the work on GUI before ripping it off.

Then he watched Schmidt hoover up ideas from iPhone before quitting the Apple board and reporting the ideas back to Google who would implement most of them into the recently purchased Android framework.

He's quite right to be bitter towards these guys, because they ripped off his ideas. There's no denying that. And before someone brings up Xerox, don't forget that Xerox had a GUI but no idea what to do with it, no plans for it, nothing. It was Steve who seen it in action and seen the future of home computing and done the hard part assembling the team to make it a home user experience. And then along came Gates and ripped it off.

I like when people really believe those things

 

[samcraig]

And what is really mind-boggling is that he seemed to have premonitions about a lot of things, including the ouster from Apple, the fact that he would be invited back, and even that he would die a relatively young man.

I take those passages lightly as it's very easy to reflect and have 20/20 vision in hindsight once everything has been connected along the way. Even Isaacson himself said in intro that there's a possibility of reality distortion taking effect - and this is one area that it's really hard to take at work in its entirety.

 

[Blakjack]

I can't stand the way the paper used for books pages feels, so I'm definitely happy for ebooks and could care less about the hard copy

 

[xibis]

The fact that this ebook is $16.99 and the hard copy is $17.88 is keeping me from buying it. I'm going to wait until the price drops to something more reasonable. Enjoying the new Cold Play which I know Mr Jobs would approve of.

 

[nefan65]

You are disappointed because you had him on a pedestal, like a god, and you've learned the pedestal was undeserved in a lot of ways. Now, just look at him as a flawed, but brilliant human being.

Exactly! In the simplest terms; he was human. He had feelings, emotions, angst, et-al just like the rest of us. He was consistent, which is why I like(d) him. He was egotistical, arrogant, and controlling when he was broke, and trying to get Apple off the ground. Money and power didn't make him that way. That was who he was...

On that same note, there are a number of other Tech giants who are the same as he is. Maybe not as vocal, but the same none the less.

 

[samcraig]

The price is ridiclously high, IMO.

what did it cost them to put the epub on itunes? nothing.

with a hardcover book, you have to pay for material and shipping and all that stuff. but $17 for an epub is way too damn high. http://s3.amazonaws.com/kym-assets/photos/images/original/000/079/523/rent_2_.gif?1318992465

i think $5 is fair for the epub, $10 because it just came out.

I love when people show their ignorance of the publishing industry.

And you are showing it in spades.

Whether it's electronic or printed - there are still royalties, editors, legal, design and production people, etc - ALL which contribute to the final product whether or not it arrives as a physical product.

And people on here say Android people are cheap

 

[CalMin]

Of course it's going to sell well.

I got the Kindle version to read, the hardcover as an "objet d'art" for the coffee table (It was $10 shipped from Buy.com last week) and the audiobook for the car (free with an Audible.com Gold sign-up).

Like the book "Icon - The Second Coming of Steve Jobs" this is going to be one that any fans of tech are going to want to read and re-read. Icon is a great book to just dip in and out of.

 

[marcusj0015]

I love when people show their ignorance of the publishing industry.

And you are showing it in spades.

Whether it's electronic or printed - there are still royalties, editors, legal, design and production people, etc - ALL which contribute to the final product whether or not it arrives as a physical product.

And people on here say Android people are cheap

You should fix your quote...

i understand that their are editors, legal fees and so on. how many copies do you expect them to sell? i guarantee they would make immense profits at $5, at $18 their making a **** ton of money. more people would buy it at $5 as well...

 

[nburns]

I pre-ordered both and started reading it on my iphone during my lunch break today. Looking forward to reading some more tonight on the larger screen of the ipad .

 

[Hakone]

What's always important not only 'what' people did but as importantly, 'how' they did it. It's important to know the whole story since there are lessons to be learned in knowing the details.

Started reading it last night, great read so far.

 

[*LTD*]

You might feel that way - but that's not very humanistic.

So what. Be nice on your own damn time. Creation, change, and progress is the name of the game in Jobs' world. he was not a humanitarian, never pretended to be one, and consumers sure as **** didn't give a damn. That wasn't the point of his existence or his own personal mission in life.

You can criticize without being an A%^&Y about it. You can motivate without being one too. Steve Jobs was no doubt an amazing visionary and got things done. But I don't agree with every way he did it nor everything he did.

You don't need to agree with everything. Just stick to what counts: the big picture.

You, LTD - are commenting only on the "competition" which he slammed. How about family, friends and colleagues who he belittled, raged against and was an over prat to.

I'm sure Beethoven was a huge, raging, deaf arsehole.

But that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of his achievements, now does it? No, he doesn't get a pass, he's just judged by different standards. That privilege is earned.

My dog, who is very nice, has not earned that privilege. So he needs to keep being nice.

In that regard - I'm sorry - he wasn't always RIGHT.

Once in a while it rains in the desert. But it's still a desert.

 

[samcraig]

You should fix your quote...

i understand that their are editors, legal fees and so on. how many copies do you expect them to sell? i guarantee they would make immense profits at $5, at $18 their making a **** ton of money. more people would buy it at $5 as well...

The ebook is cheaper than the hardcover.

I'm actually surprised to find that people who visit MacRumors would balk at the price of THIS particular eBook too.

Especially coming from people who are accustomed to paying premiums for their hardware.

I find the same people balk at an app that cost 1.99 vs .99 as if either one is going to break the bank.

 

[ghsDUDE]

I just bought it on Amazon for $17 bucks. It was $35 at the bookstore!

 

[Rafterman]

I wished I hadn't bought this book now, I know this is gonna get minus votes in the hundreds. But I really respected Steve, but after seeing what he thought about the other people in the tech world and rival companies, he really seemed to be an arrogant, lying, self-loving man.

Im sorry but thats just how I feel about him now.

I'm pretty sure that every CEO is an ******. You don't get to the top of the business world by being nice.