Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Walter Isaacson Considering Expanding Steve Jobs Biography

This book (and tapes) will be much like George Lucas' Star Wars Series

-release the book
-release a revised version
-release the tapes
-release a revised version of the tapes
-release revised version of the book claiming they found a missing interview
-release revised tapes claiming they found a missing interview


and so on...
 
Frobozz said:
What I find the hardest to come to terms with, concerning his personality, is his rudeness. I think he could have been just as successful without scathing person attacks. I think a lot of people might point to that and say "see, Steve was an ******, so that's how good businesses are built." But I think it's more complex. I think he could have been just as effective, making hard decisions and giving people "bad news" without the intentionally wounding comments. But, sadly, that is how he probably insulated his own extremely insecure inner person from the world. He didn't know any other way. That doesn't mean it can't be done any other way. And that last summary of his life, in his own words, at the end of the book really brought to light why. It's worth the read.
Click to expand...

It's interesting, because John Lennon was the same way: Paul McCartney described how John could be downright rude or mean to complete strangers, joking around with or mocking the disabled, especially when he was younger. Kind of odd really but it's hard to say why they acted as such.

I wouldn't mind another edition of the book, it's not exactly an uncommon thing in publishing at all (to the people who are already complaining). Hopefully it's not too repetitive though.
 
Here's some advice -

- Write it with more eloquence than a 7th grader
- Learn how to tell a story with any sort of flow
- If you rush it out, accept that you released a piece of crap and cashed in, don't keep redoing it

I read 1/3 of this book and absolutely hated it. There's better writing on blogs. I am sorry to all the zealots out there, but it was so boring and poorly done and honestly if anything was fan service
 
Maybe he realized that Gawker / Gizmodo aren't as legit as he thought, and it wasn't wise to use them for %50 of the tech blog quotes.
 
There was a lot of detail in the first half of the book. Then closer to the end (after he came back to Apple), it just starts bouncing around from one topic to another very quickly and abruptly.
 
Excuse me, Walter - I paid retail price, but apparently I only got a "draft". I assume you'll be sending me the actual final version that I paid for at no charge?

p.s. - Your hack job wasn't worth it the first time around anyway, so just keep your "final" version.

----------
iRCL said:
Here's some advice -

- Write it with more eloquence than a 7th grader
- Learn how to tell a story with any sort of flow
- If you rush it out, accept that you released a piece of crap and cashed in, don't keep redoing it

I read 1/3 of this book and absolutely hated it. There's better writing on blogs. I am sorry to all the zealots out there, but it was so boring and poorly done and honestly if anything was fan service
Click to expand...

Actually I agree that it was a terrible writing job. But I disagree that it was "fan service". In fact, I thought the author went out of his way to cast Steve in an unflattering light. He tended to quote others' negative perceptions of Steve without comment, but when he quoted Steve criticizing someone, he would call it "unfair" on numerous occasions.
 
Arrgh...it's like Windows. Do you get the Starter, Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, or Ultimate editions????
 
Personally, I want to read the stories of the real inventors at Apple.

For example, Jobs said that he handed over a multi-touch screen prototype to one of his "top UI guys"... and what he saw when it came back convinced him to have his company build a touchscreen phone.

Thank goodness. Otherwise we might've been stuck with a clickwheel based communicator.

So, I want to know more about the tablet prototypers and that UI guy. They're the ones whom everyone should also be thanking, not just the person who saw a money making opportunity, although I certainly thank him as well.

.
 
Last edited:
I wasn't sure why I disliked about it until I listened to the Hypercritical podcast - that really summed it up. At first I was just excited to have an official Jobs bio so I overlooked a lot of things.

It's a good listen
http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/42
 
this.

iRCL said:
Here's some advice -

- Write it with more eloquence than a 7th grader
- Learn how to tell a story with any sort of flow
- If you rush it out, accept that you released a piece of crap and cashed in, don't keep redoing it

I read 1/3 of this book and absolutely hated it. There's better writing on blogs. I am sorry to all the zealots out there, but it was so boring and poorly done and honestly if anything was fan service
Click to expand...
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A405)

rorschach said:
There was a lot of detail in the first half of the book. Then closer to the end (after he came back to Apple), it just starts bouncing around from one topic to another very quickly and abruptly.
Click to expand...

Do you know why there was detail in the beginning? It's all from folklore.org. He didn't have to do much research.
 
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)

Stang said:
Typical Apple fashion...release something, then come out a year later with a couple more features...


Sent from my MacBook Pro
Click to expand...

What the **** does Apple have to do with Isaacsons book?
 
Cougarcat said:
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Mobile/9A405)

He should hand over his interview tapes to someone who knows how to spell OS X correctly.
Click to expand...

Bah, only nerds take offense to that...

As long as he knows the difference between:
- Your, you're
- Their, there, they're
- Well, what's here basically: http://theoatmeal.com/comics/misspelling,
I'm fine with it.
 
iRCL said:
Here's some advice -

- Write it with more eloquence than a 7th grader
- Learn how to tell a story with any sort of flow
- If you rush it out, accept that you released a piece of crap and cashed in, don't keep redoing it

I read 1/3 of this book and absolutely hated it. There's better writing on blogs. I am sorry to all the zealots out there, but it was so boring and poorly done and honestly if anything was fan service
Click to expand...

Yet Steve Jobs personally hand picked him. :rolleyes:
 
He should go all "George Lucas" on it!

1. Change all the arguments so that somebody else "shoots first"

2. Replace key people in the story, like John Sculley, with more famous characters, like Donald Trump. Imagine Trump bursting into Steve's office in 1985 and yelling "You're Fired!"

3. Turn all the ancillary characters like jean louis gassee into cute animal-like creatures with funny accents.

But don't do this all at once! Just add a little bit here and there over the years so nobody notices that you've ruined something we used to enjoy.
 
dacreativeguy said:
He should go all "George Lucas" on it!

1. Change all the arguments so that somebody else "shoots first"

2. Replace key people in the story, like John Sculley, with more famous characters, like Donald Trump. Imagine Trump bursting into Steve's office in 1985 and yelling "You're Fired!"

3. Turn all the ancillary characters like jean louis gassee into cute animal-like creatures with funny accents.

But don't do this all at once! Just add a little bit here and there over the years so nobody notices that you've ruined something we used to enjoy.
Click to expand...

4. Add Noah Wiley's ghost to the Endor party scene.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back