“So this is the book that Steve Jobs wanted to ban. Heaven only knows why. Jobs was supposedly so outraged by its contents that he ordered Apple’s retail stores to stop selling all titles issued by John Wiley & Sons Inc., the publisher,” Hiawatha Bray writes for The Boston Globe. “So what’s up with this childish snit? A backhanded way of stirring up book sales, or a genuine reflection of Jobs’s notorious arrogance? Either way, ”iCon” seems scarcely worth the bother. It’s your typical corporate bigwig biography — admiring but not fawning, critical but not merciless, informative but not especially revealing.”

“The book skips lightly over crucial aspects of Jobs’s career that would have repaid closer inspection. For instance, we get very little detail on his campaign to resurrect Apple’s fortunes,” Bray writes. “On the other hand, more recent events get more thorough treatment. There’s good stuff here about the rise of Pixar, with full credit given to the real creative geniuses at the studio, directors John Lasseter and Brad Bird. Along the way, we get an entertaining look at the savage infighting at Walt Disney. Young and Simon also do well in relating the rise of the iTunes music software and iPod music player. Still, ‘iCon’ fails as biography. Maybe that’s the real reason that Jobs, perfectionist that he is, won’t let it be sold in his company’s stores. It’s not good enough.”

Full article here.

Related MacDailyNews articles:
Author of ‘The Second Coming of Steve Jobs’ Alan Deutschman reviews Steve Jobs ‘iCon’ bio – May 23, 2005
Banned in Apple Retail Stores, ‘iCon’ unauthorized Steve Jobs bio doubles initial printing run – May 01, 2005
Publisher says Apple removed all its books from Apple stores due to upcoming Steve Jobs bio – April 26, 2005