“The greatest innovator in the world right now is Google — not Apple, said Walter Isaacson, author of the best-selling biography “Steve Jobs,” Matthew J. Belvedere reports for CNBC. “Case in point—he told CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’ on Wednesday: Google buying Nest Labs is a bigger development than Apple selling iPhones on China Mobile’s network.”
“The Nest portfolio of smart thermostats and fire detectors will be added to Google’s gee-whiz tool shed of giant robots, self-driving cars and Google Glass,” Belvedere reports. “Isaacson also pointed out that Nest co-founder and CEO Tony Fadell will be joining Google as part of this deal. ‘Fadell was one of the team that created the iPod. He was very deep into the Apple culture… when Apple was so innovative.'”
“To play catch-up, Cook has to think about what industry he wants to disrupt next, Isaacson said,” Belvedere reports. “‘I think Steve Jobs would have wanted as the next disruptive thing to either have wearable-like watches or TV, an easy TV that you can walk into the room and say put on ‘Squawk Box’ … or disrupt the digital camera industry or disrupt textbooks.'”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Anyone who can take a raging ball of fire like Steve Jobs and reduce his life to a bland cardboard cutout harbors some, er… special skills. As with passionate, interesting writing, judging companies’ levels of innovation isn’t one of Isaacson’s talents, either.
Go back to your day job, Walter. You know, churning out mind-numbing, by-the-numbers pablum that nobody* can finish without massive amounts of willpower and Red Bull.
Stop posing on TV as an Apple expert, or any sort of tech business expert, because totally blowing it by squatting out an interminable doorstop after being handed the biography subject of the century only makes you an expert in one thing: Failure.
After 630-pages that we never thought would end, we know you love facts, so here are a couple: You’re as much of an Apple/technology expert as any random fscktard off the street, you insipid milker, and your book was only a bestseller because it had Steve Jobs name and face on the cover, not because of you, Mr. Soporific.
And, CNBC, what’s next, analysis of the pharmaceutical industry by Patrick Dempsey?
*Having a bit more than a passing interest in Steve Jobs, even we could barely make it though Walter’s God-awful Steve Jobs textbook! No wonder Sorkin promptly threw it in the trash and started over from scratch.
This is absoultly Funny.
Does he also write comedy scripts?
Nest is a corporation selling USA designed products into North America only.
It fails on world wide acceptance by using farenheid and 110v only instead of both centigrade and 240v as well as the local variety.
It simply does not match Apple’s world wide presence. Google is welcome to their over priced purchase.
Apple is fully capable of designing, manufacturing and selling an alternative should they want to.
What does Isaacson know anyway about the subject except to pontificate.
What makes him an expert? It is just his opinion and that is it. Nothing more.
I am a mac-only user since 1983, and live in close proximity to Mr. Jobs. I know many of his peers, and have intimately watched the Apple drama unfold over the last 3+ decades. I found the Isaacson biopic severely one dimension, and profoundly disappointing. (I read it cover to cover, only through sheer force of will). No respect for this unfortunate tome, nor its author.
To my mixed delight, Apple has moved from a poorly understood innovative underdog, to a poorly understood motive force in the world of computing and a highly successful consumer electronics company. I accept the impurity of their present state because of the brilliance of design and execution. The flaws in OSX and iOS definitely require attention, but are still heads above other options.
Innovation, however, is not proprietary to either Apple or Google. Both are huge organizations (their size being both a benefit and a hinderance), with different cultures and visions. Each innovates in its own way, and each contributes significantly to that which is yet to be…
This is Silicon Valley. Innovation is its soul; a burgeoning caldron of innovation.
Let the best man/woman/company show their stuff.
Game on.
btw… I bought the NEST thermostat, installed it, and my wife made me return it the same day.
It sure looks pretty, however, being energy efficient, it allowed for too much fluctuation in temperature before it turned on or off. The house became drafty and cold before it kicked it, then too hot before it shut off. And… there is no “off” switch.
it never made sense why Steve Jobs chose Isaacson!
he should’ve known from Isaacson’s books, Einstein (2008) + Benjamin Franklin (2003), that Walter is a cutout numbers writer and his boring style would never match Jobs’ energy & charisma. Now Walter wrote Kissinger’s bio in 2013: imagine the boring reading, esp. on a bland, despite intelligent, but mean, character, such as Kissinger…
maybe Steve thought, he wanted his bio to be different than past ones. to be factual, not emotional, to prove points on his legacy. little did he know a Chosen One, as entitled as Isaacson, rides cover names, rides those he writes about right up their rear…change jobs you leech.
fire steve is quenched under water from walter!
at least in walter’s book.
but iSteve lives on in the iCloud & still flummoxes all competitors!