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'iCon' was never going to be sold in Apple Stores. It's the other books from the same publisher that were pulled from Apple's shelves.

I ordered this book ages ago. It's about time he did his own bio though.

So I guess ordering the iTunes audiobook is out of the question.

Hmm, maybe audible.com....

I hate unauthorized anything.

Steve´s enormous, over-inflated ego and vanity and the psycho-paranoia this self-adulation (I am a genius, I am the greatest)it creates will do him in.

To Mac4lfe: Your comments were not authorized by me.

There's no such thing as bad publicity. The hype will raise Steve to another level. Look at Martha, comes out of Jail, increased media coverage, another new show, earnings through the roof. Our culture works in funny ways.

Good one S J

I don't know what the book says so I really can't react to its contents, but I thought it was a mistake for Apple to handle the book the way it did. People never seem to realize that whatever book, movie, CD, etc., you're trying to keep people from seeing almost always becomes more interesting because you are.

Release the book you morons. The thing I'm scared the most about is if the author reveals the time I slow danced with minnie mouse in the love tunnel

Has anyone considered that Steve pulled this stunt in order to raise the profile of what would otherwise be an unnoticed tech biography?

Hey, "dr. ohhhh" -- Learn to construct a sentence with proper structure, you turd.

Witness: " . . . and the psycho-paranoia this self-adulation ... it creates will do him in."

Over-inflated ego my ass. Sounds like SJ is f*cking brilliant. Just LOOK at all the press this is getting!

It's MY doing. MY doing, I tell you!!! MWAAAA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HAAAAHHHH!!

I will never sleep nor rest until the glory and fame that is my Good Twin's has become mine!!!

(Bill? . . . Bill? Are you there? . . . Where's my check?)

Hey, "steve´s twin" - thanks for reading my note and the added publicity of repeating it.

Tip to the ignorant "Steve´s twin" - the press is all negative against Steve and his censorship of the book, meanwhile the publisher will sell more books that are critical or Steve the iCon Job(s). The brilliant one´s are the book people taking advantage of Steve´s hyper-infalted ego.

So "Steve´s Twin" - go back to BurgerBun job where you belong, he does not need a dweeb like you in the family.

Jobs Rules, Dr. Ohh-shit drools!

Another view (end of article).

http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20050428.html

Hey Pogo

Very interesting read. Thanks

I ordered it the minute I heard about this controversy. Burn books Steve?

Dr. Ohhh: It's not censorship!! Censorship involves prior constraint: i.e., keeping something from being published at all. Steve and Apple have the absolute right to choose what to put on their store shelves. Sheesh. It's amazing how people cry "censorship" when a commercial entity exercises its right to not sell a particular book. And the same thought to Eric: is Steve or Apple trying to prevent the book from being distributed?? No, they aren't -- they're just choosing to not sell it in their stores. Again (for the slow of reading) it's their right to do so, and it's not censorship!! And one more time -- sheesh.

Neohuman - Yeah, with your attitude you would make a good book burning Nazi.
Neohuman - no matter how you want to define it using your twisted capitalistic logic, it is censorship on the part of Apple.
Why are they pulling the publishers other books from Apple stores? - Because the publisher didn´t bow down to Steve Job´s attempts to censor the book before it came out.
So as retribution (I´ll show you!) Steve yanks all the publishers books from the shelves.
What message does this send to other book publishers with books in Apple stores? If you write a book about Steve Jobs that is any way critical to his phoney facade, Steve will pull your products.
That is censorship.
(If he was a Republican the ACLU and other Democrats would be all over this act.)

Big Brother controlling things? You betcha.
Steve Jobs is not the type of person you would want as a friend. He fits the narcisstic, hyper-egoistic, arrogant jerk type that we all hate in a person.
Great products....but made by a paranoid egomaniac.

Have you ever noticed there are never any TV interviews of Steve Jobs where we get to know Steve, the person? Some 60 minutes behind the scenes type thing?
Why - because we would all be shocked to see the real Steve. The only one we know is the actot/moderator "Steve on Stage".
Anybody ever see him out in the crowd mingling for hours with the people at the MacWorlds, shaking hands, etc.?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwins_Law

It only took 20 posts. That's pretty amazing.

Oh well, moving on...

So pulling the book from the shelves is censorship? What would forcing Apple to carry the book be considered?

"Paranoid egomaniac..." From a guy who's posted three times in this thread, spouting cry's of Big Brother, Nazis, and capatilistic conspiracies? Please. One of the nicer things about our capatilistic society is that we can run our companies as we see fit, and consumers can voice their opinion with their dollar. If Apple chooses not to carry the books, you can choose not to shop at their stores. You could start, Dr. Ohhhh, by not buying any more Apple products, then maybe consider staying away from Apple themed discussion groups, teach Mr. Jobs a lesson.

I beg to disgree (and I've never burned a book, a record, etc, etc.). Censorship, by definition, is "prior contraint." Again I say, sheesh.

Infinite Looper: "You could start, Dr. Ohhhh, by not buying any more Apple products, then maybe consider staying away from Apple themed discussion groups, teach Mr. Jobs a lesson."

But then Dr. Ohhhh would be censoring Apple products.

Censorship or just a whining crybaby - it is pretty boneheaded of Jobs. More people are going to read the book because of his "censorship".

So it is impossible to censor something in a capialist economy? Interesting.

Jobs can´t pass a federal law or regulation banning the books, but he make an "Apple Law" banning the books.

"Most would-be book banners act with what they consider to be the highest motives -- protecting themselves, their families and communities from perceived injustices and evil and preserving the values and ideals they would have the entire society embrace."
http://libraries.luc.edu/about/exhibits/banned/index.shtml
The life and aura of Steve must be protected.
http://www.booksatoz.com/censorship/banned.htm

I hear the new OSX Tiger with Spotlight can track down if you ever wrote a negative thing about Steve Jobs and it is forwarded to Mac HQs where they put you on the Apple sh#t list. You write something bad about Steve and then wonder why you are getting unsatisfactory customer service from Apple...or your computer starts acting up...well, now you know.

It´s Steve´s company - he can do with his software and products whatever he wants to. Be nice to Steve and he will be nice to you.

- Signed, that little bit of code in OSX 10.4 you don´t know about.

John n Jimmy: "So it is impossible to censor something in a capialist economy? Interesting."

No, but it usually requires a lawsuit, or a federal law. True censorship of a book would be someone suing the publisher so that it can't be printed and no bookstore can carry it. Or the federal government saying it is banned, etc.

An organization can practice internal censorship, but since no one is really limited to buying books through the Apple store, it's kind of silly to talk about censorship in this case. Egotism, maybe. Censorship, no.

It is highly likely that Steve and Co. knew the book would get more attention this way, but for some reason (I haven't read the book) they felt they had to make a very strong public statement. (Although, from all that I've seen, the statement is more "assumed" than explicit at this point.)

There are plenty of books very critical of George W. Bush, that you won't find in Christian or conservative bookstores. Yet he's still the President. Go figure.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Me "True censorship of a book would be someone suing the publisher so that it can't be printed and no bookstore can carry it."

That´s exactly what Steve has been trying to do behind the scenes for a long time.

Read the newspaper articles about it.
The purpose of pulling all the other books by this publisher was a last gasp attempt by Jobs at blackmailing the publisher into not publishing the book.

---------------

neomonkey - yes, you are.

"Young said Wiley & Sons sent a manuscript to Apple two weeks ago and the company responded by demanding that the publisher halt the release."
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05117/494694.stm

"Apple has apparently been in discussions with Wiley in attempts to get the book pulled, with no success"
http://www.engadget.com/entry/1234000077041478/

"So, what’s with pulling all of John Wiley’s computer books from Apple’s store shelves?
Revenge. Anyone who’s followed Steve’s career as head of anything, Apple, NeXT, Pixar, Apple has heard he’s a control freak.

To paraphrase Seinfeld’s notorious Soup Nazi, “No shelves for you!”

Since he can’t control what a publisher publishes and what a writer writes, he seeks to control what he can. Book shelves in Apple’s stores. "
http://www.mac360.com/index.php/mac360/more/revenge_the_many_faces_of_apples_steve_jobs/

"The books disappeared from Apple stores last week after a month of increasingly contentious discussions about publication of the book, "iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business," said author Jeffrey S. Young."
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u;=/sv/20050426/tc_sv/discordoverjobsbiography

"My understanding is that Wiley requested or asked if there were any factual changes to be made in the book or errors and that's when they (Apple) said the only thing satisfying to (them) would be not to publish the book," Young told Reuters."

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1040_22-5686487.html

To: Me...well, reading those articles above seems to fit your definition of attempting to censor a book by Steve Jobs.

And when that did not work - revenge by Stevego.

Not only does it hurt the publisher, but all the authors of the books that were yanked from Apple stores.

Like "Mac for Dummies"....I believe written by a NY Times newspaper writer...

Great men make great mistakes. Steve's mistake here is in trying to keep the book from being printed. I still say he has a right to not sell it in his stores. When you have as high a profile as he does, you're bound to get people writing very good things (true or not) about you, and very bad things (true or not) about you. You gotta take the good with the bad. I'm sorry to hear that Steve has tried to keep the book from being published.

What´s doubly disturbing about this censorship attempt by Stevego Jobs is that he is the head of the company that creates products for individual creativity and freedom of thought. Computers allow people to express a myriad of opinions and ideas.
Stevego is obviously against this.
Apple´s slogan is "Think Different". When in reality the CEO of Apple believes the slogan should be "Think like Steve"...or pay the consequences.
The computer can give us total freedom of thought, opion and creativity. The opposite of total freedom is total control. Total control is apparently what Steve must think his product is best used for.
People that want total control are afraid, scared, feel inferior and quickly become totally paranoid.
One has to wonder what secret hidden code he has put in his OS to track things that users do with his computers.
A total control freak would do that.

"This control-freak impulse comes straight from the top. Chief executives of major companies have just so much time for the media, no matter how much they value the power of publicity. But Jobs is unique in the way he manages external communications. He rarely grants interviews or sits for photographs. When he does talk, all discussion leads back to the product he's promoting. And when he grants a photo shoot, it's with the Apple product in hand.

Ever since Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the company has used the threat of lawsuits to try to stop magazines like MacWeek from publishing tip sheets and product speculation columns. If the control fetish has reached new heights with a war on the company's biggest fans, that's because, from Apple's viewpoint, there is no other option. Computer trade glossies are always weighing the benefits of printing inside information against the threat of losing access to Apple or its ads. "We don't do rumors," says Macworld editor in chief Jason Snell. "There's a benefit to having a good relationship with Apple; they're more open to media outlets that play ball." But the enthusiast sites don't get interviews with company officials or Apple advertising revenue, so they have few disincentives to publish speculation. As a result, Apple has turned to its last resort - the courts.

There's a risk, of course, in taking a swipe at the Apple zealots. "I've done nothing but create community for Apple, and this is what I get," laments Jason O'Grady, who has run PowerPage.org since 1995. "The shine has come off Apple for me."

Running a tightly controlled company has worked well for Jobs. But being a little out of control can pay dividends, too - by fostering creative freedom, not to mention goodwill. Jobs need only look at his own slogans. Life Is Random. Enjoy Uncertainty. At Apple, this is marketing, not a way of life."
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.05/apple.html