“No one can accuse Steve Jobs of indifference. In an image-obsessed fit of pique, Apple Computer banished books published by John Wiley & Sons from the shelves of Apple’s 105 retail stores recently because of Wiley’s plan to publish an unauthorized biography of Jobs, the Apple chief executive,” Katie Hafner reports for The New York Times.
“It is not clear whether Jobs or anyone else at Apple has read the book, ‘iCon: Steve Jobs, The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business,’ by Jeffrey Young and William Simon, which will go on sale this month,” Hafner reports.
“The ambiguity of the title – Icon, or I Con? – is the first clue that the work may not be hagiography. But in the publisher’s view, the details are probably beside the point. But Young said the title had not been intended to convey negative overtones, that it was a playful twist on Apple’s iPod and iMac. ‘He’s become an icon, bigger than life,’ Young said. ‘It was clear they didn’t want us to publish the book,’ Susan Spilka, a spokeswoman at Wiley, said,” Hafner reports. “Wiley, in response to increased interest in what it calls an ‘intimate look at a controversial leader,’ has decided to double the book’s initial press run of nearly 50,000 and to race it to stores by May 13, a few weeks ahead of its original publication date.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Steve Jobs must really want this book to sell.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Publisher says Apple removed all its books from Apple stores due to upcoming Steve Jobs bio – April 26, 2005
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