Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Steve Jobs is like a loose-fitting diaper; it’s leaking all over the place.
“Isaacson also recounts the birth of Apple’s iconic products and Jobs’ role as a visionary in crafting the devices. There was one feature that Jobs initially opposed, however, that has since become a cornerstone for the company: apps,” Bianca Bosker reports for The Huffington Post. “Apple board member Art Levinson told Isaacson that he phoned Jobs ‘half a dozen times to lobby for the potential of the apps,’ but, according to Isaacson, ‘Jobs at first quashed the discussion, partly because he felt his team did not have the bandwidth to figure out all the complexities that would be involved in policing third-party app developers.’
“The launch of the iPad proved to be its own challenge for Jobs. The lukewarm reception it received at its launch — which included more than 800 emails from users to Jobs — ‘annoyed and depressed’ the then-CEO,” Bosker reports. “‘I kind of got depressed today,’ Jobs told Isaacson the night after the iPad launched. ‘It knocks you back a bit.'”
More leakage in the full article here.
Nick Wingfield and Damon Darlin blog more leaks from Steve Jobs for The New York Times, “Mr. Rubinstein, the engineer and former Apple senior vice president who played an important role in the creation of the iPod, chafed against Jonathan Ive, Apple’s industrial design guru, over design changes by Mr. Ive that could have meant product delays. Mr. Jobs sided with Ive, and Mr. Rubinstein left the company in 2006. In the book, Mr. Jobs couldn’t resist what amounted to a harsh put-down coming from him, saying that, ‘In the end, Ruby’s from H.P.’ Mr. Rubinstein worked at Hewlett-Packard early in his career and was later chief executive officer of Palm, which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard.”
“In a chapter about the music Mr. Jobs most admired, he chided an unusual target: the singer and guitarist John Mayer. Mr. Jobs knew Mr. Mayer, who performed at an Apple product introduction in 2004,” Wingfield and Darlin report. “While Mr. Jobs spoke with admiration of Mr. Mayer’s guitar-playing, he told the author that the artist is ‘out of control’ and could be ‘blowing it big time.’ There’s no explanation in the book of what prompted Mr. Jobs’s concerns.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Note: Steve Jobs via Apple’s iBookstore (U.S.16.99) here: Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Fred Mertz” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Why I’ll be buying an Apple iPad – along with millions of others – January 27, 2010
