The New York Times reviews ‘Steve Jobs’ by Walter Isaacson: Replete with passion and excitement

“‘Steve Jobs‘ greatly admires its subject. But its most adulatory passages are not about people. Offering a combination of tech criticism and promotional hype, Mr. Isaacson describes the arrival of each new product right down to Mr. Jobs’s theatrical introductions and the advertising campaigns,” Janet Maslin reports for The New York Times. “But if the individual bits of hoopla seem excessive, their cumulative effect is staggering. Here is an encyclopedic survey of all that Mr. Jobs accomplished, replete with the passion and excitement that it deserves.”

“Skeptic after skeptic made the mistake of underrating Steve Jobs, and Mr. Isaacson records the howlers who misjudged an unrivaled career,” Maslin reports. “‘Sorry Steve, Here’s Why Apple Stores Won’t Work,’ Business Week wrote in a 2001 headline. ‘The iPod will likely become a niche product,’ a Harvard Business School professor said. ‘High tech could not be designed and sold as a consumer product,’ Mr. Sculley said in 1987.”

“Mr. Jobs got the last laugh every time,” Maslin reports. “‘Steve Jobs’ makes it all the sadder that his last laugh is over.”

Read more in the full article here.

MacDailyNews Note: Steve Jobs via Apple’s iBookstore (US$16.99) here: Steve Jobs – Walter Isaacson.

13 Comments

  1. These folk can’t see past any roadblocks and rationalize failure before they even start. It’s the same tendency that apparently infuriated Steve when Obama rattled off a list of “reasons” why reforms were not possible in America.

    This is one book I’ll definitely want to read. Steve was obviously so very different from the majority of people on this planet.

    1. Seems like my email to Janet caused her to edit the bit about Angry birds being a game where the aim was to bring down angry birds … A relief as it diminished her review.

  2. I ordered two hardback copies from Amazon for $17.88 each, with free shipping and no tax. I use Amazon quite a bit, and have never been disappointed by them. I don’t use anything by Google anymore, but I find no reason to hate on Amazon.

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