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