“Walter Isaacson, a.k.a the author of the gajillion-selling 2011 Steve Jobs biography, says that Apple is ‘long overdue’ coming out with its next great innovation,” Luke Dormehl reports for Cult of Mac.
“Perhaps unsurprisingly, Isaacson puts the decline down to the fact that Apple is lacking an ‘unbelievable visionary like a Steve Jobs,'” Dormehl reports, “who was not only able to play a part in helping create devices like the iPod, iPhone and iPad, but could also convince the public that they needed them.”
Dormehl reports, “However, Isaacson stops short of dissing Apple’s current executive team, saying that ‘Tim Cook is a great CEO,’ and that the leadership team Jobs put in place at Apple was his greatest accomplishment.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Isaacson’s Steve Jobs bio is not recommended unless you’re an insomniac. It’s a travesty.
What he knows about technology could fit in a thimble many times over.
Below is a bit of what we’ve had to say about Isaacson and his bio over the years (hint: we’re not fans):
Isaacson’s book has an unparalleled ability to omit the interesting. — MacDailyNews, May 20, 2014
—
Anyone who can take a raging ball of fire like Steve Jobs and reduce his life to a bland cardboard cutout harbors some, er… special skills. As with passionate, interesting writing, judging companies’ levels of innovation isn’t one of Isaacson’s talents, either.
Go back to your day job, Walter. You know, churning out mind-numbing, by-the-numbers pablum that nobody* can finish without massive amounts of willpower and Red Bull.
Stop posing on TV as an Apple expert, or any sort of tech business expert, because totally blowing it by squatting out an interminable doorstop after being handed the biography subject of the century only makes you an expert in one thing: Failure.
After 630-pages that we never thought would end, we know you love facts, so here are a couple: You’re as much of an Apple/technology expert as any random fscktard off the street, you insipid milker, and your book was only a bestseller because it had Steve Jobs’ name and face on the cover, not because of you, Mr. Soporific.
*Having a bit more than a passing interest in Steve Jobs, even we could barely make it though Walter’s God-awful “Steve Jobs” textbook! No wonder Sorkin promptly threw it in the trash and started over from scratch. – MacDailyNews, January 15, 2014
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We wonder if, had he known what we know now, Steve Jobs would have chosen this self-appointed medium — a self-styled expert of all things Steve Jobs just because he penned an interminable doorstop of dreck that sapped every bit of soul out of its subject, leaving nothing but an empty cardboard cutout behind — as the person to whom to entrust his official biography.
Go back to your day job of boring the last molecule of shit out of people via your scribblings, Walter, you supercilious, know-nothing twit.
Before he trots himself out on TV yet again to proclaim the results of his latest seance with Steve Jobs, Laurene should give this tedious, overstepping blockhead a phone call and tell him the time of day. – MacDailyNews, May 30, 2014
SEE ALSO:
Apple CEO Cook blasts Isaacson’s ‘Steve Jobs’ bio as a ‘just a rehash; a tremendous disservice’ – March 17, 2015
Isaacson: Steve Jobs would have done Beats deal – May 30, 2014
As MacDailyNews already posited, Walter Isaacson thinks maybe Jimmy Iovine will run Apple’s content business – May 20, 2014
Scribe of flavorless Steve Jobs biography thinks Google is ‘more innovative’ than Apple because Google bought a thermostat company – January 15, 2014
‘Steve Jobs’ biographer Isaacson backpedals on ‘Google more innovative’ comment, says ‘Apple is the best at execution’ – January 31, 2014
Gruber: Walter Isaacson blew it with biography of Steve Jobs – November 18, 2011
Alternate Headline:
___Blowhard Blows Hard___
Riiiiiiiight, because Apple (and only Apple) is required to pump out paradigm shattering innovations every 18-24 months like $&@?ing clockwork or its dooooommmmmmmed.
Right.
When is HP’s or Intel’s or Panasonic’s next big thing??
To think that these writer’s actually paid money and went to school for their degree.
Apple’s next big thing is sitting Tim Cook down and handing him a Rose Gold colored slip.
Where is Donald Trump when you need him.
Even though it’s not official:
For milking Steve Jobs’ products into stagnation and eventual decline
For pissing away billions in company stock market value
For destroying Apple’s reputation for quality
For destroying the Mac line
For producing worthless products
For fighting for gay rights while on the clock
For killing an entire industry (30-pin) in order to gouge us to make billions by selling us overpriced and unnecessary adapters
Tim Cook, YOU’RE FIRED!!!!!!!!!!
Voted for yourself there. Doesn’t change a thing you shambolic rambler.
whinnnnnnnnnnnnnnneeeee! There’s the dentist drill noise of One Note Joe again.
Stagnation.
Real stagnation like 50 millions iPhones sold in 90 days.
Talk about stagnation.
My guess is your brain is on stagnation… Stay in school!!!
“There is evil here, monstrous, terrible evil … hater of all that lives,.. a TC hate hunger that never dies … It has a name …
Yeah-Cook-Does, Peter-Counter! Apple’s Next Big Thing…!
A troll hunger that never dies! Doofus Joe! ONE NOTE JOE!
(Consider yourself fired, roasted and tarred & feathered.)
Don’t get too excited, bloodypecker. You’ll shit yourself, again.
It’s One Note Joe from Doofus, MO returned from the Internet Trolls Convention! Ready for more bilious spew no doubt, with his low octane mind on all things scatological (reflecting what’s stored between his ears).
You’ve made some points that are not off-target.
Whoever you are, you are as clueless as Isaacson. Your fired.
Now go away.
From a barely read writer to a “technology expert. People praise Steve, but he made a big mistake cooperating with wannabe Isaacson to write his faux bio, Took TSLA 5 years plus from the roadster to the TSLA and 3 years plus from the TSLA to the SUV. Apple is constrained by the emergence of supporting technologies and the ability of suppliers to ramp production. Remeber they need to produce 50,000 plus phones a day.
“Isaacson’s book has an unparalleled ability to omit the interesting.”
Excellently put!
FINE WALTER! What’s that ‘next big thing’ supposed to be? And what company came up with it before Apple?
IASSOTS. Everyone’s a speed addict these days and thinks the world as a whole is too slow for them. Get off the drugs kids! TECHNOLOGY TAKES TIME AND PERFECTION.
However, if there really is STODGE going on at Apple, please send me over there with a license to kick some ass. I’d gladly oblige. Meanwhile, having seen quite a few of Apple’s progressive patents over the years, I know they’re not asleep over there. Meanwhile, a certain author seems to have been frequently asleep while researching his biography of Steve Jobs. He got a remarkable amount of facts WRONG. Maybe that’s why he decided to become yet-another speed addict.
And NO WALTER. Writing a (flaky) biography of the most prominent technology genius of our era does NOT make you a technology expert. Considering that most technology analysts pull face plants on a regular basis, you certainly are not going to help.
He did try to make up for the Jobs bio with his 2014 book The Innovators, in which he showed that “the most important digital advances have been made by teams, not lone geniuses” [WJS review]. I definitely agree. Isaacson, however, seems ro have forgotten what he wrote there, bemoaning the absence of any “unbelievable visionary like a Steve Jobs” at Apple Inc. today. The cult of the Great Man continues to define the social narrative.
I totally disagree, Jane, you ignorant slut.
I’d expect you to do so. Nevertheless, I stand by my assertions, however specious or ill-considered, until I actually read either book 😉
I have a theory that both John Lennon and Steve Jobs started wearing glasses later in life in pursuit of a more sympathetic public image, that of the sensitive artist, after the rebellious bad boy phase had worn thin. I’ve taken to wearing them myself but it hasn’t cured my acid tongue, alas.
I am an ardent admirer of your lingual gifts.
What many of these Apple complainers don’t realize is, that Apple have in fact several innovations that will have an impact on our daily lives. Many of them are much more slow growing than the iPhone revolution, but they are still revolutions.
Take Apples commitment to change how health care works. With Apple Watch, Health Kit and close and creative cooperation with Health Care Institutions, they are slowly changing the whole industry. Also with Apple Pay they are changing the way we use money and credit cards, together with the finance sector they are in the lead of slowly changing the whole industry. Apple Car Play is the door opener that will change how we interact with our cars, eventually changing the whole car industry. Apples partnering with IBM and SAP will slowly change the whole enterprise.
And so on.
These are slow revolutions. To slow for the cocaine manic traders and analytics from the Street to be able to observe. They need a new iPhone revolution, at least once a month up their noses.
I think Apple is doing a lot of things right on new and exiting paths. We need good, realiable and working solutions in our lives. An iPad Pro and Apple Pencil is as good today or a year from now, as on the day it was released.
Of course Apple has its flaws. All companies and all people has. We have to live with the flawed Photo app and a messy iTunes and feel comfort in that they will evolve and get better. Someday. Apple is good in listening to its users.
But overall – everything works smooth today, it syncs and connects, thanks to Apple it works even when we are mobile. These are things I was dreaming of ten years ago. I am happy with that.
Many the MDN Take felt like it came from an angry, immature 12 year old. Grow up guys. I personally didn’t read it, and with anything else, some like it, some don’t. Nothing wrong if you don’t, but that is just idiotic.
On a side note, the guy isn’t an idiot. I actually was at a conference where he was a talking about his interactions with SJ and it was pretty good.
To each their own folks.
Were Apple shipping true “one more thing” products, we’s be buying them instead of shouting past each other on this blog.. Most of us live close ebough to an Apple store that we can have that Macworld Expo experience anytime we visit one.
There are interesting products depicted on the Patently Apple site but you cant buy them. With a world thirsty for Apple Innovation, the solution is simple. Great artists don’t shout, great artists ship!
“With a world thirsty for Apple Innovation…”
Apple is, overall, way better than anything else. But if you don’t think so, you’re welcome to buy Dell laptops and Samsung phones.
They’re TOOLS people – for business and pleasure – but just tools. Getting so in a froth because Apple hasn’t blown your mind recently is really kind of silly.
Such investment in THINGS!
There’s plenty to be exited about — being with friends and family, watching a sunset or a hummingboard, carving through the snow on your skis, and on, and on. Whatever tools you pick, just buy them, be happy with them, and get on with life.
Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens
Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens
Brown paper packages tied up with strings
These are a few of Sean’s favorite things!
Hey it’s sad you if you don’t see Sean’s point. There’s more to life than obsessing over tech and these tech battles with their overwrought & unrealistic expectations. Hopefully it’s not the only light in life you’ve got turned on. (So sayeth Captain Obvious.)
I don’t feel so sad. 🙂
Too bad if you don’t appreciate raindrops on roses, whiskers on kittens, bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens. But then, after all, you are a belligerent asswipe… so it’s not surprising.
lol, thanks Cocoa Boy, have a great weekend.
Although it is strange that Belligerent Asswipe would even know those words!
Pretty good, but I was hearing more of a “Kumbayah” message.
Walter is a writer of fiction, not a technologist.
Is that jealousy I smell?
For whatever reason Jobs allowed Isaacson to know more than you will ever know about Apple. While it ended up being condensed into a spotty record of events, the Jobs bio sold better than anything you will ever write, and still remains amongst the more accurate bio to date. So don’t pretend you know shit about Walter or anyone else at Apple.
So Walter IS a technologist? You’re making the same knowledge presumption you disingenuously accuse Silverhawk1 of for yourself Sliver Dickless.
“Mein Kampf” was big seller too.
Well there’s an Apple expert!
Who woulda thunk???!
50,000 phones a day. That struck me. Just imagine how early they have to start mass production on this stuff. Apple barely has TIME to ennovate nowadays. They have to keep up with Google and all, who work with software rather than mostly hardware. Okay, I feel an Apple rave coming on so I’ll shut up.
The king has died, the magic is gone, and Camelot has become just another crumbling ancient castle on a tourist Google (not Apple) map; a tale we can tell our grandchildren of a land with magical devices, nearly mind-reading user interfaces, with spectacular announcements and major technology advancements.
They once had beautiful stores, filled with industry-leading products, it was like stepping into the future, manned by knowledgeable artists and technicians, free bottles of cold water if you had to wait for help, no appointment needed.
Our children won’t believe us.
Steven Paul “Steve” Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011)
You can always go to eBay and get what Apple use to make.
I, however, prefer what Apple sells now.
Isaacson just wan’t to sell more books.
Anyone who thinks that the Apple Watch is not currently disrupting the watch industry in a big way can’t see the forest for the trees. The iPod was not an overnight success. Many people thought Apple was going to be run over by the cheap clones from the bottom and Microsoft from the top.
The iPhone wasn’t an overnight paradigm shift either . . . er, okay, maybe that one was. It’s just that the watch industry isn’t that big anymore.
Now the car industry, that’s another story.