If you are not busy being born, you are busy dying.
-Bob Dylan (Quoted by Steve Jobs)
-Bob Dylan (Quoted by Steve Jobs)
Just finished reading the most anticipated biography of the year. I had read one Jobs biography before, iCon. Curiously it was the only one Jobs wanted banned, I later came to know. To be sure, it does portray him mostly in bad light. Probably it wanted to say 'I,con' instead of 'icon'.
Expectations from this one were high, coming as it was from Walter Isaacson, and it does fulfill them. For me, it dispelled some popular misconceptions. For example, that Apple 'imported' GUI wholesale from Xerox PARC. That is not true. Apple sure got the concept, but Mac team made significant improvements of their own, like overlapping windows and window drag-and-drop. Or that Jobs stole all the credit from Jeff Raskin, the real father of Mac. No. Raskin sure was leader of the Mac project before Jobs took it over (which forced him to leave), but under Raskin Mac was an underpowered machine with minimal graphics. It was Jobs who turned it into the phenomenon that it became. But this is not to say that Jobs was a 'Mahatma' that got vilified somehow. His was a complex personality, not of the typical hero, and the book is impressively balanced in that regard.
Jobs, not the typical CEO, made many specific product improvements. I liked this part because in what I had read earlier, his criticism was acute, but his praise very vague. To be specific, original iTunes had a search interface that required specifying the search parameter (lyrics or album, say); he wanted one where you simply type in the box. Now it has become the default on non Apple products too. And he came up with the idea of iPod shuffle, getting rid of the screen altogether, because he saw that people were heavily using the shuffle functionality on the original iPod. Let me add one last example, a less well known one. The original iPhone was supposed to have a plastic screen, but Jobs thought glass was more aesthetic. So he went searching for a solution and found a company that made 'gorilla glass'. The only problem was, the company, which had pioneered the process of making it in 1960s had found no market and stopped making it. When Jobs placed a large order, the manufacturer was unsure he could do it. Jobs convinced him he can. Gorilla glass is almost a standard on today's cellphones.
The book is full of such interesting nuggets, but there is one important thing that comes through. Jobs made great products because he focused on making great products. Sometimes that meant micromanagment, hurt egos and financial overruns, but his strong will prevailed, and the results are before us. Don't miss this book. You will learn much, but it is also plain old good reading.
Expectations from this one were high, coming as it was from Walter Isaacson, and it does fulfill them. For me, it dispelled some popular misconceptions. For example, that Apple 'imported' GUI wholesale from Xerox PARC. That is not true. Apple sure got the concept, but Mac team made significant improvements of their own, like overlapping windows and window drag-and-drop. Or that Jobs stole all the credit from Jeff Raskin, the real father of Mac. No. Raskin sure was leader of the Mac project before Jobs took it over (which forced him to leave), but under Raskin Mac was an underpowered machine with minimal graphics. It was Jobs who turned it into the phenomenon that it became. But this is not to say that Jobs was a 'Mahatma' that got vilified somehow. His was a complex personality, not of the typical hero, and the book is impressively balanced in that regard.
Jobs, not the typical CEO, made many specific product improvements. I liked this part because in what I had read earlier, his criticism was acute, but his praise very vague. To be specific, original iTunes had a search interface that required specifying the search parameter (lyrics or album, say); he wanted one where you simply type in the box. Now it has become the default on non Apple products too. And he came up with the idea of iPod shuffle, getting rid of the screen altogether, because he saw that people were heavily using the shuffle functionality on the original iPod. Let me add one last example, a less well known one. The original iPhone was supposed to have a plastic screen, but Jobs thought glass was more aesthetic. So he went searching for a solution and found a company that made 'gorilla glass'. The only problem was, the company, which had pioneered the process of making it in 1960s had found no market and stopped making it. When Jobs placed a large order, the manufacturer was unsure he could do it. Jobs convinced him he can. Gorilla glass is almost a standard on today's cellphones.
The book is full of such interesting nuggets, but there is one important thing that comes through. Jobs made great products because he focused on making great products. Sometimes that meant micromanagment, hurt egos and financial overruns, but his strong will prevailed, and the results are before us. Don't miss this book. You will learn much, but it is also plain old good reading.
3 comments:
Lovely review...!
and yes..some day I will read it too :)
Thanks.. And I will make sure of it :p
that is a great book..
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