Books with this much hype don’t usually appeal to me. There may have been some sort of collective unconscious peer pressure at work here, urging me to put this book on my Christmas list. What is more interesting is that I am not really an Apple guy, I only own one iPod that I bought almost a decade ago and have used a Windows PC for as long as I can remember. So really I read this book out of curiosity. I wasn’t interested in any detailed, month by month review of Apple’s development or product releases, as I am not that much a cultist
of the brand.
Thankfully, Isaacson’s biography does not do this. And despite the hardbacks bulky appearance, the book flows relatively quickly. Jobs life and it’s development alongside Apple move along without getting bogged down by delving too deeply into every single product development, focusing instead on the game changers and Job’s overarching philosophies, while instances of Jobs personality (good, but mostly bad) are dropped liberally throughout.
Much has already been written about Job’s “reality distortion field” – his ability to force superhuman feats of engineering and design to be accomplished through the power of his own will and his knack for blocking out all things (people, emotions, other ideas) that could impede his progress. This idea is discussed at length everywhere in the book. So too, is Jobs bipolar attitude towards everyone and everything: crap/or incredible, a shithead/ or a genius. There was no gray areas when it came to Steve Jobs judgement of people or products. However, Isaacson refers to these traits so relentlessly that it almost becomes unbearable by the end of the book. But then again, he does hammer the point home quite well.
Of course with all the current news about supply chain atrocities in China, one has to wonder if this book was rushed to print a little too hastily, without giving a fuller review of Apple’s global sense of ethics. Just like Job’s own Macworld keynote speeches, this book was released with all the fanfare of a revolutionary Apple product. But, unlike all his other products, which didn’t suck me in (Ipad, Iphone, Mac’s – not yet anyway), this posthumous one is the one that finally did me in.