Recently the official biography of Steve Jobs was released.
Unlike many other books that discuss bits and pieces from
various points of views this goes over it all, from how Jobs
was adopted all the way through the release of the iPad 2
and iCloud.
The book begins with the early days of Jobs and
Woz cracking AT&T’s network with devices known as Blue Boxes,
helping lay the groundwork for the pair to begin Apple
Computers.
It’s also very blunt and honest about Jobs,
including how he was almost entirely out of his daughter’s
life for years, his surprising sensitivity that went along
with his harsh, brash nature as well as his insistence that
doing drugs in his youth was one of the best experiences of
his life.
One of the things that struck me was the incredible
cast of characters.
Some of the well known tech giants of
today including Bill Gates were integral parts of the story
of how Apple came to be as well as the genesis of Microsoft.
Of course Jobs held nothing back in his opinion of Gates.
The book also goes into detail with Steve Jobs’ involvement
in Pixar and his ouster and eventual return to Apple to save
the dying company.
He also talks about the origins of some of
the most popular Apple devices of today such as the iPod,
iPhone and iPad.
For example, when designing the iPhone there
were two main models they were considering, P1 which would be
a phone based around the clickwheel and P2 which would use a
large multitouch display.
While of course the final version had
a multitouch screen it would have been a sight to see how the
iPhone would have been with a clickwheel instead.
The Steve Jobs biography is a hefty 656 pages however I must
say I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it as I devoured the
book during the past few days.
If you are interested in the
history of Apple or even just want a look back at the
incredible time that it was started in,
I highly recommend you give it a shot.