When Steve Jobs appointed Walter Isaacson, chairman of CNN and managing editor of Time magazine, to write his biography he must’ve felt the indelible intuition for a successful product that he was so akin to, and Isaacson definitely did not fail to deliver.
It seems only fitting that Jobs is the subject of his fourth biography after a litany of remarkable personalities such as Benjamin Franklin, Henry Kissinger and Einstein under his belt. He gives readers a detailed account of the history, the behavioural oddities and the emotional crudity that made a man a legend, describing Jobs as “obnoxious” and “bristly” in the same breath as “solicitous” and “emotionally attuned”. In fact Jobs told Isaacson that he and his team at Apple could “have a rip roaring fight and that brutal honesty” in meetings and that he didn’t know how to have a “velvet glove” touch to such situations. Beware that even though Jobs’ was a known control freak throughout his life, he gave Isaacson complete editorial freedom in writing the book and promised not to overlook every tiny detail (like he usually did with everything in his life). I say apparent only because at the time of writing the book, Jobs was still alive and it might have been difficult to pry into loved ones’ memories or to poke around in unforgiven, unforgotten sore spots (as is the case with most successful entrepreneurs and business heads) to give a truly analytical and unbiased view.
Nevertheless, after reading the biography one feels a sort of solid identity with the movement that brought the everyday Apple products we use (or see being used) today to life. Does anyone even remember the translucent bondi blue first edition iMac with a user friendly handle on the top or the silhouette iPod promos that were once internet rage? The book takes us on a well-oiled expedition through Steve jobs’ life straight from the remoteness of Mountain View, California to the booming tech hub of Palo Alto in San Francisco Bay and sheds interesting, pivotal details about the man’s personal life as eloquently and diagnostically as possible. Just as Isaacson feels comfortable concluding with naming him as “the one most certain to be remembered a century from now”, I feel comfortable saying that Steve Jobs was and will remain the only breath of life to industrial harmony that was the marriage of groundbreaking technology and simplistic aestheticism.
A powerful yet endearing testimony to the legacy named Steve Jobs, the book will not disappoint but will definitely fascinate any Apple aficionado or digital citizen a lot more.
Overall Rating: 7.5/10
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