Publisher Simon & Schuster have announced that the first official biography of Apple supremo Steve Jobs will be published early in 2012.
“iSteve: The Book of Jobs” from Walter Isaacson marks the first time that Jobs has authorised an official account of his life to be written, and it will make an extremely interesting read indeed.
Born in 1955 in San Francisco he founded Apple Computer in 1976 but has done much more with his life than just give the world the iPhone. His life has been traumatic at times including a high-profile power struggle at Apple that saw him leave the company in 1985 and that gave birth to NeXT computer. This was Jobs in typical Jobs fashion taking a great idea, in this case the Apple Lisa and refining it for the next generation.
When Jobs eventually returned to a flagging Apple almost ten years later, he brought all the NeXT innovation with him. His vision for a computer in every home took a very different approach from that of Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Jobs saw the need for great design to be integral to the product and when the iMac launched in 1998 it received universal acclaim and saw Apple and Jobs projected into the stratosphere. There was no looking back for the company after this time.
His business interests didn’t just extend to Apple however. In 1986 he bought a computer graphics company that was later to be known as Pixar from Lucasfilm for a tiny $10 million. By the time Pixar was owned by Disney it had become the most well known and successful movie graphics company of all time, surpassing LucasFilm’s own Industrial Light and Magic. Pixar was and still is, as Apple is today, a household name.
In his personal life he has most notably battled with pancreatic cancer and has had to take two sabatticals from Apple, one ongoing now, for health reasons. This has prompted great speculation and concern over who could possibly take over at Apple to fulfill Jobs’ vision and keep the company’s products maintaining the high standards that Jobs has insisted upon.
Jobs has had a notoriously aggressive and demanding management style and is famously outspoken, allegadly telling an iPhone 4 user who was having signal problems “not to hold it that way then”. There can be little doubt however that Steve Jobs is one of, if not the most successful CEO of any computer startup. He was most recently honoured by having an action-figure made of him.
Biographer Walter Isaacson is a former executive at CNN and Time magazine and has written best-sellers about Benjamin Franklin and Albert Einstein. In a press statement the publisher of Simon & Schuster, Johnathan Karp said “This is the perfect match of subject and author, and it is certain to be a landmark book about one of the world’s greatest innovators.”
Related Articles:
Steve Jobs Resigns as Apple CEOSteve Jobs to Take Leave of Absence from Apple for Health Reasons
Steve Jobs – The Action Figure
Has Steve Jobs left a Four Year Plan at Apple?
Steve Jobs hits out at Android
Enjoyed the article?: Then sign-up for our free newsletter or RSS feed to kick off your day with the latest technology news and tips, or share the article with your friends and contacts on Facebook, Twitter or Google+ using the icons below.
Which way should we hold the book then? :-)
Cannot wait to read that book!
Jobs is no Einstein. Nor Franklin.
Look for this biography to exalt Steve
to stratospheric heights of hero worship.
Jobs has been a major figure to be sure but
dispassionate appraisals of his contribution to
technology and entertainment will likely not occur
until another generation can place them in context.
The timing and authorization are a curiosity
almost as if Jobs wants to insure he is
around when this story is told.