Jason's Reviews > Steve Jobs

What I got from the first half of the book: Jobs is an unrelentingly awful a-hole. Lots of technical information that bored me. To be fair, it was all about stuff before I was born so I had no connection.

But then it gets to Pixar. I also happen to find movies way more interesting than computer tech. And admire Pixar even if I find their movies often overrated.

Some more blah-ness. I do remember the iMac in elementary school. The school only had a couple of them because they were new and not entirely proven yet, but the kids found them cool cuz they were prettier than the other computers and I *think* the privilege to use them rotated.

I don’t start thinking “Ooh, cool” until the 21st century stuff. Which kicks off with Apple stores, which of course now are omghuge. Thought the anecdote about people camping up for store openings reminds me of why I find Apple fans a bit...obsessive and overzealous.

Now we get to iTunes/iPod. iTunes of course helped prevent the music industry from flopping to the online pirates of the world. Its % of the digital sales market is astounding. Now with the rise in streaming its influence is slowly declining and having people once again bemoan the state of things, but anyway. Yes, I care much more about music than computer tech as well. Lol, it mentions that iTunes is to blame for the Black Eyed Peas getting huge; I do remember how iTunes ads were a big deal and would make songs hits. Not so much anymore.

iTunes store, yes, now here’s my interest! I’m obsessed. Fascinating how the store only came about as a way to sell the iPod...I’m pretty sure I knew that already but still.
I did not know this: “Subscription services that allowed customers to stream songs but not keep them, so you lost access to them if your subscription lapsed...Indeed they would earn the dubious distinction of becoming number nine on PC World’s list of ‘the 25 worst tech products of all time.’” Given, as I already stated, the immense rise of streaming cutting into music sales of late.
Oh yes, 99 cents...though now most hits are $1.29. 70% to the record companies; is that still true?
Yes, Jobs’s pushing for being able to buy any individual track has had huge repercussions. For one thing, Taylor Swift wouldn’t have over 40 T40 hits if the only songs available to purchase were her radio-promoted singles.
Oh the days when Mariah was a must-have artist. The elusive chanteuse indeed. Lol, Sheryl Crow too.
Hmm, iTunes sold a million songs in its first 6 days; 70 million first year. Last week, digital sales (for iTunes and lesser retailers) totaled 20 million.
In 2007 iPods were half of Apple’s revenue; damn.
Ew, John Mayer.

Oh yes I remember Antz vs. A Bug’s Life.
Yes Disney Animation did have lots of flops, but recently Tangled started a resurgence, and that led into Frozen being one of the biggest smashes of all time, bigger than the conclusion of Pixar’s crown jewel. Of course, that’s after this book.
The best commencement speech ever, huh? Okay then.

Maybe if I was one of those Apple addicts I might have liked this more. But I’ve never bought a single one of their products, so.

Some notable quotes:
‘I didn’t want anyone to know I had parents. I wanted to be like an orphan who had bummed around the country on trains and just arrived out of nowhere.’ - Shut up you hipster.

Grilling her about how much money it would take to get her to have sex with another man. - Great role model for misogyny here.

‘Here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out okay.’ - Well it did...but it’s not like that works for everyone.

‘They don’t even have a word for vegetarian,’ he complained (incorrectly). - Ugh making vegetarians look bad with his odiousness.

He rejected one of her renderings of a rabbit, an icon for speeding up the mouse-click rate, saying that the furry creature looked ‘too gay.’ - GoodBYE.

‘They were a force for evil. They were like ATT or Microsoft or Google is.’ - Whatever, you yourself seem more evil than Google.

In fact there’s no reason to believe that Moritz was jealous or that he intended his reporting to be unfair. Nor was Jobs ever slated to be Man of the Year, despite what he thought. - Delusional, party of one.

He wore jeans and sneakers to meetings with Japanese managers in dark suits. When they formally handed him little gifts, as was the custom, he often left them behind, and he never reciprocated with gifts of his own. He would sneer. - Culturally insensitive POS.

In 1982 Apple’s annual sales were $1 billion, while Microsoft’s were a mere $32 million. - Mmm, fascinating, compared to now.

‘We both had this rich neighbor named Xerox and I broke into his house to steal the TV set and found out that you had already stolen it.’ - You tell him, William.