Phil's Reviews > Steve Jobs

I think this book could have used massive editing and re-writing. I don't know if all of Isaacson's biographies are this long, but this particular volume seemed to just go forever.

On the whole, I feel like this was a biography of Apple Computers, and not Steve Jobs. Sure, Jobs was pretty much all about Apple, but I didn't expect (and still don't believe) his life was 99% Apple as this biography presents.

Also, the biography is insanely repetitive (further evidence of the need for a good editing). The first half of the book spends way too much time talking about how badly Jobs smelled, his weird hippy diets, and his penchant for being an extreme jerk while the second half of the book spends way too much time talking about key Apple product launches, Jobs' weird hippy diets, and Jobs' penchant for being an extreme jerk.

I learned more than I wanted to know about the petty office politics at Apple in the early days. I didn't learn nearly enough about Jobs.

The best, most insightful part of the biography is a section in which the author presents a conversation he had with Steve Jobs about the content of his iPod, and why. That showed Jobs in a moment of humanity, being a person, with likes, dislikes, a personality all while enjoying jamming to some great tunes. That section is tiny and crammed in between a huge section which gushes all over the iPod and a huge section which gushes all over the iTunes store.

Lastly, the book was just boring. It was written in a straightforward, no nonsense prose. It could have used a little bit of elevated language, interesting diction, and clever phrasing. Despite the constant repetition of phrases and sentences verbatim throughout the entire book, nowhere was I moved or caught up in the flow of the words themselves (except in the two times in which Jobs was quoted while being philosophical, first the Harvard commencement speech, second his musings on legacy at the end of the book).

I would have thought that a person who had been given an all access to the life and times of Steve Jobs could have done a much better job than this.

It is sad to say, but the pictures at the end (of the iBooks version) were more revealing of Jobs than the previous multiple hundreds of pages/ 42 chapters.

Only read if you have an iron will.