Apple is retaliating against an unauthorized biography of Steve Jobs, by removing all technology books by the publisher John Wiley & Sons from its shelves. See story here.

Not this is out of left field for a company, but the biography paints Jobs in a pretty decent light. Even the title "iCon Steve Jobs: the greatest second act in the history of business" sounds positive to me.

And why punish the tech book authors, like David Pogue ("Macs for dummies"), for this? Why lose money over it? They can't stop publication of the book, so it just seems like a useless ego trip.

Why even worry about this? There is no ethical standard that Steve Jobs can break that will squelch the love that yuze people have for the company and the computer. There’s some deeper, unspoken, "one of us" threshold that people like Jobs cross that makes everything else they do, if not okay, then at least forgivable.

Are you sure it's a positive profile of Jobs? The title is surely a double-entendre...

The reverse side of this, of course, is that Bill Gates, no matter what good he does, no matter how many billions he gives away to charity, is always seen as a fiend. His motives can’t possibly be pure. Giving away billions is just a convenient tax write-off for him. Etc. etc.

quote:

Originally posted by Arlo:
Are you sure it's a positive profile of Jobs? The title is surely a double-entendre...

Well, I'm not sure the entirety of the biography is one ass-rubbing story, but the author of the biography says that he feels it is pretty complimentary:

quote from here: 'Young, who was a contributing editor for the Mercury News in the early 1980s, said he is dismayed by Apple's reaction to "iCon." He said it updates a biography of Jobs he wrote 20 years ago, called "The Journey Is the Reward." The latest book retraces Jobs' early days as a computer maverick and chronicles his failure with NeXt. But it also documents his triumphant return to Apple, the successes of the iMac and iPod as well as his role in remaking animation through Pixar Animation Studios.

"One of the things I'm amused by, the original book was quite negative. It leaves you the impression of this young guy who was quite a jerk, has no social graces, has a lot of skill but may not be worthy of acclaim," said Young. The new book reflects a matured Jobs. "I really think he learned a lot when he failed." '


Even if it doesn't paint him entirely in a great light, supposed double-entendre included, why pull the books of the publisher's other authors from the shelves? Yeah, to protest, I get it. Seems rather petty. When you have that high of a profile, people are going to write about you, even if it isn't in an Apple-sanctioned manner.

Even if it doesn't paint him entirely in a great light, supposed double-entendre included, why pull the books of the publisher's other authors from the shelves? Yeah, to protest, I get it. Seems rather petty. When you have that high of a profile, people are going to write about you, even if it isn't in an Apple-sanctioned manner.

Face-saving, fit of pique, intimidation, probably all of the above. But I’m intrigued by the idea that the author’s earlier book painted Jobs (probably accurately, in my opinion) as a "young guy who was quite a jerk, has no social graces, has a lot of skill but may not be worthy of acclaim...The new book reflects a matured Jobs. "I really think he learned a lot when he failed." Anybody who has turned forty (me included) can tell you that it would be no surprise to learn that as we age we gain new perspectives, and you could pay someone no higher compliment than that they have learned from their mistakes and matured. Even I would have to tip my hat to Jobs for that because, although I don’t share his brilliant side, I do share much of his darker side. To have got some kind of a handle on it would be admirable indeed and if this newer books points this fact out then it would necessarily be a quite complimentary one.

But this rather petty squelching of this book (and if brother thalo chimes in with any other characterization of this then I will hand him his ass) shows that it’s the same old Jobs, for better or for worse.

Groan.

If you needed proof of the con, there it is. Squelching. You only do crap like that, when there's something to hide. When you're worried about the friggin' TRUTH leaking out. When you shift from image MAKING, to image PROTECTING, you run the danger of Scientology Syndrome, and that's where Apple is heading with this.

Steve does have a history of throwing his muscle around, and it usually works. The only place it damages him is in public opinion, and I think these days he feels invulnerable there. Too many people cheering him at keynotes for too long. I think it makes him look like a big baby. There have been plenty of unauthorized bios to hit the shelves, when they do, you can be pretty well sure that you are doing something RIGHT and people are interested in you.

Has anyone ever thought what would happen if THIS site ever got more than 88 members? I mean if we really took off like Ars or MFI? We'd get squelched so fast our heads would spin. Forget the fact that many of us are stone-cold Mac LOYALISTS, who want nothing more than greatness from Apple. They'd see us as a threat to their precious digikid friendly casual use image.

Calling the Apple Marketeers basically con-artists and bullshitters, while TRUE, is the kind of thing that their lawyers just wouldn't stand for if we didn't style ourselves as fringe extremists. So if you ever wonder why I am hesitant to make us the kinder, friendlier, thalo.net, now you know. Better to rule in hell.

From this point, we can be influential, which I GUARANTEE you we are... and yet not a threat, because we're easily dismissed.

At this point, it's way more important for Apple to reclaim their souls... to refocus their destiny. And getting a big American corporation who knows how to play the game to start learning how to be NOBLE again is a huge undertaking. Ya see, it's so much EASIER for them to be Scientologists than it is to take the more difficult path of providing quality tools to users. Disparaging the user base and setting their sites on the worst-case-chimptard, is why OS X is so lame. To really bring vision back to the Mac is much tougher... it's a hearts and minds campaign, and that's why we do what we do.

We're Mac Fundamentalists, extremists, crusaders. And to win, all we really have to do is expose the crap. Blow apart the con. Because once you see how it works, you really have to be kind of mentally ill to keep denying the truth.

You lookit the TYPES of truth X-Men deny, and basically what they do is confuse WANTING a thing, with the actual thing. X-Critics can point to the operating system and demonstrate that its quality is sub-par. Not that we don't WANT a bright future of roses and sunshine and super-fast performance... it's just that we truly know we don't have it NOW, and we don't confuse the PROMISE of getting it some day, with the product we just friggin' bought.

I have always contended that the Mac Renaissance can't fully begin until the emphasis and intent goes back on making the best possible products for users, as opposed to appealing to a narrow demographic vis a vis image. Dumbing down is never, ever the answer to changing the world for the better. Its gains are always short term, and there's always a backlash.

The MacLash will happen when the newbie/digikid/casual use demographic starts understanding that Apple computers do less, and do it less well than they OUGHT. When they understand that much about the interface simply doesn't make sense... and that if it DID, using the platform would be easier and more powerful.

That's when Less is More thinking will start becoming beneficial to the survival of Apple. When they stop hiding behind flashy façades that barely function, and start trying to provide real, souped-up power and performance and intuitiveness back to the Mac interface, all will be right with the world again. Then, Apple wouldn't HAVE to worry about protecting its image. When you GIVE to people, and help lift them up and improve their lives and work, your image takes care of itself.

Until then, this is an iCon. And Jobs is the friggin' PT Barnum snakeoil messiah. But I can't bring myself to hate the guy. I still admire his tenacity and drive and uniqueness of his (original) vision. I believe in my heart of hearts that he doesn't WANT to be evil. He's more like somebody who took too many lumps from a demanding public who didn't get it, and started feeling "to hell with them" and said kinda fuck you, I'll give you what you want. You obviously don't WANT the Mac to be simple, minimal and sophisticated, you want the black velvet elvis instead of the Giorgio Morandi.

And right there, that disdain, that downlooking, was what gave us a parade of happy horseshit.

Instead of REALLY doing something to appeal to newbies, digikids, and casual users... they defined that demographic in such a way as to CAUSE OS X to take a form that is bloated and unreasonable. Because they started with an erroneous insulting determination about the user base that in many ways is just not true.

Add a big PR machine, and it's going to get VERY difficult to set things right. But I for one am not going to shrink from the task. Because through experience and daily Mac use since the beginning of Mac Time, I have learned that minimal and logical and cohesive metaphor driven is better all the way around.

You need only look at the superabundance of Tiger to see that it's fucking LOST. Floundering. To make it perfect, to make it logical and beautiful and razor-sharp... the one thing it needs is a meeting of form and function.

I've said this before, but what Apple needs, TODAY, is a designer that is to software interface what Jonathan Ive is to industrial design, and what Russell Mitchell is to motorcycles.

Exile cycles in their mission statement says:

quote:

We want to play a part in reversing the current trend towards the fancy, frivolous and ridiculous.

Can you IMAGINE what it would be like if Apple took that to heart?

Macs could be BRILLIANT again. Instead of being the supersized fast-junk-food of computers, they could be the real mccoy. That's MY vision for Apple. Realness. Realitude. A complete and total cutting the crap. Bullshit free. Requiring zero crap-settling to own or use.

No compromises, no prisoners. Just perfection of form, function and user-friendliness.

quote:

At this point, it's way more important for Apple to reclaim their souls... to refocus their destiny. And getting a big American corporation who knows how to play the game to start learning how to be NOBLE again is a huge undertaking. Ya see, it's so much EASIER for them to be Scientologists than it is to take the more difficult path of providing quality tools to users. Disparaging the user base and setting their sites on the worst-case-chimptard, is why OS X is so lame. To really bring vision back to the Mac is much tougher... it's a hearts and minds campaign, and that's why we do what we do.

We're Mac Fundamentalists, extremists, crusaders. And to win, all we really have to do is expose the crap. Blow apart the con. Because once you see how it works, you really have to be kind of mentally ill to keep denying the truth.

For a thousandth of maybe a second you got my heart to beating again, perhaps just fast enough to give a shit. Show me a grenade and I’ll get Markle to fall on it. Good stuff, thalo.

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Has anyone ever thought what would happen if THIS site ever got more than 88 members? I mean if we really took off like Ars or MFI? We'd get squelched so fast our heads would spin. Forget the fact that many of us are stone-cold Mac LOYALISTS, who want nothing more than greatness from Apple. They'd see us as a threat to their precious digikid friendly casual use image.

Calling the Apple Marketeers basically con-artists and bullshitters, while TRUE, is the kind of thing that their lawyers just wouldn't stand for if we didn't style ourselves as fringe extremists. So if you ever wonder why I am hesitant to make us the kinder, friendlier, thalo.net, now you know. Better to rule in hell.

From this point, we can be influential, which I GUARANTEE you we are... and yet not a threat, because we're easily dismissed.

I think there’s more than a little truth to that. But the way things have played out so far I think it’s safe to say that there will be no unexpected maclash that will so suddenly swell our ranks so as to attract the sharks at Apple.

In a sea of gasoline, you don't need a super-tanker loaded to the brim with matches. The MacLash will ignite just fine with a few.

In a sea of gasoline, you don't need a super-tanker loaded to the brim with matches. The MacLash will ignite just fine with a few.

Well, that paradigm has yet to be supported by the evidence, at least as far as the Mac ocean is concerned. It’s more as if the sea were composed of fire retardant foam (note the appropriateness of terms) and we were launching napalm into it. We can move the foam around in places, even blacken it, but there is no danger of Lake Erie catching fire.

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From the L.A. Times coverage of this story:

<< The move heightens Apple's reputation as Silicon Valley's most thin-skinned company. In recent months it has drawn criticism for suing three website operators to learn the source of leaks about new products....
<< IDC analyst Roger Kay said Apple's move could backfire and boost book sales. But it doesn't surprise him.
<< "'My way or the highway,' is the cliche that fits the way Apple deals with the entire [business] ecosystem," he said.
<< Kay knows something about that. He mildly criticized Apple last year for not having an entry-level Mac.
<< Although the company already had such a model in the works, Apple executives chewed him out and complained to his boss.
<< They still won't return his calls. >>

quote:

Show me a grenade and I’ll get Markle to fall on it.

Another right-wing chicken hawk willing to fight to the last drop of someone else's blood.....

Markle

When Apple pulls crap like this, it's not difficult for any of the Mac Faithful to see the big picture. That "thin skinned" behavior is easy for anyone to read. It says, don't fuck with us, we're more powerful than you. Don't criticize us, or else.

It's typical. They're so worried about being brought down in the eyes of the general public, they do stupid things that do the job much better themselves than what they're afraid of. The Scientology strategy never works. Making people AFRAID of you is not the way to inspire squat.

Look, if they think one bad review, or one unauthorized biography can change public opinion so drastically against them, then it probably fucking can. Which means they're sitting atop a very weak position. If there wasn't a con, and stuff really worked better... there would be no NEED to step on people's necks if they mouthed off.

Apple Delusions wouldn't be the squelch-o-rama it is if everything was hunky dory. You learn what a company is about, by what they're afraid of. A thing like this communicates what Steve thinks is important to the survival of Apple. And I guess that's what, not having anyone badmouth him?

What does that tell you?

It tells me that image is more important than product quality. Product quality makes you impervious to badmouthing. If OS X wasn't crap, there'd be nothing bad to say about Apple or Steve. Because it is, and because he hangs way out to try and hide it, it makes everything look like a big house of cards. One wrong phrase and everything collapses, so you have to stop people from saying that phrase.

Well guess what? It's not gonna happen. You can't squelch everyone. And the more you try, the worse you look.

Not to offend any gay people but the first thing that crossed my mind when I read the news was “What a FAG”.

I'm actually a fan. If I met the guy in the flesh, I'd probably ACT GAY around him... but this is just so frikkin' lame. Dysfunctional. Hey, that's why we're here. For an intervention. We have to help Steve Jobs stop trying to be Bill Gates, and start thinking about his legacy. Uh, and start thinking about the MAC legacy.

Right now it gives me a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach to think of OS X and Aqua being what the MAC is remembered for. Instead of the way more brilliant desktop metaphor and Platinum.

I think we need to start with the Finder and the interface. Those things need the most work. The things that most need to be cleaned up. If Steve can orchestrate that, his unauthorized bios will be friggin' LAUDATORY. He'll be a god.

Here is PART of an interesting commentary in Tuesday's Wall Street Journal:


May 3, 2005

"Vladimir Ilyich Jobs?"

By RICH KARLGAARD


The greatness of American democratic capitalism can be summed up in two words: Steve Jobs. The Apple CEO's gifts to the world -- from Macs to iPods -- have vastly improved our lives.

But there is, always has been, a dark side to his genius. Once again we see it. Angered out of scale by an unauthorized biography called "iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business," Mr. Jobs went nuclear last week. He banished iCon from Apple stores. You might say, fine, that is his prerogative. But is it wise? Apple's shareholders, not its CEO, own the stores. The harmless potboiler would've driven buyers to Apple stores. Mr. Jobs, alas, didn't stop with iCon. He also yanked from "his" stores all books from iCon's publisher, John Wiley & Sons. These include dozens of popular nerd books, such as "Macs for Dummies," written to help Apple's customers. The dummy here is Mr. Jobs.

Mr. Jobs's war on iCon follows another stupid public relations move born of, well, totalitarian impulse. In January, Apple sued three bloggers for publishing leaked information on Apple products. One is a young college student who began writing Mac devotionals at age 13.

For all this, America loves Steve Jobs. Me, too, though I shouldn't. Years ago, he phoned me on a Saturday morning and tried to squash a story my then-magazine, Upside, was about to print on NeXT, Inc. NeXT was his second startup after Apple. But it was failing and our story said so. On the phone Mr. Jobs cooed and threatened, including warnings to "watch my backside" and, strangely, "don't ride a bicycle alone on dark roads." We ran the story. Michael Moritz, before he was a venture capitalist funding Yahoo and Google, once covered Apple as a Time magazine reporter. Mr. Jobs repeatedly tried to get him fired. Dozens of journalists have stories like this.

I can easily forgive Mr. Jobs this because he changed my life for the better. The first Mac of 1984 was so easy to use, so cool; it got me, and millions, into computing....
....
But like many revolutionaries, Mr. Jobs appears to be one who loves the world and loathes people. He has been known to bring misery to people's lives, and not just book authors. His capacity for cruelty runs the gamut from verbal lashings of his own customers to rumored summary dismissals for the sin of having brought him the wrong brand of bottled water. He denied the paternity of a daughter for years. In a book called "Infinite Loop," writer Michael S. Malone describes how, in the early 1970s, Mr. Jobs even screwed over his eventual Apple co-founder, Steve Wozniak. At the time, Mr. Jobs was a young freelance software writer for Atari but in over his head. He convinced his boyhood friend, the technically brilliant Woz, to help him write a game called Breakout. He told Woz they'd split $700. Woz, who had a job at Hewlett Packard, stayed up nights to write Breakout. He did all the work. His marriage suffered. Upon completion, Atari paid Mr. Jobs $7,000. Mr. Jobs took credit for writing the game and paid his friend Woz "half" -- $350. Years later Woz read about the rip-off in a book about Atari. He started crying.

The genius, idealism, charisma, salesmanship, obsession, paranoia and cruelty that come together in Steve Jobs and other great American icons such as Henry Ford and Howard Hughes also combine in history's worst tyrants. The cult of personality built around Lenin and Mao is not unlike the cult Macolytes have built around Mr. Jobs. One can only speculate what the two-sided genius potential of a baby Steve Jobs, dropped by a stork into Russia or China a hundred years ago, might have become. Deprived of a capitalistic playing field, where would his energies have gone? Toward the dark side is one guess.

Dropped by a stork into California in 1955, the boy Jobs grew up ...and found himself in Silicon Valley, the heart of entrepreneurialism in democratic America. What amazing providence for him and for us! That is the true genius of America: It takes would-be Lenins, redeems them in the crucible of capitalism, and turns out Steve Jobs.


(Mr. Karlgaard is publisher of Forbes magazine and author of "Life 2.0" (Crown Business, 2004).)

Oh that's terrific. But every time I say the guy is a brilliant soulless con artist, I want people to remember this article. Also remember that his whole generation started as hackers and long-distance service stealers. With the genius has always been a lot of deviousness and scamitude.

I also want people to think about why we still love him. Why we sit around hoping against hope that he can be redeemed. I think I have the answer: his products and ideas have exactly the nobility and honor that he apparently lacks personally.

All I can say is, some of my best friends are assholes. And I can never lose sight of brilliant ideas, even if they come from an unlikely source.

Corporate America, after all, is a friggin' RUTHLESS world. It ain't just dog-eat-dog, it's dog sniff and lick dog butt... dog fuck dog, then eat dog, then puke dog, and lap up the dog-puke... then crap dog, dog sniff dog crap, eat dog crap... puke, sniff---well, you get the idea.

My favorite thing in the article above is the squelch attempt phone call to the author. And the NeXT stuff was only the truth. That's telling. Believe me, I don't believe that he made those threats in any serious way, and the guy obviously lived to write again. But holy crap. It seems to me that that's right where we are with OS X. Can you imagine how many phone calls exposing the real story of OS X have been made? I know that's true. The reason the X-Man line of shit has such a desperate quality to it, is probably because Apple leaned on everyone higher up on the food chain. And what we have is trickle down terror. The only place you really get the truth, of course, is at thalo.net. And only because we come in under the radar as fringe loyalists-cum-Mac-extremists. Only because I am as friggin' devious as him, lol. Because I can speak the truth in a rhetorical style that's easily dismissed as typical forum troll. If we went all civilized and mainstream guess how much free and open there'd be around here? We'd be shut up tighter than brother Jef Raskin's coffin. But I'm tempted to give it a go. Start an online Mac Magazine with reviews and analysis that isn't going to instantly give five mice to crap because they're afraid of rich people. But one that really tests and assesses Mac products based on what they do, not how good Apple is at playing Scientologist shock troop.

But Steve? You have my phone number, feel free to call me and try to stop me, lol.

quote:

The cult of personality built around Lenin and Mao is not unlike the cult Macolytes have built around Mr. Jobs. One can only speculate what the two-sided genius potential of a baby Steve Jobs, dropped by a stork into Russia or China a hundred years ago, might have become. Deprived of a capitalistic playing field, where would his energies have gone? Toward the dark side is one guess.

Dropped by a stork into California in 1955, the boy Jobs grew up ...and found himself in Silicon Valley, the heart of entrepreneurialism in democratic America. What amazing providence for him and for us! That is the true genius of America: It takes would-be Lenins, redeems them in the crucible of capitalism, and turns out Steve Jobs.

First off, I want to congratulate Mr. Karlgaard on that extraordinary bit of analysis and insight. It’s an insight lost on socialists, leftists, Marxists, anti-globalists, and wannabe Communists. Capitalism takes human nature (lemons, often times) and makes lemonade. All those other ideologies try to squeeze human beings into pre-built utopic molds and in doing so they have to squeeze so hard that instead of lemon juice for lemonade they extract blood.

The next story that you need to write, Mr. Karlgaard, is the story about how the liberal press has coddled and protected from criticism people like Mr. Jobs for some of the very reasons and motivations that you were honest enough to enumerate (which basically equate to "the ends justify the means": I can easily forgive Mr. Jobs this because he changed my life for the better. The first Mac of 1984 was so easy to use, so cool; it got me, and millions, into computing....). And as you said yourself, "Dozens of journalists have stories like this." But then why don’t we hear them? Hmmm?

But as far as I’m concerned, Mr. Karlgaard has exonerated himself by giving a fair and balanced account of Mr. Jobs. He, like all of us, has his dark side. How we manage those dark sides to our betterment, rather than detriment, is the story of civilization.

Brother Markle, you made my day for pointing out that fine article. Thanks.

I also want people to think about why we still love him. Why we sit around hoping against hope that he can be redeemed. I think I have the answer: his products and ideas have exactly the nobility and honor that he apparently lacks personally.

That statement, brother thalo, is fridge-worthy. (No, not the douche-chill kind of fridge, the kind of fridge upon which we paste inspiring and wise thoughts.)

Corporate America, after all, is a friggin' RUTHLESS world. It ain't just dog-eat-dog, it's dog sniff and lick dog butt... dog fuck dog, then eat dog, then puke dog, and lap up the dog-puke... then crap dog, dog sniff dog crap, eat dog crap... puke, sniff---well, you get the idea.

My fridge is fast running out of room.

The reason the X-Man line of shit has such a desperate quality to it, is probably because Apple leaned on everyone higher up on the food chain. And what we have is trickle down terror.

Nicely, nicely said, BT. Especially that part about trickle-down terror. Go back and read that MFI article which is about nothing more than how to revert to an earlier system. They practically trip over themselves with their "don’t get me wrongs" and in trying to avoid any criticism of Apple. Apple, as any recovering addict or anyone familiar with codependency would recognize, is the elephant in the living room.

The only place you really get the truth, of course, is at thalo.net.

Well, I think we tend to wrap that truth in WAY too much cynicism and WAY too much mindless bashing, but indeed, you will find the truth spoken here like nowhere else…and you will find praise spoken here as well (but certainly not as often as the criticism, and not as often as it could be).

But I'm tempted to give it a go. Start an online Mac Magazine with reviews and analysis that isn't going to instantly give five mice to crap because they're afraid of rich people. But one that really tests and assesses Mac products based on what they do, not how good Apple is at playing Scientologist shock troop.

Actually, assuming Apple survives as a maker of operating systems, I think the market is ripe for that. The relative silence at thalo.net is not necessarily indicative of the reverse. The reason we have but a scant 85 members and other Mac sites have hundreds or thousands is because we can be quite an intimidating bunch. Part of that is due to the sheer level of discourse. Part of that is due to the fact that most people like more of a safety net away from rough language and rude treatment then they will find here. And, of course, there’s the major factor that Mac users in particular want and need to be coddled. They need to be told that everything will be okay. It’s what’s left after years of abusive Apple behavior and niche market problems. Those of us who are left are a bit odd, twisted and malfunctioning. Here at thalo.net we’re simply honest enough to admit it. And, as I see from the fine and heartfelt statements of brother thalo, we are probably the only ones who can truly love and/or appreciate Steve jobs. Licking someone’s boots or kissing their ass is not love or appreciation. It’s fear.

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The next story that you need to write, Mr. Karlgaard, is the story about how the liberal press has coddled and protected from criticism people like Mr. Jobs for some of the very reasons and motivations that you were honest enough to enumerate

The "liberal" press protects capitalists??

If the press was more conservative Jobs would have been exposed?

Methinks this "liberal press" stuff has become too much a reflex thing with some people. Just substitute the word "liberal" for every other bad word you can think of. "Liberal Hurricane Henry destroyed part of Florida today...."

Even the evil genius himself, Karl Rove, has now said he doesn't think the media is generally liberal, they just see themselves as oppositional gadflies against whoever is in power.

In case you haven't noticed, liberals are running around aimlessly like chickens with their heads cut off while the right runs things. Amusing as it is to watch, it sure doesn't leave liberals as much a threat to anyone. So they're not the all-purpose answer to everything that goes wrong.

Markle

The "liberal" press protects capitalists??

No. The liberal press tends to soft-peddle or turn a blind eye to other liberals, be they capitalist, Marxist or none of the above.

Methinks this "liberal press" stuff has become too much a reflex thing with some people.

Perhaps so, but the press is by and large liberal and this bias shows. There is no need to invent it or make it up.

In case you haven't noticed, liberals are running around aimlessly like chickens with their heads cut off while the right runs things.

Gee, I hadn’t noticed.