Steve Jobs

Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs: a Biography. Simon & Schuster, 2011. Print. (598)

Reading the biography of Steve Jobs has totally changed my perspective on him. Before reading this book, all I knew was (as it is referred to in the book) Act 3, when Jobs returns to Apple. I have only been alive for this time period, so it was all I knew. How was I supposed to know the whirlwind life he went through?

I decided to read this book for two reasons, one because I was growing fond of Apple products, and two because of Job’s recent death. It was definitely not one of those books that you can’t put down. It does not keep the reader eager for more, but this is partially expected of biographies. It took a lot of will power to finally just sit down and read it. Being a hefty book, the longest I have ever read, I found it tiring to hold the book up over long periods of time.

As far as the actually content, I enjoyed the later part of the book because it was the part that I was alive for. I could remember back to when a certain events occurred, something I couldn’t do with the beginning parts of the book. For some of the earlier parts, there were YouTube videos of some of the events described. I used YouTube to watch the 1984 (success), and 1985 (flop), Apple Super Bowl commercials. The book also described the Job’s unveiling of the Macintosh in great detail, so I decided to just go watch the actual video of it instead.

Obviously the book taught me a lot about Jobs that I had never known before. I had grown up during the time of his life where he was much more mature, and had a much more controlled personality. I could hardly believe that the same person that had created Apple and seems so nice now, was also the cold and rude person that co-founded Apple. The book followed a rough chronological format, occasionally jumping around a bit, but was still easy to follow. Some things also were repeated, something that would probably have been fixed had Walter Isaccson not pushed the release date. I have also heard that Isaccson is considering an add-on or some other additional book to supplement this book because he did not get all the details he wanted into this one.

Despite this I am very pleased with my selection to read this book. It has offered me much insight to how technology has come to where it is today. It has told me the great journey of the world’s most incredible visionary of our time.

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