

ISteve: The Steve Jobs authorized biography - dr_
http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=13343409

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ceejayoz
Given his earlier (active) disinterest in biographies, I'd guess this'll
prompt all sorts of talk about his health.

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fullmoon
Perhaps, but maybe his brush with death as he was diagnosed with pancreatic
cancer in (2005 i think) was the trigger.

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6ren
Jobs wouldn't even endorse "iWoz" (probably because of the story of him
conning Woz out of a fair share, long ago).

"iCon" is the most perfect title I've ever seen - obviously the lowercase 'i'
and Jobs' reality distortion field; but also the desktop metaphor featuring
icons; and that Jobs is definitely an icon himself.

Note we already have a brief Jobs autobiography, in his Stanford commencement
address: text <http://news.stanford.edu/news/2005/june15/jobs-061505.html>;
video <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hd_ptbiPoXM>

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sayemm
This is great news, I'm really looking forward to it. I loved "Inside Steve's
Brain", by Leander Kahney, though it's the only biography I've read on him so
far. It's got a lot of great observations and quotes, like this one on page
34:

"In the 1998 interview with Fortune, Jobs said that he looked to his hero Bob
Dylan for inspiration. One of the things that Jobs admired about Dylan was his
refusal to stand still. Many successful artists at some point in their careers
atrophy: they keep doing what made them successful in the first place, but
they don't evolve. "If they keep on risking failure, they're still artists,"
Jobs said. "Dylan and Picasso were always risking failure.""

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tonystubblebine
The book has the most non-Apple title I could imagine: "iSteve: The Book of
Jobs"

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nickpinkston
Wow - I didn't know Apple banned Wiley for publishing the iCon unauthorized
autobiography - with so many stories like this from Apple (remember the one on
the one tiny music label getting singled out?) - I'm amazed their image is
still as cool it is.

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MikeCapone
I quite enjoyed Isaacson's biography of Franklin. Will definitely read this
one.

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BigCanOfTuna
Working my way thru it now. His Einstein biography was fantastic.

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noahlt
A bit friendlier than the title of an unauthorized biography which my friend
owns: "iCon".

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allwein
They really screwed up the naming of that book. It's not meant to be
unfriendly. It's just meant to say that Steve Jobs is an Icon, and also ties
into icons used in graphical computing. But since iMacs and iPods were all the
rage, they did that with the title as well, without realizing that people
would read it as "I con" and think it was about Steve being a conniving bad
guy.

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TomOfTTB
I guess I'm in the minority but I don't see this as being very interesting. To
me a biography serves two purposes: To accurately tell the story of someone's
life and to give you insight into their thought process

On the first point let me say Steve Jobs is a great man in many respects. But
tolerating dissent is not one of them. He's actively worked to destroy not
only authors but publishing companies that have dared say anything even
slightly negative about him (iCon was 90% positive). So an authorized
biography of Steve Jobs is next to useless as an accurate account of his life.

On the second point he isn't writing this or helping in the writing of it.
He's simply giving his permission and sitting down for an interview. Having
read several thousand pages of Jobs interviews over the years I don't see how
this one will be special.

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bdean
I imagine the author had to pull a lot strings to get the blessings from Jobs
to write this book. One of those strings might include the title "ISteve".
Although not the best name, most likely willing sacrifice it to be able to
write a book about skinning man himself.

With this being said, I wonder how much actual writing he's done (article
stayed release for early '12, I don't know the turn around time for authors
and publishers), and how much has been 'approved' by Steve. We might see
things many things change before its published.

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daimyoyo
iSteve is a horribly unimaginative title for Steve Jobs' biography. Frankly I
thing the second half if the title is better. "The book of Jobs: The
authorized biography of an American original."

