So I’ve just finished reading this…

Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography eBook: Walter Isaacson: Amazon.co.uk: Kindle Store.

Before the Talk Show, Gruber and Benjamin pollute my memory, here are my thoughts…

• I always thought that he got a bad press. Boy was I wrong. He comes over as a bigger arsehole in the book. It’s not a surprise, I met him for 10 seconds when he was selling NeXT machines in Earls Court in the early nineties. He was condescending and managed to kill my self-image in about 3 seconds. It’s nice to know that I wasn’t the only one.
• He was lucky in so many ways. When he was born, where he was raised and that he was able to create a company very young and therefore never really had to accept someone telling him what to do. Imagine if he’d been raised in the North East of the US, France or South Africa, with that personality he’d probably been the village bum. at least he’d have been considered as mentally ill.
• Don’t play with your diet. I’ve often wanted to move to high fruit and veg diet but never done it. This book is a thousand reasons not to. I once worked with a guy who when on a diet was impossible to work with because of the anger. Jobs often comes over as a guy in need of a good meal.
• Everyone seems to think that the iPhone presentation was his best. My vote is the the G5 launch. Watch as he plays the PC spec game, the demos etc. but most of all watch him show the internals of the air flow in the box. Part 2 is the best bit…
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve3O6VtBmdc&feature=related
• In all of this, as a father of two girls, I felt sorry for his two daughters. I hope that they carry less demons than their father but I’d be surprised.
• Overall the book is slightly disappointing. It falls into the trap that the man is the company and vice versa. His political views arrive as a surprise at the end and we know what he liked in music and products but little else. He spent a year designing a jet but we don’t get a picture, and the last two years of his life on a yacht that is described in two lines.

“But with Jobs gone and Cook now in charge, industry watchers have questioned whether Apple should expand its board and change its approach.”

AppleInsider | Apple Board of Directors at ‘crossroads’ after death of Steve Jobs.

So let’s get this right. Days after the change of leadership it’s time to change the way that the company is run.

Here’s my view of this.

Apple has close on $100 bln in cash. The banks want that money; and they’ve already started trying to get it. So wait for loads of articles about how Apple needs to change and look like other companies. The very same companies that have failed to match Apple for the last decade.

What will they do to get it? They’d kill the goose that laid the golden egg!

I’m repeatedly told that Apple only sells so well because of their marketing. Their success is all because of the ads.

I still disagree, I believe it’s because of the way the product feels…

“It didn’t take me long to realize that after using the smooth, polished iPhone 4S that Android just feels wrong.”

After the iPhone 4S, Android just feels wrong | ZDNet.

“It’s hard to remember the pre-iPod Apple.”

Daring Fireball Linked List: Ten Years Ago Today: iPod

Actually, I find it difficult to remember a pre-iPod world. Did we really walk around with tapes in boxes?

“he was able to sit down, think clearly, and execute his ideas—attributes he shared with no other U.S. citizen”

Last American Who Knew What The Fuck He Was Doing Dies | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source.

Steve Jobs narrates The Crazy Ones.

Yep, that’s Job’s voice.