Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography

Probably not...first of ALL I went so impressed by the cover of the book...it deals with Apple look.Classy,Smart,fresh.As A lauded writer, Walter earned a great reputation already.

Points:
1. Smart,brief writing.

2. The pattern

3. Isaacson's own unique style

4. No extra things to expand this book unnecessarily.

5. The whole book maintained Steve's own style

Stay Hungry,Stay Foolish

He was not perfect. He was not philanthropic. He was erratic in his demeanor. He was pricky. He was many a times rude in his opinion. He was bipolar in his judgements. You were either a genius or a bozo.

He was all that you would NOT want to be and all that you would really want to be.

A book that does not pass a judgement. A book that does not eulogize him. A perfect "One more thing..." by the best CEO the world has seen in the recent times.

A must read !! You got to know why & how the old adage "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." still stands the test of time and makes one rich too !

What makes Steve Jobs so good? That's one Big reason why I wanted this Book! (Long before Mr. Job's death). You see I have this small magical thing called "iPod" which makes me go bonkers over and over again.... The sexy Android in bag wouldn't have been a reality without iPhone (I don't think Mobile Giants would have even dared to go this BIG with Touch without Apple's giant leap!) and don't even get me started over "Mac n iPad". One common factor in all these is the perfection he never compromised... and as I start "Steve Jobs" the author syncs with my curiosity (I don't want the author to justify Steve being a great soul, just need to peek in to Job's mind!). The book needs to be read slowly so that you can understand the various reflection of this Genius. A Genius is a Genius, good or bad left aside!
Flipkart: Like Steve Jobs you work for Perfection and as long as you hold on to that I'm going to knock your door again and again!

I was looking forward to this book with Harry potter-esque excitement, before I begin this review I think I should mention that I am the kind of person who watches Steve Jobs' keynote addresses repeatedly for FUN! Me and my brother r the kind of people who find his product launches more fun than watching iron man, so I am definitely not as objective as a reviewer should be but still I will do my best.

The book has three acts, Act one when he started apple in a garage, Act 2 when he was ousted and formed Pixar and act three when he created the post pc products. All of that I already knew, what I was interested in was his personal life, how he dealt with his family? What was it like to be Steve's best friend? To be his wife? To be his son or daughter? And the book did not disappoint. We get an amazing ride of interviews with people that were closest to him and we get an honest potryal of a man who wasn't perfect in every department, a man who struggled to accept that he was abandoned by his biological parents and a man who hated mediocrity above everything else.

I think it was Johny I've who described Steve best, according to him Steve was so direct, abrasive and rude because he was the most sensitive. I know it's a paradox in itself but during the course of the book u realize how true it is. Steve breaks down and cries many times during his interviews with the author and everytime I used to get shocked because that's not what u expect from a man like Steve jobs who is famous for making other people cry.

It's things like these that made the book a success for me, this book is not all praise for the man who authorized this book. It's honest or as Steve would say it is pure.

The biography of a man who changed the way the world thought about computers, changed them from industrial devices to an indispensable part of our lives, Walter Isaacson's account of Jobs's life is hallucinatory in parts, and illuminating in others.

Having been a Steve Jobs fanboy (but not Apple's, since I'm Indian and cheap), large parts of the biography appear heard about to me. Isaacson draws upon large volumes of material from Jobs's legendary MacWorld presentations, and stories from inside Apple have been on the website folklore.org for years. A reading of the book actually turned into a multimedia experience for me, turning back to Youtube to watch videos of Jobs, saying this or that mentioned in the book.

There are two other parts of the books Isaacson succeeds in, and phenomenally. Jobs the family man, a person you end up hating for his abandoning and saturnine nature, and Jobs the maniac- who is easy to idolise and follow. In the beginning of the book, you're watching a movie in your mind in Eastman Color, as a young man comes of age in a time that saw creativity flower in the western world. By the middle, you are the fly on the wall, witnessing a personality coming together, even as it abandons the but-natural good habits one is 'supposed to have'. It leads to a shattering of your beliefs about Steve Jobs and his Shaman like abilities. You get to know the pains he must bear, the brilliance of people like Jony Ives and the team at Pixar. They become the real heroes, while Steve shepherds them along, making the right choices (in retrospect).

This is where the books blooms into a thousand rainbows. While reducing Steve to a human being, Isaacson, with his dispassionate reporting, introduces facets and nuances that get your goat. How does one co-relate a man with an eating disorder for life create not one but two unimaginably successful companies? Isaacson puts it in a spread for you.

Most reviews of the book talk about what Steve said about him or her, or this or that. What these reviews acutely miss is the layer by layer unraveling. This is where the beauty of the book is. And that is why you must read it. Not because its about Steve Jobs, and everything Apple has to be good. It is a phenomenal account of a Legend's life. That's why.

And one more thing. The book reveals Steve's history with his real sister, and his abandoned daughter. One of these has been novelised. But both must be immortalised on screen.