Disclaimer: Spoilers Ahead.

To date, I am a proud owner of just two Apple products: iPhone 3GS and iPhone 5. When told, most tech guru dismissed me as just another "dumbass Applefag". "What's so proud about having an iPhone?" They would start. "You can't even get root access by default!"

I'll shrug and smile, telling them "the phones just work". I am not a programmer, and I do not have tinkering fetishes. I don't need to have the option of hacking my phone. Like my shoes, I just need them to function as a shoe. I don't want to hack them, to add wheels or lights. I don't have time for such hacking. If I want shoes with wheels, I'll buy shoes with wheels from company that do them really well.

Little did I know, that was the gist of what Steve Jobs said about the closed nature of Apple products. He used shirts in his metaphor.

Reading about that analogy in Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs, I believed that was also why Steve Jobs hired Walter Isaacson to write his memoir. Steve was busy with his Apple products and cancer, and Walter is better at chronicling. And Steve likes Walter's works. It was a rare display of surrendering, to have something he cares about produced without his absolute control.

The result did not disappoint. Walter Isaacson is not some Steve-Jobs-sidekick working to please him or fan the fire of "Apple Cult". He wrote about Einstein and Benjamin Franklin. Like Steve Jobs the memoir, they were well researched and storied. Including multiple points of view on topics, the books provided balanced perspective of events we thought we knew very well.

There is one fact that pushes this book to the forefront of Apple-and-tech-world-history: this is a story of Steve Jobs. There were many books and movies about him, but not of him.



Why would anyone want to read about him? Simple: like Hitler, he is an important person in world history.

Again, most tech guru would say Steve Jobs never invented anything. While it is true that Steve Wozniak created Apple 1 and 2, Steve Jobs was the one setting everything in motion. He was the facilitator.

Like Sir Alex Ferguson of Manchester United, or Greg Popovich of San Antonio Spurs. Would it be fair to say they don't matter as much because their players play on field and they're just watching on sidelines?

Except, Steve Jobs didn't just watch from sideline, barking orders and driving players mad. He created new methods and visions. He changed the way we think about computers, and how we use computers.

Steve Jobs was a jerk who lived a contradicting life. He once said "good artists copy, great artists steal", then started a legal and cheap ways to purchase music "because stealing is bad karma". Still, his eccentricity worked.

There really isn't much I can add to why you should read the book. I encourage haters to give it a try, though chances are slim that they would. If you are interested in computers, and is curious about why despite having such small market, Apple managed to become most valuable tech company in history, you should read this book.

This post has been edited by NXJ: Dec 15 2013, 10:08 AM

Indeed. It's a shame he died at a relatively young age.