Year 3 - Day 43 - February 12

I read Steve Jobs' biography this weekend. I really, really enjoyed it. Granted, I'm a fan of Apple products, so that probably played into it. However, I don't think the biographer wrote a one sided "I love Steve!" book so maybe others would like it as well.

Some things I knew, (the stories of the iPod coming out of Steve & other employees love of music and dissatisfaction of how everything was working in the post Walkman post Discman clunky MP3 Napster era) some things I re-remembered, (The Newton PDA! The acronym PDA! The original Macintosh was totally different than the original Apple even though they came from the came company!), some things made me think about childhood (the blank screen with green text Apple II!) and some things I had never thought about before. (Steve wasn't with Apple for most of my schooling years - how much cooler would technology be if he hadn't been fired and gone to work on other stupid things?)

I'm not a inside-the-computer person or a coding or programming person, so I never have the need or desire to open up a machine. I like when things work intuitively and don't take an instruction manual. That's why I've always been ok with the post-1997 Mac/Apple world where I buy something (that comes in beautiful packaging - a whole chapter is devoted to that in the book) and it works. The batteries are charged before they're packed so you can use your iPad as soon as you open it! I always thought it was impressive that I could open a brand new piece of technology out of the box at 85% battery life. But there was a section in the book that talked about how they got their warehouses from weeks of backstock to a week and then down to just a couple days. (No wonder there's always a wait for a new product.) Since they were recently packed and shipped, the battery doesn't have time to die! I like that my MacBook, iPad, and iPod all work together and with iTunes and the App store and all of those things. I totally get why computer tinkerers would hate it, and I'm surrounded by lots of those people in my life, but I love the seamless don't-have-to-think-about-it experience.

There were things about his personal life and kids and all of that as well of course. He (self admittedly) didn't succeed in those areas all the time, but those parts of the book were good as well. I was just so fascinated by the invention thought processes that were always going on his brain. I'm sure that at some point in the not so distant future, Apple will just be a memory like so many other seemingly "there forever" tech companies, but the whole thing is interesting.