Thread: Apple: Steve Jobs has died.

Well it sounds like he spectacularly failed to achieve his wishes....

Steve Jobs criticizes Obama, Bill Gates, and loathes Android in newly released excerpts from upcoming biography

Steve Jobs doesn't pull punches as evidenced by new excerpts from his forthcoming biography.

By Yoni Heisler on Fri, 10/21/11 - 2:22am.



Steve Jobs first authorized biography, written by acclaimed biographer Walter Isaacson, is scheduled to hit stores this Monday. Checking in at over 600 pages, the biography is the first-ever book about Jobs' life written with the Apple co-founders consent and heavy involvement. Indeed, in writing the book, Isaacsonconducted over 40 extensive one-on-one interviews with Jobs on topics spanning his childhood in Palo Alto all the way up to his recent resignation as Apple CEO.
With the book launch just days away, certain media outlets have received advance copies of the book and have published a number of tantalizing excerpts.
To wit, the Huffington Post recaps a story about Jobs meeting Obama and matter of factly telling him that he was on a path towards becoming a one term President.

Jobs, who was known for his prickly, stubborn personality, almost missed meeting President Obama in the fall of 2010 because he insisted that the president personally ask him for a meeting. Though his wife told him that Obama "was really psyched to meet with you," Jobs insisted on the personal invitation, and the standoff lasted for five days. When he finally relented and they met at the Westin San Francisco Airport, Jobs was characteristically blunt. He seemed to have transformed from a liberal into a conservative.
"You're headed for a one-term presidency," he told Obama at the start of their meeting, insisting that the administration needed to be more business-friendly. As an example, Jobs described the ease with which companies can build factories in China compared to the United States, where "regulations and unnecessary costs" make it difficult for them.

What's more, Jobs reportedly complained about both the guest list and the menu at the now famous tech dinner he had with Obama and a number of other tech executives.
Another tidbit we have regards Jobs' opinion on former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. Per usual, Jobs doesn't mince words and it seems that his opinion of Microsoft and their "lack of taste" hadn't waned at all.
"Bill is basically unimaginative and has never invented anything," said Jobs, "which is why I think he's more comfortable now in philanthropy than technology. He just shamelessly ripped off other people's ideas."
Ouch.
Biting words, but to be honest, this is hardly the first time we've heard Jobs say something to this effect. Clearly, Jobs didn't tone things down and play nice during the course of helping Isaacson write the book.
Also fascinating is Jobs take on Eric Schmidt and Android. And if you thought Jobs' stance with Obama and on Gates was tough, you ain't seen nothing yet.
In particular, they share Steve Jobs' reaction to HTC's 2010 introduction of an Android phone that shared many features of the iPhone. Jobs told Isaacson that Google's actions amounted to "grand theft."

"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs said. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."

Isaacson also notes that Jobs and Schmidt met for coffee in 2009 to try and work things out. The only problem was that Google wanted to smooth things over with money and Steve Jobs wasn't having any of it.
"I don't want your money," Jobs told Schmidt, "if you offer me $5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want."

How ironic, now that iOS has nicked so many ideas from Android just to keep up.

A new biography portrays Steve Jobs as a sceptic all his life - giving up religion because he was troubled by starving children, calling executives who took over Apple "corrupt" and delaying cancer surgery in favour of cleansings and herbal medicine.
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson, to be published Monday in the US, also says Jobs came up with the company's name while he was on a diet of fruits and vegetables, and as a teenager perfected staring at people without blinking.
The Associated Press purchased a copy of the book on Thursday in the US.
The book delves into Jobs's decision to delay surgery for nine months after learning in October 2003 that he had a neuroendocrine tumour - a relatively rare type of pancreatic cancer that normally grows more slowly and is therefore more treatable.
Instead, he tried a vegan diet, acupuncture, herbal remedies and other treatments he found online, and even consulted a psychic. He went to a clinic that advised juice fasts, bowel cleansings and other unproved approaches before having surgery in 2004.
Isaacson, quoting Jobs, writes in the book: "'I really didn't want them to open up my body, so I tried to see if a few other things would work,' he told me years later with a hint of regret."
Jobs died October 5, at age 56, after a battle with cancer.
The book also provides insight into the unraveling of Jobs's relationship with Eric Schmidt, the former CEO of Google and an Apple board member from 2006 to 2009. Schmidt had quit Apple's board as Google and Apple went head-to-head in smartphones, Apple with its iPhone and Google with its Android software.
Isaacson wrote that Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the touch and other popular features of the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson in an expletive-laced rant that Google's actions amounted to "grand theft".
"I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple's $US40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong," Jobs said. "I'm going to destroy Android, because it's a stolen product. I'm willing to go thermonuclear war on this."
Jobs used an expletive to describe Android and Google Docs, Google's internet-based word processing program. In a subsequent meeting with Schmidt at a Palo Alto, California, cafe, Jobs told Schmidt that he wasn't interested in settling the lawsuit, the book says.
"I don't want your money. If you offer me $US5 billion, I won't want it. I've got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that's all I want." The meeting, Isaacson wrote, resolved nothing.
The book is clearly designed to evoke the Apple style. Its cover features the title and author's name starkly printed in black and gray type against a white background, along with a black-and-white photo of Jobs, thumb and forefinger to his chin.
The biography, for which Jobs granted more than three dozen interviews, is also a look into the thoughts of a man who was famously secret, guarding details of his life as he did Apple's products, and generating plenty of psychoanalysis from a distance.
Jobs resigned as Apple's CEO on August 24, six weeks before he died.
Doctors said on Thursday that it was not clear whether the delayed treatment made a difference in Jobs' chances for survival.
"People live with these cancers for far longer than nine months before they're even diagnosed," so it's not known how quickly one can prove fatal, said Dr. Len Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society.
Dr Michael Pishvaian, a pancreatic cancer expert at Georgetown University's Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre, said people often are in denial after a cancer diagnosis, and some take a long time to accept recommended treatments.
"We've had many patients who have had bad outcomes when they have delayed treatment. Nine months is certainly a significant period of time to delay," he said.
Fortune magazine reported in 2008 that Jobs tried alternative treatments because he was suspicious of mainstream medicine.
The book says Jobs gave up Christianity at age 13 when he saw starving children on the cover of Life magazine. He asked whether his Sunday school pastor knew what would happen to them.
Jobs never went back to church, though he did study Zen Buddhism later.
Jobs calls the crop of executives brought in to run Apple after his ouster in 1985 "corrupt people" with "corrupt values" who cared only about making money. Jobs himself is described as caring far more about product than profit.
He told Issacson they cared only about making money "for themselves mainly, and also for Apple - rather than making great products".
Jobs returned to the company in 1997. After that, he introduced the candy-coloured iMac computer, the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad, and turned Apple into the most valuable company in America by market value for a time.
The book says that, while some Apple board members were happy that Hewlett-Packard gave up trying to compete with Apple's iPad, Jobs did not think it was cause for celebration.
"Hewlett and Packard built a great company, and they thought they had left it in good hands," Jobs told Isaacson. "But now it's being dismembered and destroyed."
"I hope I've left a stronger legacy so that will never happen at Apple," he added.
Advance sales of the book have topped best-seller lists. Much of the biography adds to what was already known, or speculated, about Jobs. While Isaacson is not the first to tell Jobs's story, he had unprecedented access. Their last interview was weeks before Jobs died.
Jobs reveals in the book that he didn't want to go to college, and the only school he applied to was Reed, a costly private college in Portland, Oregon. Once accepted, his parents tried to talk him out of attending Reed, but he told them he wouldn't go to college if they didn't let him go there. Jobs wound up attending but dropped out after less than a year and never went back.
Jobs told Isaacson that he tried various diets, including one of fruits and vegetables. On the naming of Apple, he said he was "on one of my fruitarian diets". He said he had just come back from an apple farm, and thought the name sounded "fun, spirited and not intimidating".
Jobs's eye for simple, clean design was evident early. The case of the Apple II computer had originally included a Plexiglas cover, metal straps and a roll-top door. Jobs, though, wanted something elegant that would make Apple stand out.
He told Isaacson he was struck by Cuisinart food processors while browsing at a department store and decided he wanted a case made of molded plastic.
He called Jonathan Ive, Apple's design chief, his "spiritual partner" at Apple. He told Isaacson that Ive had "more operation power" at Apple than anyone besides Jobs himself - that there's no one at the company who can tell Ive what to do. That, says Jobs, is "the way I set it up".
Jobs was never a typical CEO. Apple's first president, Mike Scott, was hired mainly to manage Jobs, then 22. One of his first projects, according to the book, was getting Jobs to bathe more often. It didn't work.
Jobs's dabbling in LSD and other aspects of 1960s counterculture has been well documented. In the book, Jobs says LSD "reinforced my sense of what was important - creating great things instead of making money, putting things back into the stream of history and of human consciousness as much as I could".
He also revealed that the Beatles were one of his favourite bands, and one of his wishes was to get the band on iTunes, Apple's revolutionary online music store, before he died. The Beatles' music went on sale on iTunes in late 2010.
The book was originally called iSteve and scheduled to come out in March. The release date was moved up to November, then, after Jobs's death, to Monday. It is published by Simon & Schuster and will sell for $US35.
Isaacson will appear Sunday on 60 Minutes in the US. CBS News, which airs the program, released excerpts of the book on Thursday.

RIGHT TO THE END: Steve Jobs Biography Reveals He Told Obama, ‘You’re Headed For A One-Term Presidency’.

Jobs, who was known for his prickly, stubborn personality, almost missed meeting President Obama in the fall of 2010 because he insisted that the president personally ask him for a meeting. Though his wife told him that Obama “was really psyched to meet with you,” Jobs insisted on the personal invitation, and the standoff lasted for five days. When he finally relented and they met at the Westin San Francisco Airport, Jobs was characteristically blunt. He seemed to have transformed from a liberal into a conservative.
“You’re headed for a one-term presidency,” he told Obama at the start of their meeting, insisting that the administration needed to be more business-friendly. As an example, Jobs described the ease with which companies can build factories in China compared to the United States, where “regulations and unnecessary costs” make it difficult for them.
Jobs also criticized America’s education system, saying it was “crippled by union work rules,” noted Isaacson. “Until the teachers’ unions were broken, there was almost no hope for education reform.” Jobs proposed allowing principals to hire and fire teachers based on merit, that schools stay open until 6 p.m. and that they be open 11 months a year.

Unsurprisingly, things didn’t go especially well thereafter.