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Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colorful Company [ILLUSTRATED] (平装)
by Owen W. Linzmayer
| Category:
Corporate history, IT, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Business |
| Market price: ¥ 228.00
MSL price:
¥ 208.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Definitive text about the history of Apple Computer as well as the fall and rise of Steve Jobs. |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 16 items |
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The New York Times Book Review (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
The Apple story… in all its drama. |
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Bityard (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
Apple Confidential 2.0 is by far one of the best books I have read on the subject. |
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macteens.com (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
Linzmayer's entertaining and irreverent sense of humor makes it a real treat for anybody even remotely interested in the Mac. |
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Technology & Society (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
A frank and honest portrayal of the company and its cast of characters over the past 3 decades. |
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
Apple Computer has always been a fascination for me. Ever since I heard of them, I thought they were a top-notch company, providing quality computers for the consumer with a lot of disposable cash. Computers in general were much more expensive when they first hit the market and Apple offered the first home machines. I've never owned a home computer until 2000. I remember doing so much research. As my wife is a photographer, Apple came to the front, with their reputation for excellent image handling. We decided to purchase an iMac. This purchase was followed with buying an iBook in 2001 for my wife.
To this day, I continue to be amazed by our Macs and what we've been able to do and learn since we got them. Now, if only the budget had room for a loaded G5, I know where we would be headed.
Shortly after our Mac came home, we found The NorthWest of Us, a Chicago area Macintosh User Group and joined up. There has been no better source of support for whatever troubles needed troubleshooting. Beside the support, I was struck with the passion of these people who used Mac computers and could not really understand the profound enthusiasm they had for their platform of choice. Simply, I felt that Macs were very efficient and quite easy to use and that's what we hoped for when we purchased ours. I was looking for something that would help me to understand a bit more about the mystique surrounding Apple Computer and it's products. I found Apple Confidential 2.0.
This book covers the how's and why's of Apple's start up and the passion of the founders, especially Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs. You can see the genius of them as they put everything they owned on the line to create the first personal computers-Woz for his passion to create and design, Steve for his desire for perfection and success. You can easily understand how their personalities first nurtured each other and how they would come to necessarily separate themselves from each other.
Apple Confidential 2.0 gives you insight to many corporate business decisions, both amazing and really stupid. As I read, I found myself wondering how this company managed to survive at all. The book contains many time lines following the life cycles of the Apple I and II, the ill-fated Apple III and Lisa, the multitudinous computer variations offered for sale (my gosh, how confusing!) and the Mac OS. Yes, there's more, but these were the most interesting for me. I found the fumbling that went on within the company to be nothing if not infuriating, the misdirection, the false starts and, most of all, the loss of product quality and innovation. Lately, I often wondered why one of my coworkers hated Macs. After reading about the thousands of defective Macs put on the market instead of in the garbage heap, sure enough, it was one of those that she had to put up with and could not wait to dump! If I had been a Mac user then, I'm sure I'd be in her camp too.
The business decisions made over the years at Apple can make your head spin. The issue of licensing the Mac OS is a fascinating read; back and forth, over and over again. If Apple had licensed their OS early on, I'm sure we would be in a 'Windows-free' world. After all, that's what Bill Gates would have preferred anyway. (Of course, you have to wonder just how virus-free the Mac OS would be if it were on 95+% of the computers out there too.)
Then, there's Bill Gates and his ties to Apple-something I thought could never have occurred, but I didn't realize that he was NOT the competition in the first place. Rather, it appears that he was one of the foremost proponents of the Apple computer. Again, I'm relatively new to owning a home computer, but I knew all along that Mac people could not stand Microsoft. I was really surprised to learn that Word and Excel were originally Macintosh programs. I never knew that, but it makes sense when you consider the vastness of the installed base of those Office products-and just how much $$$ Bill gets from Office for Mac users.
Apple Confidential 2.0 is a very good read. You don't have to read it cover-to-cover, although once I picked it up, there was no way I was going to skip around. My wife, who's more disconnected from OS platforms that I am, picked it up and I had to insist she give it back so I could finish it. Owen's writing style is excellent, giving just enough humor to keep you interested. Although you could consider it a course study book, this book is for anyone who is a Mac enthusiast or someone interested in touching on business history. It has many pictures and great sidebar information and quotes, many of those really surprising and funny.
As with any history book, Owen has placed in it what he saw as the most salient issues surrounding Apple and not everything, by his admission, is included. One issue I think should have been touched on was drugs. I remember a made-for-TV movie that was broadcast several years ago. It may have been called 'Pirates of Silicon Valley', but I'm not sure. The movie was spun toward Bill Gates and what he did with regard to Apple. In it, several major players were depicted to have been pretty deep into LSD and other drugs. True? Or not? I'm leaning toward true. If you read this book, I think it's the only thing that would make sense of the really strange turns the company took.
Everything considered, I highly recommend Apple Confidential 2.0 both for it's "definitive history of the world's most colorful company" and for it's easy, fun readability.
Thank You, Owen!
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An Indian reader (MSL quote), India
<2006-12-26 00:00>
For a long time I wanted to know what was recalling happening at this 'most watched' Silicon Valley startup. Due to the proximity problems and a lot of 'hear-say', I had coined my own story of the inside story of Apple. The first of my eye-opener was the movie called the 'Pirates of Silicon Valley'. This time, after reading almost 70% of the book by Owen W. Linzmayer, I am truly excited, enthralled and shocked. As one of the insiders of the Apple (Mr. Jeff Ruskin himself) notes that this is very close to the reality, I feel the book is worth a lot more than the money I paid for.
I am sure this book serves as a lesson for all those who are interested in setting-up and running start-ups in the Silicon Valley. This book also serves as a lesson to those geeks who should be aware of how the business tycoons in the company could rule over the best-of-the-technology as a piece-of-crap.
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An Indian reader (MSL quote), India
<2006-12-26 00:00>
For a long time I wanted to know what was recalling happening at this 'most watched' Silicon Valley startup. Due to the proximity problems and a lot of 'hear-say', I had coined my own story of the inside story of Apple. The first of my eye-opener was the movie called the 'Pirates of Silicon Valley'. This time, after reading almost 70% of the book by Owen W. Linzmayer, I am truly excited, enthralled and shocked. As one of the insiders of the Apple (Mr. Jeff Ruskin himself) notes that this is very close to the reality, I feel the book is worth a lot more than the money I paid for.
I am sure this book serves as a lesson for all those who are interested in setting-up and running start-ups in the Silicon Valley. This book also serves as a lesson to those geeks who should be aware of how the business tycoons in the company could rule over the best-of-the-technology as a piece-of-crap.
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Charles Ashbacher (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
While I have rarely used Apple products, I know people who are evangelical about them. To such people, Gates and his group are evil incarnate and Jobs and his group is pure and untainted. However, like so many people who have achieved everlasting fame, a lot of what Jobs has achieved was taken from others. In this recapitulation of the history of Apple from the beginnings to Jobs' triumphal return, you learn a lot about Jobs that is not pretty. He is self-serving, mean, mercurial, deceitful and often wrong.
However, Steve Wozniak comes across as a great person. It was Woz who made sure that the little people at Apple received some form of compensation, even when it came from his own pockets. Success never overcame him, he has always remained humble and respectful of others. Even when he learned that Steve Jobs had cheated him, he did not seek revenge or even publicize the incident.
The history of Apple is another example of an incredible "what might have been" in the history of computing. Apple was technically years ahead of all others, including Microsoft, so had they been willing to license their GUI technology, it is possible that Microsoft Windows would never have existed. It is one more historical example that the Microsoft operating system near monopoly is due as much to luck as it is to skill.
Through all of the ups and downs, Apple has managed to survive, although at times it was very close. This history of the repeated cycle of rising and falling of a major technology player is one of the most interesting stories of the last century. It is nothing like the tales portrayed by people who consider all of Apple's problems to have been due to evil forces outside the company. Major mistakes were made by the Apple executives, including Jobs, and from this book you will learn that most of the damage was self-inflicted. |
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Frank Gruendel (MSL quote), Germany
<2006-12-26 00:00>
Be warned! After reading the last page, you will immediately try to find out about other books that might have been penned by this author. And you will find that there are quite some more (all of which, unfortunately, are out of print, but often still available here).
Not many books make it on the list of books I would like to have on me after stranding on a remote island, but this one definitely did. Within the (unfortunately limited) confines of a single book Owen Linzmayer has managed to deliver pretty much everything about the amazing Apple company that was ever intended to become known to the public, plus about every juicy little tidbit that wasn't. Through 322 pages you'll follow Apple from starting (financially backed by the sales of Steve Jobs' old Volkswagen bus and Steve Wozniak's beloved HP calculator) in the garage of Steve Jobs' parents to becoming a leader of the industry with a net sales of more than 11 billions of dollars. A leader who, faltering under increasing competition and a series of disastrous management decisions, almost went bankrupt before rebounding to profitability through innovation, breathtaking design and a flair for the right product at the right time.
Although you're likely to do it anyway because you'll have a hard time putting this book down, there is no need to read it in its entirety from front to back. This is because, quite unlike most company history books, this one does not follow a strict chronological format. Instead, the main products, executives, triumphs and crises are examined in their own freestanding chapters. Timelines provide overviews over key people and products at a glance. For example, the timeline dedicated to John Sculley (Apple CEO between 1983 and 1993) spans four pages and covers all major (and quite some minor) decisions, events and products that influenced Apple's rise and fall during the decade he was in charge.
The book is laid out in a rather unusual way. Pages are divided into two columns. The inner column, occupying about two thirds of the available page width, is where the main narrative is located. The outer margin contains myriads of pictures, cartoons, quotes and in-a-nutshell text blocks that are mostly, but not always, related to the information conveyed in the main narrative next to them. In the chapter on the Apple III fiasco, for example, such a text block will teach you that although 14.000 of the approximately 120.000 Apple III computers sold had to be replaced, Apple received thank you letters from customers, telling them that General Motors would never have done the same.
I found the above-mentioned book layout mildly confusing at first, but it soon turned out that it can increase one's reading pleasure significantly. Eventually, I found myself wondering which interesting little tidbits would await me on the next page way before turning the current page over, eagerly devouring all of them before drawing my attention back to the main narrative as soon as a page was actually turned.
There is but one chapter in this book that, with all due respect, I think deserves some critical comment. Titled "The fallen Apple", the chapter on the Apple Newton explains through 23 pages why this amazing machine was a failure. From the standpoint of Apple's finances, the Newton might indeed be considered such. But from the standpoint of its continued and even eight years after its demise still increasing viability among users, the Newton is clearly a success. I am writing this very review on a Newton 2100 built in 1997. A computer that recognizes my handwriting flawlessly and way better than I have ever been able to myself. A PDA whose backlight is so excellent that I once managed to keep my fingers clean while changing my offspring's diapers during a power cut. A hand-held device capable of emitting sounds loud enough to have woken even sleepy Frank this morning when the hotel's wake-up call did not come in time. I need to charge the batteries but twice a month although I use my Newton daily. About 5 minutes from now, using a PCMCIA WLAN card that wasn't even developed at the time the "failure" left Apple's assembly line, my trusty companion will e-mail this review wirelessly from my hotel room.
All in all, I see only one reason not to buy this book: If you have already done so. |
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Tony Bradley (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
This is an excellent book. It is exceptionally well researched, well written and easy to read. While the concept of detailing the history of a corporation may seem mundane or boring, Linzmayer and Apple both make this a different story.
Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs helped to spark the home computer revolution when they invented the Apple I computer in a garage in Los Altos, California. Their computers have created a fanatic, cult-like following and some appear more like contemporary art or sculptures than actual computers.
Linzmayer provides detailed timelines illustrating the evolution of Apple and thorough inside information about the inner-workings of Apple, the comings and goings of its executive leadership, the evolution and creation of Apple's innovative product lines and more.
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