I agree with Gruber, but I'd like to add that these are not small errors on Walter Isaacson's part. They're huge errors. The biggest errors any biography author could make about Steve Jobs.
Why? Why are we even interested in reading a biography about Steve Jobs to begin with? Because he was a narcissistic asshole? Really? Because that's the part Isaacson nailed. There are plenty of assholes, and that characteristic alone does not make for a best-selling biography. No, the reason anyone is interested in reading Steve Jobs's biography is because of his work.
And yet, Steve's work is the part Isaacson doesn't get. Isaacson falls into the same traps that the media does with regularity; thinking Apple's design obsession is about veneer, thinking it's about marketing, about fooling people, about lying. It's not, that might sell a few products, but it does not sell record quantities of products and achieve top customer satisfaction.
You'd think a person with full access to Steve Jobs and people close to him would be able to at the very least ask a few questions about what he saw that others could not, that lead to the successes of eg. the iPhone. Recall other industry big wigs laughing it off, from RIM to Nokia to Microsoft. The iPhone was a joke to them. What did Steve see that they did not? What was his thought process? What made Steve Jobs so different for him to be able to upset industry after industry? These are things I'd have wanted to know and I can't help feel a bit sad that now we will never know. Because Isaacson squandered the only chance we got.
You shouldn't really get upset at CEOs trash-talking their competitors. It's their job. In fact, it's a compliment. Trash talking something means it's registered as a threat. How many of them trash-talked OpenMoko? (Conversely, what did Jobs trash-talk? Kindle and Android mainly)
Ironically enough Gruber is a big fan of taking offense at these entirely predictable comments from CEOs. He's basically trolling himself by taking obvious talking points seriously and trolling his massive readership by continually re-broadcasting these comments that are entirely without merit or interest.
>What computer would you rather use? A MacBook running Windows 7, or, say, a Lenovo ThinkPad running Mac OS X 10.7?
Being as how I run a Macbook Air with Windows 7, and don't even remember what OSX looks like, my answer is pretty obvious. I've never used a laptop that feels as good (the touchpad is the best).
I hate to go off-topic, but you don't have any contact info in your profile... what's your typical battery life like with that set-up? I was under the impression 5ish hours on the 13" but The Verge said 4 this week... made me re-think adopting the win7/MBA setup.
A nit: Hardware isn't just industrial design. Apple manages to squeeze a lot more performance out of the same components as others, because they do design in an integrated, interdependent way, rather than modular. This gives less flexibility to customize/mix-and-swap, but better performance (for whatever you want to optimize: speed, weight, size, power consumption etc). This was extremely important in the early days of the iPhone, but now that components have improved so dramatically, we are nearing the point where there's performance to spare, and it needn't be optimized.
The upshot is that "iOS on an Android" with the same specs
wouldn't have performed as well. It would have been less smooth, less responsive etc. So that, at least then, hardware was crucial for the experience.
The same was true for the iPod and especially Woz's Apple computer. It's still true for the iPad. I believe it will be true for Apple's next product category, because (hopefully) they'll continue to move to the edge of what is possible - where optimization is absolutely essential to be the first to get over that edge.
Can you give more technical details, I don't really understand at all how iOS would run worse on a similarly spec'd phone? I can understand how hardware component design would affect the physical build, but I don't see how it makes the processor or memory faster.
Interesting, but as a software guy I disagree entirely on the hardware/software side. I'd much rather have a 4s running ICS than one of the others running iOS, and I'd much rather have my MBP run Linux than even OSX (stupid EFI...). Granted, I have different tastes and needs than most, but I view Apple products not as the OS "in a pretty box", as Jobs put it, but rather as a pretty box with a good-not-great OS in it.
Correct me if I'm wrong but you're not disagreeing the conclusion that software is more important, you're just arguing the details as to which software is superior.
If I could mix and match here is what I'd take:
Software: iOS
Hardware: Nokia
Customer Service: Apple
Ecosystem: Amazon
Carrier: none of the above (the US sucks so bad...)
I agree with the Linux running on a MBP part... indeed, I'm planning to do so when I buy my MBP in a few months. However, I do recognize that I'm not the typical use case for a person using this device, spending most of my time in the command line, etc. For actually developing something, there's a much better ecosystem running linux.
On the other hand, I'd take iOS running on, say, the Galaxy Nexus. If I jailbreak iOS, I can easily run iSSH, install inetutils, vim, etc, and come halfway to an amazing development device with access to the whole app ecosystem. For me, that's the dealbreaker (or maker, depending on the perspective.)
In fact, I have an 8-10 year old Dell laptop and a MBP bought within the last year or two. I planned to make the switch but I've kept using the old Dell and the MBP sits at home as a net-browsing machine for my wife.
It's hard to dispute the excellent hardware Apple makes, but quite easy to do that to their software. My MBP dual-boots into Ubuntu so I can actually do my work and the 4S would make a great Android phone, though it still wouldn't be my choice due to its small screen.
What it really comes down to is that their software is too opinionated. At every turn I get frustrated by one inanity or another until I give up and just use something that works without requiring mental contortions on my part.
Good design is always opinionated. That you don't share those opinions doesn't make it poor design any more than it make you wrong for not sharing them.
I spent a long time thinking about whether the hardware or software is more valuable to me, and, in the end, I agree with Gruber. The software really does make the platform.
This doesn't actually mean that the software isn't the major thing that makes apple great though. Just because you find it frustrating doesn't mean the 99% of 'average' users don't find it vastly superior, usually without even realising it.
I feel the opposite. One example, when I use Linux I'm immediately met with the contortion of ctr-c/v/x not working as copy/paste across the board. Most notably in the terminal. Cmd-c/v/x works across the board.
Funny how the iPhone suddenly has a "small screen"... When it first came out the phone and screen were criticized for being impractical due to it's large size.
Did you have much difficulty getting Ubuntu running? I couldn't get Fedora to boot from USB or HD, even using rEFIt. I suppose I could check out Ubuntu again.
I am probably a very small minority in this regard, but in this , for me, and to grubers point, it's the hardware not the software.
The hardware is an aesthetic superior design. But I run windows 7 on it. I find windows 7 to be a far superior user experience to osx, faster, and at least on this hardware more stable. Apple provides the easiest driver install procedure for windows then any other provider, I just find osx itself... Rather primitive, most likely imo due to the insistence of Apple on providing a hermetic user experience.
No tech company, no matter how smart, has all the answers in one box.
I disagree with Gruber's interpretation here. Apple wants to do everything well; excellent software is a by-product. But as a focus? Not really.
This is not to say Apple doesn't make good software, but there is very little in the actual output of the company that supports Gruber's notion.
Back in early iPhone days, one of the biggest complaints was a lack of multi-tasking in iOS -- you could only ever have one app running at a time. There were no push notifications, etc. The Apple explanation, per Jobs, was that they consciously chose to exclude that capability. A few versions later, voila -- iOS supports multi-tasking. This sort of cycle -- explain why a feature didn't exist due to some chosen policy/belieft, then include it in later revisions -- became a pattern for Apple.
Flip to the hardware side, and the story is different. When has Apple hardware, since Jobs return in the nineties, ever been a compromise? It hasn't, because Jobs focused on the hardware. While the software is important, it is really a means to an end. The hardware meets this condition too, but it is much higher in the pecking order of consideration than software.
well people complained about the lack of 3G, and now LTE. Some also complained about the lack of radio or full bluetooth support. I think your right, Apple wants to do everything well, not just "everything". If they can't do it well (copy pasting, multitasking...) they don't do it until they can.
I think we have yet to see the full spectrum of Apple's focus on software. Until the iPhone, they were hardware oriented (the Mac, the iPod). But since then, they are moving towards software. They make some of the best Mac and iOS apps after all.
Isaacson writes fluidly, put in the research and reporting (also rehashed a lot of other people's), but doesn't know the technology or the tech business. In fact I don't get a sense he likes them or 'got' Steve Jobs.
Hatchet job might be strong. But he dwells a lot on the charismatic and narcissistic and mercurial personality and not on why so many great people loved Jobs and worked so hard for him. Or what his insights about products and the business were (besides being a control freak and perfectionist).
The book is a good read, it's a creditable first draft of history, contains some first-hand stuff I never saw before about the genesis of the iPod and iPhone and iPad.
Isaacson gives the who, what, when, where, but doesn't really explain why. To his credit, he lets the people speak for themselves.
Jobs could have picked a lot of other people, but he picked a non-tech, non-business writer. I guess he wanted someone to just tell the story, not the strategy or product vision that makes Apple great.
Maybe Gruber should interview a bunch of people and give it a shot. It's not what Isaacson set out for or was in a position to do.
> Isaacson gives the who, what, when, where, but doesn't really explain why.
Most of the time. But sometimes he tries to explain and fails miserably.
It wasn't a newspaper article, it was a book that everyone knew would sell tens of millions of copies (even if the subject hasn't died a few weeks before). If he had sought council of one Apple observer (about his explanations, and whether they were right or catastrophically wrong) before wrapping up the book and sending it to the publisher, the book wouldn't be such a mess.
> Jobs could have picked a lot of other people, but he picked a non-tech, non-business writer. I guess he wanted someone to just tell the story, not the strategy or product vision that makes Apple great.
Or, as John Siracusa said, he might've chosen the wrong guy.
Perhaps Isaacson does not explain why because it is rather impossible to do so. The most honest type of journalism is to let people speak for themselves.
On the other hand, someone like Gruber would be the absolute worst person to write a biography. He idolizes Jobs and Apple and is the farthest thing you can get from an unbiased observer. The only truth you would find in a Gruber biography of Jobs is the truth of how Gruber himself sees the world.
The only person who could really answer the Why was Jobs himself, and even though this was an authorized bio, I never really felt that there was much personal insight from Jobs himself. Did Isaacson really not ask the questions, or did Jobs not know the answers himself?
I had two problems with this post. First:
'NeXTStep was not “just warmed over UNIX”.'
It was, and so was Mac OSX. What Gruber doesn't seem to get is that warmed over unix provides a much more stable OS than Windows NT or DOS. He should be proudly admitting its warmed over unix.
Second:
"It’s almost impossible to overstate just how wrong Bill Gates is here, but Isaacson presents Gates’s side as the truth."
It should be mentioned more clearly that Gates was saying this on a sales call - his ultimate goal being to have every consumer computer made running Windows NT. If he stretched the truth a bit, he shouldn't be blamed for being ignorant, only ambitious.
This is what often irks me about Gruber - he makes disagreeing with Apple out to be an act of incompetence. Most engineers that don't like Apple products simply want greater customization over their tech, something Apple denies their users to promote ease of use.
It wasn't, unless you're completely ignoring the one thing that made OSX and NeXTStep unique, the OpenSTEP framework and Display Postscript/PDF GUI engine. That they were able to use these components made it possible to provide an operating system with a nice, well performing GUI running on a stable UNIX foundation.
Had NeXTStep only been a warmed over UNIX, wouldn't it have been better for Apple to just use Linux and X11, or even better use A/UX which already had a Mac-like interface?
Gruber is not really blaming Gates, he's blaming Isaacson for not doing proper research. He could have literally asked anyone for more information about this, and the answers he would have gotten would have provided more insight into what really happened and why Apple succeeded.
It enabled Apple to have OSX running on Intel from day one, and it made launching the iPhone and iPad possible without reinventing the wheel (which is what Nokia, Microsoft, RIM and Palm all had to do in response to the iPhone).
"This is what often irks me about Gruber - he makes disagreeing with Apple out to be an act of incompetence."
No, you're missing the point. The incompetence is not "disagreeing with Apple", it's "presenting Gates' assertion as fact when it demonstrably is not."
Isaacson's task was not to convey what Gates said on a sales call. It's not a book about Gates.
Isaacson was using the quote from Gates to make a point about Jobs and Apple, and because Gates was wrong (even if justifiably so given his motivation in context), Issacson misinformed the reader.
Isaacson ought to have checked out Gates' claims, with someone who would know, like Avie Tevanian, or Glenn Reid, whoever.
I think it bears mention here that Isaacson has acknowledged there may be some places the book could be improved in and may be putting out a version 2 soon (or maybe 1S? I'll show myself out...). The whole thing was a bit rushed to press.
I don't have any particular feeling toward Gruber's work, but (apart for odd timing.) I really liked this piece.
But I had this nagging 'hey, I read that before!' feeling back in my head - and I was right, although I heard similar complaints before - voiced by John Siracusa (you know the guy that writes 10+ pages reviews of new versions of OS X on Ars Technica? That's him.) on his 'Hypercritical' podcast.[1] It's long (1h15m, and it's only the first part.), but in my opinion absolutely worth listening to.
If you have free time, or have nothing to listen to while commuting - give this one a shot.
Both the Hypercritical and the Talk Show around that time had in-depth discussions around the book; I believe Gruber started iwth "I mostly agree with Siracusa."
I was also a little surprised by the timing of this piece, because I also felt like I'd seen/heard some of it before -- but I realize the audience for DF is bigger than the audience for the Talk Show & Hypercritical, so it makes sense & is well sourced.
That would really be something. Sadly, I think there was barely a sufficient market for a deeply geeky coffee table book on the Mac's creation. I'm sure the market for an even more deeply geeky look at the development of a modern microkernel-based OS is even smaller.
I don't know what I'm more surprised at - Isaacson's piss poor job of doing Jobs' life justice, or that Jobs chose him to write the book. Either way, I walked away very disappointed, ready to never think about the book again.
This is what puzzles me the most about Jobs fans, such as Gruber: they think Jobs is a genius who just can't get anything wrong, except... when he picked the person to write his biography.
I know quite a few people who run Windows on MacBooks as their primary OS. Of course, the different mac clones that run the OS on generic hardware were pretty successful too (before being shut down by Apple's legal department).
What computer would you rather use? A MacBook running Windows 7, or, say, a Lenovo ThinkPad running Mac OS X 10.7?
Gruber, like everyone else, knows that the ThinkPad is a legendary design and that there are many people who prefer it over everything else. Picking it to serve as his example of inferior hardware was his signal that only true Mac fans should read on, so I didn't. Kudos to him for letting me know up front that the rest of the article wasn't my cup of tea.
Wouldn't it be nice if my MacBook Pro wasn't... didn't... was less... I'll spare you the complaints, and the praise for the ThinkPad T-series. They could both learn from each other.
I realize it's a matter of opinion which piece of hardware is superior. That's the point. Gruber threw up a billboard in paragraph four that says, if you think it's at all unclear that the MacBook Pro is the greatest laptop design of all time, read no further. If even he doesn't think this bit of hagiography ought to be read by a broader audience, who are we to contradict him and post it to a broader audience on HN?
I think you misinterpreted it. The ThinkPad was grouped along with "top-of-the-line HTC, Samsung, or Nokia handset running iOS 5" as being the best non-Apple hardware. I think it was a compliment to the ThinkPad that he didn't enumerate any other PC laptops like he did with phones.
You missed the point of the paragraph and cherry picked a sentence out of context. The first two sentences of the paragraph you cite are:
"For me, the answers are easy. It’s the software that matters most to me. "
He then partners iOS and Mac OS software on competitor hardware because it is the software that matters most to him. He isn't using the ThinkPad as an example of "inferior hardware".
"That's the point. Gruber threw up a billboard in paragraph four that says, if you think it's at all unclear that the MacBook Pro is the greatest laptop design of all time, read no further."
The point is that we, he, and Jobs would pick our preferred software on an inferior hardware device over our preferred hardware running inferior software, not the particulars of the choice.
Isaacson leaving those Gates quotes unremarked upon doesn't imply agreement; he's just relaying interesting details.
For example, the post-NeXT acquisition rant, which comes by way of Amelio, is effectively refuted by the whole life story that follows. So there's no need to spoon-feed a conclusion to the reader: "look how wrong Gates was!" Everyone gets it just about as well as Gruber does.
It does imply agreement if it's the only viewpoint being presented.
When he says that OSX used "some of the software that Apple had bought from NeXT", that's not a quote from anyone, it's still wrong (or grossly misleading at best, when the main reason to buy NeXT was to get the operating system). He could have asked anyone familiar with the topic, and he would have gotten the correct answer, which is that OSX is a direct descendant of NeXTStep.
If you liked this piece (and didn't like Isaacson's book at all), don't miss John Siracusa's great critic of the book - Hypercritical, episodes 42 and 43. Well worths listening to...
The rhetorical questions at the start of this article were easy for me too - but surprisingly, they were the complete opposite of Gruber's. I primarily run Windows 7 on my MBA.
After listening to Hypercritical's take [1], I have to agree with Gruber on this one as well. Some of the errors in this book aren't your run-of-the-mill misinterpretations, or lost in translation. They are glaring, fundamental errors regarding how Apple was run as a company, Steve Jobs himself and the people in his life.
When you write a book about a technology giant's CEO and you can't even get the name of the company right ("Apple Computers"), you have to wonder what else is wrong.
[+] [-] tjogin|14 years ago|reply
Why? Why are we even interested in reading a biography about Steve Jobs to begin with? Because he was a narcissistic asshole? Really? Because that's the part Isaacson nailed. There are plenty of assholes, and that characteristic alone does not make for a best-selling biography. No, the reason anyone is interested in reading Steve Jobs's biography is because of his work.
And yet, Steve's work is the part Isaacson doesn't get. Isaacson falls into the same traps that the media does with regularity; thinking Apple's design obsession is about veneer, thinking it's about marketing, about fooling people, about lying. It's not, that might sell a few products, but it does not sell record quantities of products and achieve top customer satisfaction.
You'd think a person with full access to Steve Jobs and people close to him would be able to at the very least ask a few questions about what he saw that others could not, that lead to the successes of eg. the iPhone. Recall other industry big wigs laughing it off, from RIM to Nokia to Microsoft. The iPhone was a joke to them. What did Steve see that they did not? What was his thought process? What made Steve Jobs so different for him to be able to upset industry after industry? These are things I'd have wanted to know and I can't help feel a bit sad that now we will never know. Because Isaacson squandered the only chance we got.
[+] [-] ZeroGravitas|14 years ago|reply
Ironically enough Gruber is a big fan of taking offense at these entirely predictable comments from CEOs. He's basically trolling himself by taking obvious talking points seriously and trolling his massive readership by continually re-broadcasting these comments that are entirely without merit or interest.
[+] [-] tatsuke95|14 years ago|reply
Being as how I run a Macbook Air with Windows 7, and don't even remember what OSX looks like, my answer is pretty obvious. I've never used a laptop that feels as good (the touchpad is the best).
But Apple software? Meh.
[+] [-] ImprovedSilence|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomflack|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 6ren|14 years ago|reply
The same was true for the iPod and especially Woz's Apple computer. It's still true for the iPad. I believe it will be true for Apple's next product category, because (hopefully) they'll continue to move to the edge of what is possible - where optimization is absolutely essential to be the first to get over that edge.
tl;dr hardware matters.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] drivebyacct2|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] redthrowaway|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Steko|14 years ago|reply
If I could mix and match here is what I'd take:
Software: iOS
Hardware: Nokia
Customer Service: Apple
Ecosystem: Amazon
Carrier: none of the above (the US sucks so bad...)
[+] [-] jcitme|14 years ago|reply
On the other hand, I'd take iOS running on, say, the Galaxy Nexus. If I jailbreak iOS, I can easily run iSSH, install inetutils, vim, etc, and come halfway to an amazing development device with access to the whole app ecosystem. For me, that's the dealbreaker (or maker, depending on the perspective.)
[+] [-] prawn|14 years ago|reply
In fact, I have an 8-10 year old Dell laptop and a MBP bought within the last year or two. I planned to make the switch but I've kept using the old Dell and the MBP sits at home as a net-browsing machine for my wife.
[+] [-] unknown|14 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] martythemaniak|14 years ago|reply
What it really comes down to is that their software is too opinionated. At every turn I get frustrated by one inanity or another until I give up and just use something that works without requiring mental contortions on my part.
[+] [-] SoftwareMaven|14 years ago|reply
I spent a long time thinking about whether the hardware or software is more valuable to me, and, in the end, I agree with Gruber. The software really does make the platform.
[+] [-] tmeasday|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jshen|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamesrom|14 years ago|reply
http://dcurt.is/2011/10/03/3-point-5-inches/
[+] [-] redthrowaway|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] doron|14 years ago|reply
The hardware is an aesthetic superior design. But I run windows 7 on it. I find windows 7 to be a far superior user experience to osx, faster, and at least on this hardware more stable. Apple provides the easiest driver install procedure for windows then any other provider, I just find osx itself... Rather primitive, most likely imo due to the insistence of Apple on providing a hermetic user experience.
No tech company, no matter how smart, has all the answers in one box.
[+] [-] jroseattle|14 years ago|reply
This is not to say Apple doesn't make good software, but there is very little in the actual output of the company that supports Gruber's notion.
Back in early iPhone days, one of the biggest complaints was a lack of multi-tasking in iOS -- you could only ever have one app running at a time. There were no push notifications, etc. The Apple explanation, per Jobs, was that they consciously chose to exclude that capability. A few versions later, voila -- iOS supports multi-tasking. This sort of cycle -- explain why a feature didn't exist due to some chosen policy/belieft, then include it in later revisions -- became a pattern for Apple.
Flip to the hardware side, and the story is different. When has Apple hardware, since Jobs return in the nineties, ever been a compromise? It hasn't, because Jobs focused on the hardware. While the software is important, it is really a means to an end. The hardware meets this condition too, but it is much higher in the pecking order of consideration than software.
[+] [-] thomasjoulin|14 years ago|reply
I think we have yet to see the full spectrum of Apple's focus on software. Until the iPhone, they were hardware oriented (the Mac, the iPod). But since then, they are moving towards software. They make some of the best Mac and iOS apps after all.
[+] [-] RockyMcNuts|14 years ago|reply
Isaacson writes fluidly, put in the research and reporting (also rehashed a lot of other people's), but doesn't know the technology or the tech business. In fact I don't get a sense he likes them or 'got' Steve Jobs.
Hatchet job might be strong. But he dwells a lot on the charismatic and narcissistic and mercurial personality and not on why so many great people loved Jobs and worked so hard for him. Or what his insights about products and the business were (besides being a control freak and perfectionist).
The book is a good read, it's a creditable first draft of history, contains some first-hand stuff I never saw before about the genesis of the iPod and iPhone and iPad.
Isaacson gives the who, what, when, where, but doesn't really explain why. To his credit, he lets the people speak for themselves.
Jobs could have picked a lot of other people, but he picked a non-tech, non-business writer. I guess he wanted someone to just tell the story, not the strategy or product vision that makes Apple great.
Maybe Gruber should interview a bunch of people and give it a shot. It's not what Isaacson set out for or was in a position to do.
[+] [-] pooriaazimi|14 years ago|reply
Most of the time. But sometimes he tries to explain and fails miserably.
It wasn't a newspaper article, it was a book that everyone knew would sell tens of millions of copies (even if the subject hasn't died a few weeks before). If he had sought council of one Apple observer (about his explanations, and whether they were right or catastrophically wrong) before wrapping up the book and sending it to the publisher, the book wouldn't be such a mess.
> Jobs could have picked a lot of other people, but he picked a non-tech, non-business writer. I guess he wanted someone to just tell the story, not the strategy or product vision that makes Apple great.
Or, as John Siracusa said, he might've chosen the wrong guy.
[+] [-] tensor|14 years ago|reply
On the other hand, someone like Gruber would be the absolute worst person to write a biography. He idolizes Jobs and Apple and is the farthest thing you can get from an unbiased observer. The only truth you would find in a Gruber biography of Jobs is the truth of how Gruber himself sees the world.
[+] [-] smackfu|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] padobson|14 years ago|reply
It was, and so was Mac OSX. What Gruber doesn't seem to get is that warmed over unix provides a much more stable OS than Windows NT or DOS. He should be proudly admitting its warmed over unix.
Second: "It’s almost impossible to overstate just how wrong Bill Gates is here, but Isaacson presents Gates’s side as the truth."
It should be mentioned more clearly that Gates was saying this on a sales call - his ultimate goal being to have every consumer computer made running Windows NT. If he stretched the truth a bit, he shouldn't be blamed for being ignorant, only ambitious.
This is what often irks me about Gruber - he makes disagreeing with Apple out to be an act of incompetence. Most engineers that don't like Apple products simply want greater customization over their tech, something Apple denies their users to promote ease of use.
[+] [-] gnaffle|14 years ago|reply
Had NeXTStep only been a warmed over UNIX, wouldn't it have been better for Apple to just use Linux and X11, or even better use A/UX which already had a Mac-like interface?
Gruber is not really blaming Gates, he's blaming Isaacson for not doing proper research. He could have literally asked anyone for more information about this, and the answers he would have gotten would have provided more insight into what really happened and why Apple succeeded.
It enabled Apple to have OSX running on Intel from day one, and it made launching the iPhone and iPad possible without reinventing the wheel (which is what Nokia, Microsoft, RIM and Palm all had to do in response to the iPhone).
[+] [-] jonhendry|14 years ago|reply
No, you're missing the point. The incompetence is not "disagreeing with Apple", it's "presenting Gates' assertion as fact when it demonstrably is not."
Isaacson's task was not to convey what Gates said on a sales call. It's not a book about Gates.
Isaacson was using the quote from Gates to make a point about Jobs and Apple, and because Gates was wrong (even if justifiably so given his motivation in context), Issacson misinformed the reader.
Isaacson ought to have checked out Gates' claims, with someone who would know, like Avie Tevanian, or Glenn Reid, whoever.
[+] [-] Steko|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gojomo|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gojomo|14 years ago|reply
Those are called Miller Columns, and NeXT popularized them, but they were pioneered much earlier:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miller_columns
[+] [-] klausa|14 years ago|reply
But I had this nagging 'hey, I read that before!' feeling back in my head - and I was right, although I heard similar complaints before - voiced by John Siracusa (you know the guy that writes 10+ pages reviews of new versions of OS X on Ars Technica? That's him.) on his 'Hypercritical' podcast.[1] It's long (1h15m, and it's only the first part.), but in my opinion absolutely worth listening to.
If you have free time, or have nothing to listen to while commuting - give this one a shot.
[1] http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/42
[+] [-] jmelloy|14 years ago|reply
I was also a little surprised by the timing of this piece, because I also felt like I'd seen/heard some of it before -- but I realize the audience for DF is bigger than the audience for the Talk Show & Hypercritical, so it makes sense & is well sourced.
[+] [-] scj|14 years ago|reply
I am hoping that Avie Tevanian writes a really good memoir. In a perfect world, one on par with Hertzfeld.
[+] [-] twoodfin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nhangen|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zak_mc_kracken|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kleiba|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dkarl|14 years ago|reply
Gruber, like everyone else, knows that the ThinkPad is a legendary design and that there are many people who prefer it over everything else. Picking it to serve as his example of inferior hardware was his signal that only true Mac fans should read on, so I didn't. Kudos to him for letting me know up front that the rest of the article wasn't my cup of tea.
Wouldn't it be nice if my MacBook Pro wasn't... didn't... was less... I'll spare you the complaints, and the praise for the ThinkPad T-series. They could both learn from each other.
I realize it's a matter of opinion which piece of hardware is superior. That's the point. Gruber threw up a billboard in paragraph four that says, if you think it's at all unclear that the MacBook Pro is the greatest laptop design of all time, read no further. If even he doesn't think this bit of hagiography ought to be read by a broader audience, who are we to contradict him and post it to a broader audience on HN?
[+] [-] benatkin|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] YooLi|14 years ago|reply
"For me, the answers are easy. It’s the software that matters most to me. "
He then partners iOS and Mac OS software on competitor hardware because it is the software that matters most to him. He isn't using the ThinkPad as an example of "inferior hardware".
"That's the point. Gruber threw up a billboard in paragraph four that says, if you think it's at all unclear that the MacBook Pro is the greatest laptop design of all time, read no further."
No, he didn't.
[+] [-] siglesias|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dmoy|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gojomo|14 years ago|reply
For example, the post-NeXT acquisition rant, which comes by way of Amelio, is effectively refuted by the whole life story that follows. So there's no need to spoon-feed a conclusion to the reader: "look how wrong Gates was!" Everyone gets it just about as well as Gruber does.
[+] [-] gnaffle|14 years ago|reply
When he says that OSX used "some of the software that Apple had bought from NeXT", that's not a quote from anyone, it's still wrong (or grossly misleading at best, when the main reason to buy NeXT was to get the operating system). He could have asked anyone familiar with the topic, and he would have gotten the correct answer, which is that OSX is a direct descendant of NeXTStep.
[+] [-] pooriaazimi|14 years ago|reply
http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/42 (about 18 minutes into)
http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/43
[+] [-] barrkel|14 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tomkin|14 years ago|reply
When you write a book about a technology giant's CEO and you can't even get the name of the company right ("Apple Computers"), you have to wonder what else is wrong.
[1] http://5by5.tv/hypercritical/42