Book Review: Inside Steve's Brain
Inside Steve's Brain, a book about Steve Jobs written by Leander Kahney, is a fascinating look at the thought processes and inspiration behind Apple's products and branding. It has a particular and much welcome focus on the current era - iPod/iTunes, the latest iMacs, the Apple Store and more. The central theme of the book is that much of Apple's success can be attributed to the personality traits of co-founder and current CEO Steve Jobs.
His perfectionism, design sensibility, need to control, elitism, narcissism. All of these things and more have shaped Apple into the market leader in 'digital lifestyle' tech products, as well as made Apple into a brand that is much loved.
This book has a lot of business lessons in it for budding startup entrepreneurs, so for that reason alone I recommend it to our readers. For example when Steve Jobs returned as Apple CEO in the 90's, one of the first things he did was cut down the number of products Apple had - from around 40, to just 4. The book describes how Jobs went about simplifying Apple's brand and focusing in on the key products that consumers wanted. This is something a lot of startups and media companies would do well to emulate.
Also compelling are the stories behind the phenomenal success of the candy-colored iMacs, the iPod, the Apple Store, and other Apple products of this era. I'd read much of this before in media articles and the like, but Kahney does a great job of bringing all those stories together in one book, while adding new quotes and commentary from key Apple staff members. For example on the Apple Store:
"We said, we want our stores to create an ownership experience for the customer," explained (Apple's Ron) Johnson. The store should be about the lifetime of the product, not the moment of the transaction.
Leander Kahney obviously knows his stuff when it comes to Apple. He is a news editor for Wired.com and the main author of the Cult of Mac blog. He previously wrote two other Apple books, The Cult of Mac and The Cult of iPod. I may have browsed through one or both of those books before, but Inside Steve's Brain is a more memorable look at the person behind much of Apple's success today. I highly recommend it, even if you're not an Apple user.
On that note, here's my story about my Mac conversion...
I didn't become a passionate Machead until the last couple of years. I had used Apple products in the 80's and 90's (my primary computer in my Uni years in the early 90's was a Macintosh). But I have always been a bit wary about Apple's hip factor and the cult-like behavior of its more rabid fans. And yes, I am one of those people who finds 'The Mac Guy' in the current TV ads just a little too smug (I feel a bit sorry for Windows Guy, who is actually far more like the typical nerds that I know and love). However I've came around to being a Mac Guy. I currently use a Macbook as my main computer, and I am going to buy an iMac next; I have a couple of iPods, I use iTunes, I visit Apple Stores whenever I'm in America, and of course I am a huge fan and fervent user of the iPhone. I will probably even buy an Apple TV in the near future - and then the Digital Lifestyle will be almost exclusively Apple for me!
It's hard to ignore Apple products when they are so beautifully designed, simple to use, ground-breaking (e.g. iPhone), highly functional, and (yes) hip! If you want to know the reasons behind all that, this book provides excellent insights.
Are you an Apple user? If so what's your story?
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How exactly are the two last paragraphs your story about your Mac conversion? Sounds like just another guy that feels stupid after passing up the Apple/Mac experience for so long because of those "rabid fans". Do you usually buy stuff according to its loudest consumer-group?
Personally, I blindly bought a PowerBook+iPod more than 5 years ago, and learned to appreciate their subtleties -- there was no 'switching' involved...
To quote John Gruber:
"There’s a whole class of recent switchers who define “Apple fanboy” as “anyone who’s been an enthusiastic Mac user since before I switched to the Mac”."
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2007/september#mon-17-cuban
I switched shortly after OS X first came out, buying a first generation white ibook. I'd been a desktop linux user and still wanted the unixen experience, but was getting tired of the work involved (at the time) in using linux on a laptop and liked the form factor of the ibook.
These days I use an mbp with vmware and love having the simplicity of the OS X software along with various other OSs at my fingertips to use for my development work.
My experiences with apple haven't all been plain sailing and my first mbp was a bit of a disaster, but they eventually replaced that and the new machine mostly makes up for the headaches the first one caused.
People get wiser as they get older...
Haha, you beat me to it Richard! I was planning to review this book as well ;)
Great book, I recommend it to everyone working in tech.
In terms of book reviews, question to our readers. Do you guys like this stuff? Should we be doing more reviews?
Maybe you should do more book reviews but if this is a taste...
Pretty sure that this sentence -
Inside Steve's Brain is a book about Steve Jobs, written by Leander Kahney.
Wasn't the best, the most creative or the least amateurish way of opening the post.
And you misspelled "fervent."
I have owned both PCs and Macs, in the 80's and early 90's I also owned the older Commodore and Amiga computers.
I currently have both PCs and Macs in my home office. I find each delivers something of value, but in the end, my primary machine is a PC due to the wider array of functions it is able to perform.
I have witnessed a great deal in terms of technical advances and innovations over the years. I am routinely dismayed that the cult of Mac that insists that Apple is the only innovator of any significance, regardless of the markets that Apple attempts to penetrate.
I have found that there are significant, relevant innovations coming from a broad spectrum of vendors. I will admit that Apple routinely delivers user interfaces and case designs that are stylish and "hip". However, this hardly qualifies them as a leader in innovation.
Substance must accompany style in order to ensure that a product stands the test of time in my office suite.
Frankly I find that the Mac Guy is an ideal representation of the Mac cult of personality. The "smug" demeanor and the stereotypical, witless, PC counterpart are part and parcel of the attitude I routinely encounter with Mac aficionados.
Perhaps it is just me, but I am meeting more and more people in my daily dealings with Mac users who are fervent defenders of the Mac brand, but are also technically challenged. I find them quietly complaining about their computers locking up or slowing down for unknown reasons. And yet they publicly acknowledge such things only with their PC counterparts.
I have provided informal tech support to both PC and Mac users over the course of many years. I have installed networks and servers for both PC and Mac based businesses.
The truth behind the hype is far less enticing than some would have you believe.
A small dose of honesty will go a long way when it comes to "reviewing" the careers of egomaniacs like Steve Jobs as well as the products which are their claim to fame.
With this quote...
"I didn't become a passionate Machead until the last couple of years. I had used Apple products in the 80's and 90's (my primary computer in my Uni years in the early 90's was a Macintosh). But I have always been a bit wary about Apple's hip factor and the cult-like behavior of its more rabid fans."
... you sound to me like the Theist that proclaims they were once an Atheist. I suspect you never really broke your ties with the Apple religion.
Rick (comment #6), in my defence it was a Sunday night for me when I wrote the post :-) I thought it would be a nice weekend post and I do plan to do more book reviews.
As for uv, commenter #1, who wrote: "Sounds like just another guy that feels stupid after passing up the Apple/Mac experience for so long because of those "rabid fans". Do you usually buy stuff according to its loudest consumer-group?"
RM: No, but I usually avoid lemming-like behavior when I see it. The fact is, Apple's products eventually won me over, but the attitude of a lot of Apple fanboys still makes me sick. The fact that you accused me of being stupid for not using Apple products in the early part of this century kind of sums that attitude up.
Yep Apple won me too. It's addictive. I've started with an iPhone, bought hundreds of iTunes songs, movies and now I write this from a MacBook Air. It's beautiful, it's UNIX, I love it.
But considering the fact that Apple is even more monopolistic than Microsoft (iPhone SDK works only on Macs!! - one hardware rules them all), has annoying ad campaigns as you've mentioned and doesn't give back enough to open source community (remember KHTML - WebKit debates) I'm still against it. I'm glad that you've finally brought it to public attention.
STEVE JOBS DISERVES SO MUCH CREDIT. HE WAS THROWN OUT OF THE COMPANY HE STARTED ONLY TO COME BACK AND HE HAS NEVER LOOKED BACK. I,M PROUD TO BE A APPLE OWNER IPOD AND COMPUTER , SHAREHOLDER; AND IN KNOWING SOMEBODY THAT 'WOWS' THE WORLD. I KNOW IT MUST FEEL GREAT TO STEVE AND IT SHOULD. HE IS A TREMENDOUS IDOL OF MINE. ROBERT
i've read Inside Steve's Brain cover to cover. Well done. Got me thinking. Inspiring in some ways. Thanks for covering the book. I hope to see many more reviews of good books that pertain to web 2.0 and related. Thanks for *coming out* as a Mac user!
"And yes, I am one of those people who finds 'The Mac Guy' in the current TV ads just a little too smug (I feel a bit sorry for Windows Guy, who is actually far more like the typical nerds that I know and love)."
That is intentional. PC is the interesting, likeable one you know; Mac is the strange one you would prefer not to see, who lives a different life. The ads simply hold up a mirror to the assumptions of the typical Microsoft Windows user, who finds this uncomfortable and wants to look away. Switching to Mac is voluntary; it will always be a minority PC platform.
Yes I have to say, that TV campaign is very clever as it plays on many human emotions we all have. e.g. I'm sure I dislike the Mac Guy partly because he is a cool and trendy guy, unlike me ;-) So in many ways I 'bond' with the Windows guy more, as he is awkward and nerdy.
The thing that always irritated me were the anti-Apple people who would espouse that "computers are just tools". We're talking about things that many people spend many hours a day interacting with...why not use something that is pleasant to use?
Sounds like a great book, I will have to be asking for this when my birthday comes around.
I want ReadWriteWeb to do more book reviews, this one is good but you are only scratching the surface.
Thanks for the review. Just bought the book.
I like the book as it is giving me more info regarding Apple as a brand. I am not an IT person but it makes me familiar with great people and their passion for making a difference. I am still in the middle of my reading, but i am sure the rest will be more fascinating.
I just read the book and put together a top list of things I discovered in Inside Steve's Brain
Steve Jobs Secrets
Check it out and let me know if you got anything to add - cheers!