Based on more than 40 interviews with Jobs conducted over two years—in addition to interviews with more than 100 family members, friends, adversaries, competitors, and colleagues—Isaacson was given "unprecedented" access to Jobs's life.[3] Jobs is said to have encouraged the people interviewed to speak honestly. Although Jobs cooperated with the book, he asked for no control over its content other than the book's cover, and waived the right to read it before it was published.[4]
Describing his writing, Isaacson commented that he had striven to take a balanced view of his subject that did not sugarcoat Jobs's flaws.[5]
The book was released on October 24, 2011, by Simon & Schuster in the United States, 19 days after Jobs's death.[6]
The book's cover photograph is similar to one taken previously by Norman Seeff and featured on Rolling Stone.[7]
Front cover
The front cover uses a photo of Steve Jobs commissioned by Fortune magazine in 2006 for a portfolio of powerful people. The photograph was taken by Albert Watson.
When the photograph was taken, he said he insisted on having a three-hour period to set up his equipment, adding that he wanted to make "[every shoot] as greased lightning fast as possible for the [subject]." When Jobs arrived he didn't immediately look at Watson, but instead at the equipment, focusing on Watson's 4×5 camera before saying, "wow, you're shooting film."[8]
If you look at that shot, you can see the intensity. It was my intention that by looking at him, that you knew this guy was smart. I heard later that it was his favorite photograph of all time.
Jobs gave Watson an hour—longer than he had given most photographers for a portrait session. Watson reportedly instructed Jobs to make "95 percent, almost 100 percent of eye contact with the camera," and to "think about the next project you have on the table," in addition to thinking about instances when people have challenged him.[8]
The back cover uses another photographic portrait of Jobs taken in his living room in Woodside, California, in February 1984 by Norman Seeff. In a Behind the Cover article published by Time magazine, Seeff recalls him and Jobs "just sitting" on his living room floor, talking about "creativity and everyday stuff," when Jobs left the room and returned with a Macintosh 128K (the original Macintosh computer). Jobs "[plopped] down" in the lotus position holding the computer in his lap when Seeff took the photograph.[10]
We did do a few more shots later on, and he even did a few yoga poses—he lifted his leg and put it over his shoulder—and I just thought we were two guys hanging out, chatting away, and enjoying the relationship. It wasn't like there was a conceptualization here—this was completely off the cuff, spontaneity that we never thought would become an iconic image.
The placeholder cover used for the book uses the working title, iSteve: The Book of Jobs.
Title
The book's working title, iSteve: The Book of Jobs, was chosen by publisher Simon & Schuster's publicity department. Although author Walter Isaacson was "never quite sure about it", his wife and daughter reportedly were. However, they thought it was "too cutesy" and as a result Isaacson persuaded the publisher to change the title to something "simpler and more elegant."[11]
Many of the chapters within the book have sub-headings, which are matched in various audiobook versions resulting in listings showing 150+ chapters when there are only 42 chapters. The audiobook contains a mistake on one chapter title, listing Chapter 41 as "Round Three, A Never-ending Struggle" instead of "Round Three, Twilight Struggle" as published.
The Second Coming, What Rough Beast, Its Hour Come Round at Last...
23.1
Things Fall Apart
12:42:10
23.2
Apple Falling
12:47:19
23.3
Slouching toward Cupertino
12:57:10
Chapter 24
The Restoration, The Loser Now Will Be Later to Win
24.1
Hovering Backstage
13:14:44
24.2
Exit, Pursued by a Bear
13:37:57
24.3
Macworld Boston, August 1997
14:01:30
24.4
The Microsoft Pact
14:05:29
Chapter 25
Think Different, Jobs as iCEO
25.1
Here's to the Crazy Ones
14:16:28
25.2
iCEO
14:30:23
25.3
Killing the Clones
14:36:06
25.4
Product Line Review
14:40:50
Chapter 26
Design Principles, The Studio of Jobs and Ive
26.1
Jony Ive
14:49:26
26.2
Inside the Studio
15:01:45
Chapter 27
The iMac, Hello (Again)
27.1
Back to the Future
15:09:53
27.2
The Launch, May 6, 1998
15:25:06
Chapter 28
CEO, Still Crazy after All These Years
28.1
Tim Cook
15:34:11
28.2
Mock Turtlenecks and Teamwork
15:42:47
28.3
From iCEO to CEO
15:51:45
Chapter 29
Apple Stores, Genius Bars and Siena Sandstone
29.1
The Customer Experience
15:59:31
29.2
The Prototype
16:05:49
29.3
Wood, Stone, Steel, Glass
16:15:58
Chapter 30
The Digital Hub, From iTunes to the iPod
30.1
Connecting the Dots
16:24:58
30.2
FireWire
16:28:45
30.3
iTunes
16:36:07
30.4
The iPod
16:40:49
30.5
That's It!
16:48:37
30.6
The Whiteness of the Whale
16:56:47
Chapter 31
The iTunes Store, I'm the Pied Piper
31.1
Warner Music
17:06:39
31.2
Herding Cats
17:19:12
31.3
Microsoft
17:32:39
31.4
Mr. Tambourine Man
17:42:46
Chapter 32
Music Man, The Sound Track of His Life
32.1
On His iPod
17:53:26
32.2
Bob Dylan
18:05:05
32.3
The Beatles
18:13:52
32.4
Bono
18:18:31
32.5
Yo-Yo Ma
18:31:21
Chapter 33
Pixar's Friends, ...and Foes
33.1
A Bug's Life
18:32:46
33.2
Steve's Own Movie
18:44:06
33.3
The Divorce
18:50:04
Chapter 34
Twenty-First-Century Macs, Setting Apple Apart
34.1
Clams, Ice Cubes, and Sunflowers
19:20:24
34.2
Intel Inside
19:26:52
34.3
Options
19:31:27
Chapter 35
Round One, Memento Mori
35.1
Cancer
19:41:35
35.2
The Stanford Commencement
19:52:09
35.3
A Lion at Fifty
19:56:07
Chapter 36
The iPhone, Three Revolutionary Products in One
36.1
An iPod That Makes Calls
20:16:05
36.2
Multi-touch
20:21:25
36.3
Gorilla Glass
20:30:04
36.4
The Design
20:35:25
36.5
The Launch
20:38:43
Chapter 37
Round Two, The Cancer Recurs
37.1
The Battles of 2008
20:43:19
37.2
Memphis
21:01:25
37.3
Return
21:16:02
Chapter 38
The iPad, Into the Post-PC Era
38.1
You Say You Want a Revolution
21:22:39
38.2
The Launch, January 2010
21:30:43
38.3
Advertising
21:44:29
38.4
Apps
21:51:15
38.5
Publishing and Journalism
21:58:20
Chapter 39
New Battles, And Echoes of Old Ones
39.1
Google: Open versus Closed
22:18:13
39.2
Flash, the App Store, and Control
22:27:46
39.3
Antennagate: Design versus Engineering
22:40:33
39.4
Here Comes the Sun
22:54:44
Chapter 40
To Infinity, The Cloud, the Spaceship, and Beyond
40.1
The iPad 2
22:57:34
40.2
iCloud
23:12:14
40.3
A New Campus
23:23:32
Chapter 41
Round Three, The Twilight Struggle
41.1
Family Ties
23:32:37
41.2
President Obama
23:49:08
41.3
Third Medical Leave, 2011
23:58:04
41.4
Visitors
24:10:16
41.5
That Day Has Come
24:19:43
Chapter 42
Legacy, The Brightest Heaven of Invention
42.1
FireWire
24:32:27
42.2
And One More Thing...
24:50:55
42.3
Coda
25:01:48
Reception
Janet Maslin's review of the book for The New York Times mixed mild criticisms with praise. Maslin wrote that Isaacson's biography presented "an encyclopedic survey of all that Mr. Jobs accomplished, replete with the passion and excitement that it deserves."[13]
A number of Steve Jobs's family and close colleagues expressed disapproval, including Laurene Powell Jobs, Tim Cook and Jony Ive.[14][5][15] Cook remarked that the biography did Jobs "a tremendous disservice", and that "it didn't capture the person. The person I read about there is somebody I would never have wanted to work with over all this time."[5] Ive said of the book that "my contempt couldn't be lower."[14][5]
Commercially, the biography was a notable success, selling more than three million copies in the United States alone by 2015.[5]
Steve Jobs is a drama film based on the life of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, starring Michael Fassbender in the title role. The film is directed by Danny Boyle, produced by Scott Rudin, and written by Aaron Sorkin (with a screenplay adapted both from Isaacson's Steve Jobs as well as from interviews conducted by Sorkin).
Other media
Extracts from the biography have been the feature of various magazines, in addition to interviews with the author, Walter Isaacson.[16]
To memorialize Jobs's life after his death on October 5, 2011, TIME published a commemorative issue on October 8, 2011. The issue's cover featured a portrait of Jobs, taken by Norman Seeff, in which he is sitting in the lotus position holding the original Macintosh computer. The portrait was published in Rolling Stone in January 1984 and is featured on the back cover of Steve Jobs. The issue marked the eighth time Jobs has been featured on the cover of Time.[17]
The issue included a photographic essay by Diana Walker, a retrospective on Apple by Harry McCracken and Lev Grossman, and a six-page essay by Walter Isaacson. Isaacson's essay served as a preview of Steve Jobs and described Jobs pitching the book to him.[18]
Bloomberg Businessweek also released a commemorative issue of its magazine remembering the life of Jobs. The cover of the magazine features Apple-like simplicity, with a black-and-white, up-close photo of Jobs and his years of birth and death. In tribute to Jobs's minimalist style, the issue was published without advertisements. It featured extensive essays by Steve Jurvetson, John Sculley, Sean Wisely, William Gibson, and Walter Isaacson. Similarly to Time's commemorative issue, Isaacson's essay served as a preview of Steve Jobs.
Fortune featured an exclusive extract of the biography on October 24, 2011, focusing on the "friend-enemy" relationship Jobs had with Bill Gates.[19]
Awards and honors
Even after a late release that year, the book became Amazon's #1 seller for 2011.[20]
