Apple tried to quash Sunday Times' Jobs profile

A noted British writer has joined an exclusive literary league: authors whose writings about Steve Jobs Apple has tried to suppress. Bryan Appleyard wrote an extensive piece published in this week's Sunday Times about Cupertino's mercurial master that, according to him, an Apple PR staffer attempted to quash. "Apple hates …

[Anonymous Coward]

but he's a genius!

Imagine how hard it must be to run a company that's Not Quite As Awful As Microsoft - but still makes awful products that normal people are endlessly confused by. Imagine you had tens of thousands of people, and billions of spare cash. Could you do worse than Steve? Bill and the Other Steve have managed it, but could you?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, you know what I have to say about this?

Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble!

...anyway, arguing that Jobs is incompetent is folly, given that if he was actually incompetent nobody would be around to argue about it. That he's a genius is in little doubt, again, given his accomplishments - you only have to be one-in-a-thousand to be a genius, and there certainly aren't 230000 Steve Jobses running around with companies like Apple and Pixar on their CVs.

So you can argue about whether he's been obnoxious getting there or not - or, more to the point, exactly how obnoxious he's been. And that's the trick: It's ALSO not going to sell any books or magazines to say, "Well, this guy is a bit eccentric, and one time he was an ass during a job interview". Instead you've got to gussy it up a bit.

The guy's a human being, like everybody else - if someone dug through my history and wanted to make me look bad, I'm sure they could. But I don't think I'm any more or less of an asshole than any other guy. Don't read too much into carefully selected anecdotes, particularly about someone as polarizing as Jobs.

Personally, I can see both sides of the coin: His business practices have sometimes been utterly revolting (eg, outright lies about benchmark performance; intentionally crippled hardware) but his creative vision and - good god - restraint (eg, buying Pixar and then letting the company do as it wished) are beyond doubt.

So, there you go. I'm not sure why this kind of thing always has to end up with one 'side' winning and the other 'side' losing...

[Glen 9]

Mr.

Anyone else read Appletard rather then Appleyard?

Coincidence? I think not.

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets think about this:

"You'd think that by now Apple would have learned that trying to silence an author merely provides a flood of free publicity and juices book sales."

Yes they do - have you ever heard the quote - "Any press is good press". In fact there is a Wiki page on it....

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/any_press_is_good_press

Perhaps Apple likes to stay in the news as a way of selling iProducts.

[Nordrick Framelhammer]

I'm just waiting...

for the inevitable flood of fanniboys that have fallen for Jobsientology, aka The Gospel According To Jobs, claiming it is all lies, that crApples never get viruses, that crApples never crash, that iPood and iTouchyselfinpublic batteries are not exploding and the rest of their usual bullshit.

[Steve Williams]

Times "showing journalistic backbone"...

...by bravely ignoring a couple of telephone calls! So that they can write a personality piece about a charismatic businessman. Strong stuff.

Murdoch has overseen the destruction of journalistic values in the papers he has taken over and by unfair competition has tried to destroy his competitors. If any business dictator is being profiled he should be the one in the spotlight.

[Ty]

@Nordrick Frammelcrapper

You poor Windows-suffering fool.

People like you exist so that Mac OS X users can be better than you.

Thank you.

[Jessica Werkz]

@Nordrick Framelhammer

'for the inevitable flood of fanniboys that have fallen for Jobsientology'. Fanniboys.....

I've never had problems with iPod and iPhone batteries exploding and nor does the latter crash much.

Some people are just very unlucky and have terrible trouble with all sorts of gadgetry and others don't seem to have any trouble at all. Maybe those people that have trouble should return to an analogue life.

I've never had a MAC and don't intend to.

[Andy 97]

Fruit-based

@Nordrick Framelhammer

So I guess you don't like the Apple brand then.

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you expect?

It's Apple through and through.

The only thing Apple has is it's PR and Marketing department, their products suck, they're of poor quality build, locked down to hell with DRM, severely lack features.

But what they're successful at is silencing people who have been harmed by their faulty, low quality products, they're great at creating a brand that people think they need but ultimately like designer clothing brands are pointless, because a £100 pair of Armani jeans comes from the same sweat shop and is of the same quality as a £5 of budget jeans from Primark or whatever.

Apple preys on stupid, gullible people and do well for it. What they don't seem to realise though is bright people can see right through them, and so when they try and use their usual tactics on those who are a bit more smart than their average punter it backfires as always.

Yep, that's Apple.

[TeeCee]

Now I understand!

LSD is important to Steve?

There was I thinking that Apple products were created by a rigorous design process focussing on reliability and ergonomics. Now it turns out that it's down to some bloke going: "Hey, look at the pretty colours and the lights, yeah, the lights and colours. Shiny things. Wow. Hey man, I could make a computer like that. Colours and lights and shiny things. So coooooool......."

[arran]

@ Nordick Framelhammer

Trollish name for a trollish poster? nice.

[Lloyd]

Did you read it though?

It was a pure fluff piece written written by someone with as much technical acumen as a Government IT minister.

[Uncle Slacky]

The Turkey Curse!

So, Jobs is a Discordian - who knew?

http://www.principiadiscordia.com/book/71.php

[touchwood]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1R-jKKp3NA

"Stay hungry,......... stay Foolish!"

[Ascylto]

@ Nodick Framelhammer

Go on!

Back under the bridge!

Troll!

[PhilPursglove]

Apple is the new Scientology

@Nordrick Framelhammer By coincidence the piece (which I was reading this morning with my breafast) says that Apple is the company Scientology would have become if it moved into consumer electronics.

[Anonymous Coward]

Confused

An Appleyard entering Apple, instead of an apple entering an appleyard.

A candidate being interviewed for a job by Jobs.

Has anyone ever dared to ask for a Wiley book at an Apple Store?

What happens if you enter an Apple Store with a Wiley book? Alarms? Does the book disappear?

My brain is hurting...

[SlabMan]

No comment!

I can't help agreeing with George Schulz - how much easier to say 'don't talk about us', sit back, and watch the resulting publicity explosion, than to have to continually pester the media to maintain your profile. As an experiment, try quietly agreeing next time Cupertino requests a story be quashed.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nordrick Framelhammer

I've seen you on the 'Speak Your Brains' section of the BBC banging on about ZaNu LieBore haven't I? Good for you.

Re: Jobs. He may be an asshole, but he's an asshole with a billion dollars in the bank. I'm not sure what that makes the rest of us.

[Columbus]

folklore.org

Appleyard obviously can google - the gobble gobble story has been on www.folklore.org for years,

[RichyS]

@Nordrick Framelhammer

The only thing worse than an Apple fanboy is the polar opposite. Someone like you. You're the kind of idiot that still finds calling Apple crApple amusing.

They're just a company that make some quite nice stuff. It's not perfect, but neither is every iPhone blowing their users faces off with exploding batteries.

Get some perspective and grow up.

[Will Wykeham]

Reverse Psychology

There is of course the distant possibility that this is all a case of Apple PR engaging in some clever reverse psychology. A profile of their Glorious Leader that might have otherwise been glossed over in the papers has received extra (free!) publicity. A book that otherwise would have gone unnoticed was made the subject of several new stories.

Its a possibility to consider. After all, Apple know exactly how to work its customers up into a religious fervour, maybe they're that good with the press as well?

[Lionel Baden]

dammit

thats the second abusive trolling post that didnt make it :(

[Frank Bough]

IME

None of my Apple Macs has ever had a virus (since 1993). Though I have had many crashes in those 16 years. None of my iPods or iPhones has ever suffered an exploding battery. Sorry.

[David Simpson 1]

Impressive.....

So to research his indepth story Appleyard watched "the Pirates of Silicon Valley"

That is some pretty impressive journalism.

Also I hate to point it out to him but OSX was a mess until Panther and wasn't really a mainstream OS until Tiger.

[Steve Button]

The job candidate executed himself?

I had to re-read that the first time, as I thought it said....

"The job candidate - less than thoroughly charmed, we might assume - executed himself."

.... which is probably the response Steve Jobs was expecting.

[system]

@RichyS

"It's not perfect, but neither is every iPhone blowing their users faces off with exploding batteries."

I'm with you there. Users faces being blown off is far from perfect :-P

[Nordrick Framelhammer]

@lotsa people

@ty - I must admit I love Windows. I keeps a nice secondary income for me doing private support work on the home computers of people I work with :) Personally, as I don't do graphics, I have no need for MacOS. I use tools suitable for their jobs.

@Jessica - You can keep your iPod. Any personal music device that cannot play FLACs and Ogg Vorbis or tune into the local radio station is as useful to me as water wings are to a dolphin.

\

@Ajmdy 97 - Whatever gave you that idea? :)

@AC-9:20 - Nope, never been ther. Looks like I have a fanboi of my own :)

As for the rest, I hearby declare you clear of OSthetans to level 4.

[Colonel Mad]

Pass the sick bag

I can't imagine what got stuck in Apples craw, this was puffery of the highest order, Appleyard clearly thinks that everyone at Apple walks on water.

[Anonymous Coward]

Old news

These stories about the LSD and taunting the interviewee are straight from an earlier book, 'Steve Jobs: The Journey is the Reward', by Jeffrey S. Young published in 1987! I guess if you wait long enough for the public to forget, you can parade out old stories and people will think they have never been heard before.

[Anonymous Coward]

The cult of the personality

The Son of Jobs appears well read on Stalinist tactics.

Joseph Vissarionovich was ever a man keen to be seen discouraging indiscrete idolatory. Thereby, of course, indirectly having precisely opposite effect.

In an eerily similar mode, he too resigned, only to be asked back - making those around him complicit in his rule.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Nordrick Framelhammer

You are a bit pointless aren't you? Never mind, you'll make some friends one day...

[Version 1.0]

To be a GOD...

You ever think what it's like to be a seen as a God but know that all you've done is make a few good products?

Who remembers the inventor of the zip fastener, the bra, or the jet engine these days?

Nobody - and that's where Steve's heading - and he knows it.

[Eugene Goodrich]

This is how I build my reading / watching lists.

If someone tries to ban it, I have to have a looky. Just one of my rules.

Paris, because she knows better than to try and cover things up.

[Tony Paulazzo]

@ Ty somewhat & Apple fans in general

>People like you exist so that Scientologists can be better than you.<

Fixed!

So Apple fans, can you tell us mere mortals, when Xenu comes from the fifth parralel will he rid the Earth of all M$ (did you see what I did there?) tards, lying politicians and other annoying (ie, poor) people?

Yea, I know, sometimes you just gotta poke that hornets nest :-)

[Woodgnome]

Appletards

I remember reading an article in PCW many moons ago (think Apple II days) where Apple Inc had tried, in vain, to force Apple Antiques of Chipping Norton or some such place change it's name!! Wankers! Have they managed to put more than one botton on a mouse yet? Cocks!