Notes
All The Books Are About Old Apple
I own a couple of books about Apple. I have Apple Confidential 2.0 and Steve Wozniak’s autobiography, iWoz. I’ve also read Andy Hertzfeld’s folklore.org series of essays that got turned into Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How The Mac Was Made. I think I have another one floating around somewhere, but the ones I mentioned are the good ones.
As a computer enthusiast and software maker person, I freaking love the stories that are in these books. I know this sounds dorky, but some of those stories have actually inspired me. Literally.
Here’s the thing — all of these books deal with the earlier (pre-Steve-Jobs’-return) Apple. I’m yet to see any books or whatever written about the internal workings of Apple since, I don’t know, the iPod. I would love to see books about the recent Apple stuff. Stories about the design decisions around the iPhone? Pfft, sold. I’d buy that book in a heartbeat.
Now, I get Apple’s whole cloak-and-dagger deal. I get why they stay quiet about product development and why they don’t comment on rumours. I’m fine with that, and I honestly think it helps them to make great products. I just really hope that Apple’s penchant for secrecy in recent years doesn’t prevent those stories from being told.
I get the feeling that one of two things is true — either
- Apple was just as secretive back in 1984 as it is now, and it’s just that enough time has passed now that tell-alls can be written about ca. 1984 Apple. If this is true, then we’ll probably get the Apple 2.0 tell-alls some time in the next decade.
- Apple is more secretive now than it was in 1984, and we’ll never get books about recent events written by Apple insiders.
I can’t be sure which is true since I wasn’t around in 1984 to see how Apple was back then. I hope the former is true though, because I feel like there are some great stories to be told about the development of recent products like the iPhone and the Apple TV.
