
Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography

After mulling over the options, Jobs realized what he wanted. Not humor, nor a celebrity, nor a demo. “It’s got to make a statement,” he said. “It needs to be a manifesto. This is big.” He had announced that the iPad would change the world, and he wanted a campaign that reinforced that declaration. Other companies would come out with copycat tablet
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iPad first ad
Rand flew out to Palo Alto and spent time walking with Jobs and listening to his vision. The computer would be a cube, Jobs pronounced. He loved that shape. It was perfect and simple. So Rand decided that the logo should be a cube as well, one that was tilted at a 28° angle. When Jobs asked for a number of options to consider, Rand declared that he
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One of Jobs’s business rules was to never be afraid of cannibalizing yourself. “If you don’t cannibalize yourself, someone else will,”
Walter Isaacson • Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography
“I’ve had a very lucky career, a very lucky life,” he replied. “I’ve done all that I can do.”
Walter Isaacson • Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography
Last thoughts about his career and life
Thus was born the iPod, the device that would begin the transformation of Apple from being a computer maker into being the world’s most valuable company.
Walter Isaacson • Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography
Transformation from a computer company to the most valuable company in the world
If Apple is going to succeed, he told me, we’re going to win on innovation. And you can’t win on innovation unless you have a way to communicate to customers.”
Walter Isaacson • Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography
Communicating with customers through stores
On the day he unveiled the Macintosh, a reporter from Popular Science asked Jobs what type of market research he had done. Jobs responded by scoffing, “Did Alexander Graham Bell do any market research before he invented the telephone?”
Walter Isaacson • Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography
As usual Jobs pushed for the purest possible simplicity. That required determining what was the core essence of the device. The answer: the display screen. So the guiding principle was that everything they did had to defer to the screen. “How do we get out of the way so there aren’t a ton of features and buttons that distract from the display?” Ive
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When Cook described a new model of the iPhone, Jobs spent the next hour discussing not only what to call it—they agreed on iPhone 3GS—but also the size and font of the “GS,” including whether the letters should be capitalized (yes) and italicized (no).
Walter Isaacson • Steve Jobs: The Exclusive Biography
Attention to details of branding