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Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colorful Company [ILLUSTRATED] (平装)
by Owen W. Linzmayer
| Category:
Corporate history, IT, Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Business |
| Market price: ¥ 228.00
MSL price:
¥ 208.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Definitive text about the history of Apple Computer as well as the fall and rise of Steve Jobs. |
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AllReviews |
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
I eagerly bought Apple Confidential 2.0 after reading a positive article about it on a well known computer news web site. This book doesn't disappoint - I read the entire thing cover to cover in about three days, although in retrospect, it would have been fun to spread it out a bit more to enjoy it longer.
The book is well written and easy to read, and very importantly in this often heated subject matter, it appears to be genuinely unbiased. Featuring the story of Apple Computer Inc. from its inception to the present, the book not only gives a general overview of the good and bad times at Apple, but also presents many juicy tidbits. Sidebars throughout the text present numerous quotes from well known players - Steve Jobs, Wozniak, and many others. Pictures of some of the early machines are provided as well as timelines for various products and CEO's.
As another bonus, the resignation letters of several of Apple's CEO's are included in the text.
On the downside, the latter part of the book is not quite as good with several omissions such as mention of the wildly popular XServe and the Virginia Tech supercomputer cluster made with XServe's. This seems like a fairly glaring oversight considering how important the enterprise market is to Apple these days.
Overall, I think any Apple history buff would find the book fascinating, and I can even imagine that the book would be interesting to people who don't know much about Apple at all. The history of Apple is quite interesting and should provide engaging reading material for nearly anyone.
What are you waiting for? Buy the book! |
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An American reader (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
The other reader reviews all accurately state the positives of this book: the pre-2000 history of Apple is a very interesting read. I picked the book up, however, for a different reason. I wanted to learn more about the current generation of Apple products. Unfortunately, there isn't any detailed information about the development of OS X, the iPod, the G5, or Apple's new business stance as the 'hub of digital life'. (These are all mentioned briefly in the book, but there is no detail about how they came into being.) Surely there are some interesting stories to be told about how the iPod came out of a [then] struggling computer company that only had roughly 5% of the personal computer market. How about the decision to base the next-generation operating system on Linux? (To be fair, the book chronicles the influence of the NeXT and Be operating systems, but it doesn't connect the dots to OS X.) What sorts of decisions were made to develop a 64-bit processor? Who made these decisions and what technological challenges were faced in the process? These are all topics for version 3.0, I suppose. (And I imagine that I will be charged for this upgrade.) Bottom line: an interesting read for those interested in pre-iPod/G4 Apple. However, you shouldn't buy this book if you are mainly interested in their recent technological developments. |
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Alan (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
Apple Confidential 2.0 is a great book that gives the reader a fascinating look into the successes and failures of a company that has thrived, survived and continues to make a significant impact on the computer industry.
Linzmayer entertains and educates readers by taking them through pivotal points in Apple's history. From the initial collaboration between tech guru Steve Wozniak and assertively business-minded Steve Jobs, through the development of the Macintosh computer, to the inner workings of Apple's corporate culture, Linzmayer looks around every corner to give many perspectives on the development of the company. Timelines are also presented at the end of most chapters, aiding readers in understanding the pace at which important milestones took place.
"Definitive" accurately describes this book! Apple Confidential 2.0 offers readers a deeper understanding of the company, and shows the complete story of how this shining apple helped turn the fruit orchards of Cupertino into what we now call Silicon Valley. Readers will clearly see how Apple created a revolution by the development of the personal computer industry, and fought to make a significant dent in a technological market that continues to grow at a pace unequal to any other advancement in history. |
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David Craig (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
Owen Linzmayer's "Apple Confidential 2.0" book is a must have for people interested in the history, culture, people and technology behind Apple Computer Inc.
This book (and Owen's previous Apple histories The Mac Bathroom Reader and Apple Confidential [1.0]) has been meticously researched and uncovers many facts about Apple Computer, its people, and systems that other books don't come close to touching. Instead of rehashing comments from other books which tend to be inaccurate, Owen has spent a tremendous amount of time finding and verifying facts. Instead of just relying on a comment about some aspect of Apple Computer, Owen has taken the time and put forth the effort to communicate directly with those involved with the facts in question. This results in accurate facts, something that many technology computing books about Apple don't always have.
I've been involved with Apple systems since the Apple ][ of the later 1970s and am constantly suprised by the information Owen has uncovered. At one time I thought I knew a lot about Apple's history, but Owen has proven me wrong in a beneficial way.
The end result of Owen's work is an almost definitive book about a fascinating and quirky company that any Apple computer user must have in their book collection. |
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Joaquin (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
I must say that I enjoy this book a lot as if covers many aspects and events within Apple that are sometimes not well documented. There are juicy info-snippets throughout the book, which makes this a good read. I was even at Apple during some of these events during the days during the introduction of System 7 until the acquisition of NeXT, Inc. Despite the praise, I must warn though that I find some inaccuracies and also found that a lot of the information is scrapping off the surface, perhaps from existing research or published works, but doesn't really dig too much deeper as needed in order to develop an informed historical understanding.
One obvious example is where Linzmayer states that "At the core of Mac OS X was Darwin, Apple's Linux-like operating system kernel" (280), but actually specifically Darwin is a modified Mach kernel that runs a BSD spice added. To say the kernel is "Linux-like" is plain flat wrong. In another section, Linzmayer paints the picture that "Apple had focused so much on producing the new generation of hardware and making the system software function seamlessly that creating PowerPC-native programming tools for developers wasn't a high priority" (235) and also that Metrowerks was the hero. Actually, Apple never really focused on developer tools even for 68K hardware, and in fact the MPW C compiler actually compiled C into Pascal code, which was compiled into binaries. Apple made a deal with Symantec to provide command-line PowerPC compilers for MPW, and much later in the game they cooperated with Metrowerks to encourage their efforts (Symantec's Think development division was a mismanaged sinking ship).
There's a lot of little things like this, but one thing profound was that in the chapter "From Diesel to Doctor" Linzmayer gives praise and defends Spindler in noting his "no-nonsense management experience" (233) and defends him by noting that "Spindler is a passionately private man" and notes that without Spindler Apple "would have ceased to exist" (233). However, around this time, Spindler was a brunt of jokes and Apple was left to the mercy of horrific managers, e.g. Dave Nagel.
Linzmayer credits Spindler with the transition to PowerPC processor in stating that "He had successfully polished Apple... while managing that Mac's transition from Motorola's 68000 family of processors to the new RISC-based PowerPC" (235). During this time, I don't think he was really involved as there was already a transition plan in place during the time of Sculley. Specifically, the transition to PowerPC was architected in part by the A/UX team using their nano-kernel and mixed-mode magic as they called it, and later developed on a Quadra 700 with a "Smurf" PowerPC daughter card. The future first generation of PowerMacs were based upon the Quadra 700 architecture using the same ROM running on the "Smurf" card. The hands-off or lack-of management of Spindler allowed the engineers to do what they do best.
In "The Copland Crisis" (273) there's no mention of some of the real problems that were around that time where the next generation OS "'did develop a flat tire on the road to greatness'" (274). Due to lack of management or mismanagement this product "Copland" (externally) or "Maxwell" (internally) became a disaster by trying to graft legacy non-re-entrant libraries like QuickDraw onto a micro-kernel architected - hence re-entrant - system called "NuKernel". Internally, SQA was predicting the OS could ship in 2020 with given metrics.
Later, when Ellen Hancock was on board after the announced Next, Inc. acquisition, her newly created compatibility team (bringing in ex-AU/X gurus with time proven knowledge undocumented ins/outs of legacy Mac internals) achieved 96% classic Mac OS compatibility on "NuKernel" through a sand-box approach in one whole month -- something that wasn't achieved for over 2 years under prior structure and management, which never realized or utilized AU/X team's proven success in bringing Mac OS compatibility to A/UX, HP-UX, AIX (never released), and Solaris combined with the PowerPC transition through nano-kernel. This sand-box was brought to Mac OS X naturally.
None of this material was mentioned in that chapter, and instead it focuses primarily on the NeXT vs. BeOS and NeXT acquisition, and ignores actually what really happened in the trenches. There might not have been a need to acquire an OS if the project was managed properly (though I'm glad they did acquire NeXT and Jobs. Woot. Woot. :).
But don't get me wrong, I think this is a great book, but it is missing a lot of detail, incorrectly paints or portrays some characters/situations, and is inaccurate in some places. Still a decent read (especially in the bathroom :) |
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Jed Davis (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-26 00:00>
This book is a very detailed and thorough history of Apple Computer. Two major points come out of the book: First, for those of us who live by the Mac, it is shocking to read the journey of Apple in terms of how close they came to extinction in the discordant years when Michael Spindler and Gil Amelio were at the helm. Extinction, liquidation and absorption almost happened so many times that you really begin to believe that maybe there was some divine intervention. This is because like many people, I can't imagine a world without Apple. Second, Apple is a company of innovation and thinking out of the box. In order to survive and prosper, Steve Jobs is the only type of person that can make this happen. For whatever rumors you may hear, he is the right person to run Apple and I hope he is around a long time.
I always feel that if you know the history of something you value, you appreciate it that much more. Especially, if there was some struggle to survive along the way. This book will take you on a ride that began in the 1970s. It is a fun and exciting ride. |
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