Steve Jobs Archives - Page 2 of 7

Steve Jobs Honored with Special Trustees Grammy Award

Earlier this year, Steve Jobs’s official autobiography was released, and it revealed some interesting tidbits about his career and life. If you haven’t read his biography, I highly suggest checking it out. Yesterday, the man that changed the world was awarded a Grammy Award.

Steve Jobs

On Wednesday, The Recording Academy announced its 2012 Special Merit Awards lists including the LifeTime Achievement Award, Trustees Award and Technical Grammy Award. The Trustees Award list not only consists of Jobs, but he was also accompanied by R&B legend Dave Bartholomew and jazz recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder. This award recognized the “outstanding contributions to the industry in a nonperforming capacity.”

As former CEO and co-founder of Apple, Steve Jobs helped create products and technology that transformed the way we consume music, TV, movies, and books. A creative visionary, Jobs’ innovations such as the iPod and its counterpart, the online iTunes store, revolutionized the industry and how music was distributed and purchased. In 2002 Apple Computer Inc. was a recipient of a Technical GRAMMY Award for contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field. The company continues to lead the way with new technology and in-demand products such as the iPhone and iPad.

The Recording Academy did not specify why Jobs was nominated for this award, but it is probably because of the way he revolutionized the music industry through iTunes. Digital music distribution, iPod, you name it! A special ceremony honoring the winners of the Trustees Awards, Lifetime Achievement Awards, and Technical Grammy Awards will occur on Saturday, February 11th. Special recognition will also be made during the main Grammy Awards ceremony the following day.

‘Steve Jobs’ Tops Amazon’s List of Best-Selling Print and Kindle Books for 2011

Last week, it was reported that Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography of Steve Jobs had become Amazon’s top-selling book of 2011. This was impressive because the book was not released until October. Steve Jobs,sold a total of 379,000 copies in its first week in America. The biography outsold the next-best selling title, Bossypantsby Tina Fey.

Steve Jobs bio cover

Today, MacRumors reports that the that ranking only included print sales, and with digital books now representing a majority of book sales at Amazon, rankings should have included Kindle e-book sales is the first place. This is so that people can get a clear picture of overall book sales.

After the year of recommending books to our customers, it’s always fun to see what books really resonated with them,said Chris Schluep, Senior Editor of Books, Amazon.com. We chose Steve Jobs’ as one of the Top 10 best books of the year, and even though it was published in October, the sales have been phenomenal in both formats. And we’re really excited that Kindle Direct Publishing authors have taken two of the top spots this year for book sales overall.

The top 10 best-selling books overall are:

1. Steve Jobsby Walter Isaacson
2. Bossypantsby Tina Fey
3. A Stolen Lifeby Jaycee Dugard
4. The Mill River Recluseby Darcie Chan
5. In the Garden of the Beastsby Erik Larson
6. A Dance with Dragonsby George R.R. Martin
7. The Paris Wifeby Paula McLain
8. The Litigatorsby John Grisham
9. The Abbeyby Chris Culver
10. Inheritance (The Inheritance Cycle)by Christopher Paolini

Amazon has made that change today by releasing its list of best-selling books of 2011, and Isaacson’s Steve Jobs once again topped the list. In addition, Sony Pictures has acquired the movie rights to the authorized biography, and Aaron Sorkin is strongly considering writing the screenplay for the film.

Steve Jobs Biography is Amazon’s Best Selling Book of 2011

Steve Jobs bio cover

Just last month Steve Jobs’s official biography was released, and it has been a massive hit since then. Data complied in November revealed that Walter Isaacson’s book, entitled Steve Jobs,sold a total of 379,000 copies in its first week in America. The biography outsold the next-best selling title, The Litigatorsby John Grisham, by more than three to one. In addition to being a top seller in hardcover at Amazon, it has also been the No. 1 title on the company’s Kindle platform, and on Apple’s iBooks.

Today, MacRumors reports that the biography has moved to the top of Amazon’s list of best sellers in 2011 this week. When “Steve Jobs” first debuted, it quickly rose to #13. By mid-November the title had risen to #2 on the list, setting the stage for the top spot. This milestone is remarkable considering that the book did not debut until late October.

In addition, Sony Pictures has acquired the movie rights to the authorized biography, and Aaron Sorkin is “strongly considering” writing the screenplay for the film. I’m not sure how I feel about a movie on Steve Jobs though.

The Steve Jobs Movie We All Wanted is Coming

After watching “The Social Network” last year, I remember thinking about how someone should remake “Pirates of the Silicon Valley”, specifically someone like Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher who have made the best movie about startups and technology yet.

While “Pirates of the Silicon Valley” was a good movie, the direction and screenplay was average at best. We needed someone like Aaron Sorkin to write it and someone like David Fincher to direct it, and make yet another masterpiece.

The reason why most Hollywood studios aren’t interested in making movies about technology companies and startups is that they are mostly boring, and the target audience is quite limited.

However, if there’s one person in the tech industry on which an awesome movie could be scripted and made, it’s Steve Jobs. His life has been very interesting, to say the least, and almost everyone who has ever used a computer knows about him. His official biography has been a bestseller, and it provides an excellent base full of detailed information for any script-writer to work with.

Apparently, Aaron Sorkin has been approached by Sony to write a Steve Jobs movie, and he is “strongly considering” it.

“Sony has asked me to write the movie and it’s something I’m strongly considering. Right now I’m just in the thinking-about-it stages. It’s a really big movie and it’s going to be a great movie no matter who writes it. He was a great entrepreneur, he was a great artist, a great thinker,” said Aaron Sorkin.

I really hope that he does go through with it, and that it’s directed by David Fincher, one of my favorite directors. I can’t wait to see it, and there are very few people in Hollywood who could make it better than them.

Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs Biography Outsells Most Android Tablets

Steve Jobs bio cover

Last week Steve Jobs’s official biography was released, and it is a massive hit! (no surprise here). I won’t reveal any spoilers, but I will say that the book is really good and you should read it even if you hate Apple.

Today, data from BookScan US reveals that Walter Isaacson’s book, entitled “Steve Jobs,” sold a total of 379,000 copies in its first week in America according to TheBookseller.com. The biography outsold the next-best selling title, “The Litigators” by John Grisham, by more than three to one! One more thing, it should be noted that Steve Jobs’s biography has outsold most Android tablets. For example, the Samsung Galaxy Tab sold just 20,000 out of 1 million shipped. I would have provided more evidence, but we all know by now that Android tablet sales are poor. LOL.

The next closest non-fiction title was “Killing Lincoln” by Bill O’Reilly, which was outsold by almost eight to one. Also, “Steve Jobs” has become the 18th best selling book of 2011, ahead of “The Confession” by John Grisham. In the UK, sales were also high in the first week, with 37,244 copies sold.

In addition to being a top seller in hardcover at Amazon, it has also been the No. 1 title on the company’s Kindle platform, and on Apple’s iBooks. Tonight, PBS is going to air a new show entilited “Steve Jobs – One last Thing,” which will air at 10 P.M. Eastern, and will be the first broadcast of a 1994 interview in which Jobs detailed the philosophy of his life. Don’t miss it.

Apple Posts Steve Jobs Celebration Video

A few days after Steve Jobs passed away, Tim Cook sent out a letter to Apple employees regarding a celebration on October 19th, which would be held in the Infinite Loop campus in Cupertino. The event was to honor Apple’s former CEO Steve Jobs and the value he brought to the company. This event was specifically for employees only, but surprisingly yesterday the company published the event on its website.

The 80 minute video is entitled “Celebrating Steve”, and is available on Apple’s website which shows the event held on the company’s campus last week, on Oct. 19. Thousands of Apple employees watched the event in person and around the world, as Apple also closed its retail stores to allow employees to watch a live feed. The picture below shows the amount of bonding among the employees. Beautiful, just beautiful.

Tim Cook at Steve Jobs celebration

The event began with an introduction from current Apple CEO Tim Cook. The event celebrated the life of Jobs and the many accomplishments he made before he passed away earlier this month at the age of 56.

I’d highly recommend watching the entire event once if not more. For the first time since Steve’s death, I did shed a few tears because of the atmosphere and Jonathan Ive’s voice as he told stories of the man most of us never met in real life. His story will move you. This event gave me even more reason to believe that there’s no other company that has an aura like Apple’s. Period.

The full video is available to stream on Apple’s site. It requires Safari 4 or 5 on Mac OS X Snow Leopard or Lion, Safari on iOS 3 or later, or QuickTime 7 on Windows.

Steve Jobs Biography Released Today

On February 24, 1955 a child was born to humble beginnings. Born out of wedlock and put up for adoption, who could have known the impact he would make as a young man? Even more stunning was his untimely demise in a battle against pancreatic cancer a little more than two weeks ago. With the life and death of Steve Jobs fresh on our minds, his biography is being released to the public today. Written by former Time Magazine editor, Walter Isaacson, this book is sure to provoke many thoughts and emotions. Even as I ponder the life of this brilliant innovator, I am inspired by the impact he made in his short life, and reminded that time is short.

Steve Jobs Bio

Steve Kroft, of 60 Minutes, interviewed Walter Isaacson last night. Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life and Kissinger: A Biography, revealed that he felt that Jobs was being “presumptuous” when he approached him to be the author of this biography seven years ago. At the time, Isaacson was not aware of Job’s cancer diagnosis. Below, you can see the video interview posted on the 60 Minutes website.

Isaacson conducted more than forty interviews with Jobs. He also interviewed scores of friends, colleagues, competitors, and family members. Jobs gave Isaacson full rein on the biography. He had no skeletons to hide and wanted it to be an honest account of his life.

What little I have gleaned from the interview with 60 Minutes, as well as the description on Simon and Schuster’s website, it appears that this book is well worth reading. As with so many great men, Jobs’s life was multidimensional. His victories were great, however his tragedies were, as well.

I hope that those who read this book find the same inspiration that I have while researching this article. He was not a perfect man, but there is no doubting his contributions to the world. As cruel as life can be at times, the great ones, like Jobs, learn to endure and rise above. I also believe that the great ones embrace the words Jobs shared at a 2005 commencement at Stanford University:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life!

Revelations About Obama, Bill Gates & Google From Steve Jobs’s Upcoming Bio

A lot is being said about Steve Jobs after his death by those who liked and those who didn’t. The fact is even if Apple wasn’t the first, they did it better. Tablet manufacturers haven’t been able to come up with devices as feature rich as the iPad at the same price. Innovation in IT isn’t about the final product, there’s a lot more around it. Apple’s ability to leverage exclusive bulk components and create an efficient supply chain for itself is an integral part of the company’s success. Walter Isaacson who’s a big deal in the publication industry was chosen by Steve Jobs to write his official biography. With Jobs’s untimely death, the book is being published ahead of schedule and quotes from the book have started causing ripples. The book has information about why Jobs wore his traditional polo neck tshirt for keynotes. It has to do with Sony’s uniforms at their factory and Jobs wanting something similar for Apple. An excerpt shared by Gawker from the biography talks about the turtlenecks:

Sony, with its appreciation for style, had gotten the famous designer Issey Miyake to create its uniform. It was a jacket made of rip-stop nylon with sleeves that could unzip to make it a vest. So Jobs called Issey Miyake and asked him to design a vest for Apple, Jobs recalled, “I came back with some samples and told everyone it would great if we would all wear these vests. Oh man, did I get booed off the stage. Everybody hated the idea.” In the process, however, he became friends with Miyake and would visit him regularly. He also came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style. “So I asked Issey to make me some of his black turtlenecks that I liked, and he made me like a hundred of them.”

The more interesting details have now started to come out as the book release nears. Associated Press got a copy of the book and their technology writer Michael Liedtke has shared some of Jobs thoughts in the book.

On Microsoft:

On Google, Android and Larry Page:

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.” (via Associated Press)

On Obama’s presidency:

The Huffington Post quotes Steve Jobs meeting President Obama at the Westin San Francisco Airport, warning the President that he is heading for a single term presidency citing regulations that restrict business. Jobs said, “You’re headed for a one-term presidency.”

Steve Jobs’s famous return to Apple and the company’s subsequent success against Microsoft is something everyone will remember. Luckily for Google, Steve’s poort health robbed the tech world of another epic battle.

Shocking Video From Steve Jobs’ Last Business Meeting – Fake Video

“Steve died peacefully today surrounded by his family”. These were the words that were released by Steve Jobs’ family members in response to his death. This clearly indicates that Steve Jobs died in the presence of his close relatives and family members.

Keeping that in mind, here’s a video which has been spreading like wildfire on Facebook and other social networking sites, and generating millions of views. The video was first uploaded on popular video sharing site Vimeo on August 31, 2011, which was later uploaded on YouTube on October 6, 2011.

The video, however, is a fake and the person in the video is not Steve Jobs. From the video we learn that the fake Steve is in a meeting with some unidentified people, and suddenly in the middle of a conversation, Jobs lowers his head and faints and slips down from his chair, creating panic in the room.

Now here’s the thing. I can assure that the video is a fake for three reasons. One, a part of that video was taken from an interview with Steve by All Things Digital in 2010. There are five parts of the video and I’m sure it was taken from any one of these. From the interview video, you will notice that Steve is sitting on the same red chair which is showed in the fake video. Here’s the fifth part of the interview –

Bizarrely, the above video was uploaded on October 6, 2010.

The second reason why I find the video is a fake is that Steve Jobs resigned as the CEO of Apple on August 24, 2011, and the upload date of the video is August 31, 2011. Steve Jobs after his resignation never came back to work or never attended any important meetings as such. And lastly, the other reason is that neither Apple nor any of Steve’s family members have confirmed about the video. So, it’s pointless to assume that the video is genuine.

I believe that the video was created to drive traffic to the site TheFinalEdition.com. The post in which the video was posted states – “TheFinalEdition.com has just received the above video shot during Steve Jobs’ last, secret business meeting.”

This clearly tells us that the owners of the site created the video just to attract visitors and nothing else. And now you see the video link being circulated on Facebook and other social networking sites.

I recommend that you please avoid “sharing” or “liking” the video, and delete the post if you come across on your Facebook wall. We had also seen scammers taking advantage of the death news of Steve Jobs and were spreading scams like Apple Giving Away 1000 Limited Editions iPad 2 across the social network giant, Facebook.

Apple Stock at All Time High Following iPhone 4S Launch

Apple’s stock price was at its lowest in a month, right after Apple unveiled the iPhone 4S on October 4. Fans and investors, who were expecting a new iPhone 5, were disappointed when Apple launched only one device, the iPhone 4S. Its stock price dropped down to $357 right after the announcement.

However, the iPhone 4S sales figures were quite surprising. Apple ringed in more than a million pre-orders in the first 24 hours, and over 3 million pre-orders of the iPhone 4S in the first weekend after the announcement.

Today, its stock price hit an all-time high of $422, which is around 20% higher than its recent low of $357. It now has a market cap of around $391 billion, giving it a $11 billion lead over Exxon Mobil, which now has a market cap of just under $380 billion.

Apple Stock Price

Contrary to expectations, the news of Steve Jobs’ death didn’t push the stock price down. In fact, it has appreciated steadily since.

At this rate, Apple’s stock will soon breach the $500 billion market cap. I expect it to happen after Apple launches the iPad 3 and iPhone 5.