great book on life after Steve Jobs

really enjoyed listening to this book on life at Apple after Steve Jobs. quite an interesting insight to understand what happens after a great CEO depart to company especially unexpectedly would highly recommend you read this book

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Learn how Tim Cook made Apple what it is today

Having great product ideas and marketing people is one thing, but sustainable mega success requires method and process to operate and execute effectively.

The first half of this book provides the reader with plenty of context and backstory, especially where Cook is concerned.

As an IT industry analyst, I was aware of Cook’s background at IBM and Compaq, both Behemoths of the PC industry, but this book provides additional insight.

For those people interested in how Apple outperformed the competition, we get a glimpse of the tried and tested techniques employed by Cook: Lean/JIT, Six Sigma, and TOC (Theory of Constraints).

Plenty of lessons to learn from this book if you read in between the lines.

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1 person found this helpful

Interesting

Compelling story marred by the particular American accent of the narrator. There were some names I simply couldn't understand.

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Good info on post Jobs Apple but told in a sensationalist manner

The title hints at the tone of this book. It’s a good read (well read) and has lots of interest information on Apple after Jobs - Jony Ive and Tim Cook particularly. I trust it is all true, it would seem it. However the tone is a big sensationalist and snarky. Ive comes across as a prima donna more so than other writings I have read.

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Well paced and informative

A great explanation of the recent history of Apple hinged around Tim Cook and Jony Ive. The audio presenter also delivers in a very easy to listen style. I am very happy to recommend this book to anyone who want to understand how Apple survived the loss of Steve Jobs

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Good listen

I really enjoyed this story and learned a lot from it about Apple after Steve. Not just for the fans but a story about a industry that undergoes constant changes

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Really good sequel to Walter isaacsons Jobs biography

It helps that they have the same narrator - a stroke of genius by the author imo. Really good insight into the evolution of apple post Steve. Enjoyed this as an unofficial sequel to isaacsons biography. Would recommend

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Excellent

Great insight into one of the most influential technology companies in history. Well worth listening too!

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Informative and Entertaining

Walter Isaacson’s brilliant biography of Steve Jobs is one of the most compelling accounts of a driven man I’ve come across. At Apple, Jobs was totally focussed on producing innovative products of superb quality. He wasn’t too worried about how his abrasive nature impacted those he worked with, he just wanted everything to be done ‘right’ and had zero tolerance for anything less. So what would happen to Apple once its driving force had passed? Well, this book tells the story.

The book is really the tale of two men who were to lead the company going forward. Jony Ive had been the Chief Design Officer during the period Jobs introduced the iPod, iPhone and iPad. He and Steve had formed a close partnership, with Jobs dropping in on Ive and his team just about every day. The second figure is, of course, Tim Cook who took over as CEO of the company following the death of Jobs. Cook had formerly been the company’s Chief Operating Officer. If Jobs was authoritarian and a galvanizing force for the company then Cook was democratic in his approach and more focussed on the numbers than the minute details of the products. They were, in fact, chalk and cheese.

This book walks us through Steve’s time at Apple (a scene setter) before focussing thereafter on Ive and Cook. We learn a good deal about what shaped these men and what drove them on, or made them tick. They were very different people: Ive the aesthete and Cook the operations man, forever with his eye on the financial spreadsheet. The chemistry between the two never came close to that established between Ive and Jobs. Eventually Jony became burnt out and, craving more autonomy, left to set up a business of his own. The book points out that despite Cook’s very different style and focus (he eventually turned more towards generating income from services more so than new products) the company's income continued to grow under his leadership.

It’s all told as a story, based on hundreds of interviews with an army of unnamed colleagues, friends and acquaintances of key players. In fact, this is just the way I like to imbibe this sort of information, I loved it and found the whole book to be hugely informative and yet still entertaining, in equal measure. Highly recommended.

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2 people found this helpful

Informative and engaging

I thought this book was an excellent telling of the life inside Apple and the struggles faced post-Jobs, and how the biggest companies like Apple need to adapt to a world where cash cows like iPhones are starting to peak.
This book actually made me consider how different things are on the inside, and the success that the company achieved was in large part due to huge internal changes and how the design team had to face new realities of living under a different CEO, who largely stays out of the day-to-day of managing product development. A great account of life behind the veil of secrecy.

I would argue though this book doesn't really answer the question of how Apple 'lost its soul' though. There was no post-story analysis of why the author is arguing their narrative, rather simply telling the story of a post- Jobs company, and leaving the reader with an interesting inside scoop, but not having been convinced the company has lost its soul in my opinion.
There was one small part which was recounted by Ive, where he believed Apple had turned from a company focused on design first, to becoming a machine. This was probably the only part of the story I could interpret as losing its soul, but not much else. The leaps in technology 10 years ago was just greater per cycle, and had much more sex appeal than it does today.
Mobile phone hardware was novel and innovative then, whereas now we all have these devices and its harder to reinvent them as we have everything we need. Maybe you could argue that the iPhone has had it's day, and to keep going, Apple must find a new way to dominate, but to say its lost its soul without Steve... well you can never say, as the technological world we live in today isn't what it was in 2011.

But I think over-all, it was very thought provoking and I'd recommend to anyone who is interested in the story of Apple.

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