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I have just finished reading Adam Lashinsky's latest book,
Inside Apple, which takes readers behind the tightly-controlled scenes of Apple.
Within the book's 240 pages, Lashinsky paints a fascinating, entertaining, accessible (and, seemingly, tightly-edited) picture of life at the company with the help of some pretty revealing interviews with dozens of former Apple executives, staff and partners.
Lashinsky is well-connected enough to do this without needing to scrape any obvious barrels, being editor-at-large of
Fortune magazine (though he sure likes to remind the reader of Fortune's greatness at several points throughout), and it makes for a narrative that feels honest and unbiased.
The short book is stuffed full with as much fanboy fodder as armchair advice for the budding 20-something entrepreneur. Take the explanation of Apple's "iPod unboxing room" -- a room Lashinsky describes as containing hundreds of different types of box into which Apple was considering packaging iPods. A designer would sit in this room opening them, figuring out which unboxing experience customers would love the most. "One after another, the designer created and tested an endless series of arrows, colours, and tapes for a tiny tab designed to show the consumer where to pull back the invisible, full-bleed sticker adhered to the top of the clear iPod box," the book details. "Getting it just right was this particular designer's obsession."
The book also explains how employees are kept as much in the dark about new products as the public. For example, employees are only allowed in parts of Apple's campus that directly relate to something they are personally working on. It's not uncommon for an employee to have access to a room even his boss does not, Lashinsky documents, and it's equally uncommon for any employee to ask about why that is. What you're not told, you don't ask about.
New starters get the same "don't bother asking" treatment: you'll get a brand new Mac when you join Apple, but you'll have nobody come to set it up for you. You're expected to know how, and if you don't, you're probably in the wrong job.
Lashinsky places almost exclusive emphasis on the years after the Steve Jobs returned to Apple as CEO in 1997, rather than those that preceded it. This is a wise choice; nobody in 2012 could possibly be still scratching their heads wondering how the company pissed away its glory between 1985 and 1997. (If you are, Wikipedia is your friend here.)
So there are no stories about developing the Mac in 1984, or the Lisa a couple of years beforehand. But there's plenty about how the iPhone's launch was choreographed, about the extent Apple will go in order to get the best possible press coverage (including demanding an engineer come back off holiday when one prominent US tech reviewer said his Apple TV wasn't working), and the weeks Jobs and his team have worked to ensure public impressions of new products inspired desire.
The launch of iMovie HD in 2005 was a great example of this. As part of this product's launch with iLife, Apple produced a one-minute film, shot at an Apple employee's wedding. The intention was to show customers how iMovie could be used. But this expensive and tightly-produced film was scrapped just weeks before it was due to premiere at an Apple product launch. Steve Jobs decided it wasn't giving the right image, and demanded a new one was shot immediately -- and it had to feature another real wedding, and on a Hawaiian beach no less. The team responsible met the demand with just days to spare before it was scheduled to be shown to the world's media.
Perhaps the most timely aspect of Lashinsky's work is its focus on Apple's senior executives: the likes of Scott Forstall (iOS lead), Jonathan Ive (design lead) and of course new CEO Tim Cook.
This team has been responsible for much of Apple's success in recent years, and many get a mini-biography within Inside Apple. For a reader keen to gather insight into how Apple may develop without Steve Jobs, these chapters are essential reading.
Overall, Inside Apple will please anyone craving candid tales of life within the Cupertino HQ. It's short, carefully worded, and doesn't carry a single dull sentence.
Note: I bought the audiobook version, which runs for seven hours. It's read by the author and as well spoken as the text is written.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
