book review - 'Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colourful Company'
Book title: Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World's Most Colourful Company
Author: Owen W. Linzmayer
ISBN: 1593270100
After reading the insufferable iWoz, I wanted a book about the early days of Apple that didn't suck. A friend gave me Apple Confidential 2.0 for my birthday, and it was just what the doctor ordered. It emphatically didn't suck.
This is a well-written account of Apple, from the early pre-Apple blue box days through the book's 2004 publication. Instead of taking a traditional day-by-day walk through the company's history, Linzmayer arranges his chapters by topic. This makes following the individual threads of Apple much easier. Extra quotes and notes are included in the margins, which add colour and depth to the story. Jef Raskin, who unabashedly called himself the father of the Macintosh, said that this book was the most accurate depiction of how the original Mac was created.
Each chapter mostly stands alone. Since each chapter covers only one topic (say, the development of the Newton), some of the chapters in the tumultuous 90s are a bit hard to follow if you're not already aware of certain pieces of Apple history. Many topics are referenced without a word of explanation, just an occasional pointer to the later chapter. The most glaring examples of this are the references to Be, the Star Trek project, and Copland.
The chapter about the Star Trek project is a great example of another problem of the book. It's too early to talk about more recent developments. Star Trek was the project started in 1992 to bring the Mac OS to Intel. According to this book, the project was shelved in 1993. Typing on a MacTel today, it's obvious that the project was resurrected. I know that I'm not alone in wondering how this actually came about.
Even with those complaints, I recommend the book. The early days of Apple are interesting indeed, and understanding them is critical to understanding Apple today.
Related links:
Amazon's page about this book
author's website
