Steve Jobs bio out early for downloads; "60 Minutes" devotes entire episode to book

As every blog and news site everywhere has already reported (including Boing Boing), the definitive biography of the late Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson, is out today.

Actually, it's out today in paper, but was released yesterday for download via Amazon and iTunes. I'm willing to bet it breaks some sort of download sales record.

Last night's edition of the CBS news magazine 60 Minutes was devoted entirely, 100%, to stories on Jobs and his products.

As Mike Godwin noted on Twitter, Steve Kroft asks during the segment how Jobs, "who dropped LSD and marijuana," goes off to India and returns to become a businessman. LOL @ "dropping marijuana." The show sure does know their demo. At least they didn't say he smoked acid.

Snarking aside, the 60 Minutes pieces are worth watching. Here's part 1, here's part 2, and here's 3 (!), on iPad apps for autism. In other news this week, Obama says we're bringing troops home from Iraq, and Qaddafi's dead.

Related: Dan Lyons, former Fake Steve Jobs, on the backlash.

• [unit_1421]

  Another “wait and see” attitude gone awry. Now we have wrong sounding Muppets AND no Steve anymore. :(

• [CL114C0777498D]

  awesome final sentence :D

• [grandmapucker]

  As my wife said last night, “I wish they’d stop using that picture of him. Nobody does that.”

  • [Ian Wood]

    I do that. But usually not in front of cameras.

    It’s a beard thing.

• [Cynical]

  I’m really not trying to troll, but I’m genuinely confused by the love that a lot of BBers clearly have for Steve Jobs. Apple products under his guidance had excellent design and good functionality, yes, but Apple as an organisation also had a great hand in making DRM socially acceptable, freely indulged in anti-competitive business practices, and went out of their way to shut their customers out of their products, with closed-source operating systems, horrible bundled bloatware, proprietary designs and builds that made it impossible to fix or mod their products without being a certified engineer. Hardly embracing the maker ethos is it?

  • [Idon’t Know]

    Its because you don’t know what you are talking about.  Everything you said is wrong.
    Jobs pushed DRM free music with the music companies from the very beginning and they were the first to do it.There is no bloatware on Apple devices.  Apple is the only company that told the cell phone companies they would not do that and Apple has none of their on on their devices.What anti-competive practices?  Defending patents which they are bound by law to do for their shareholders?Closed source OS?  You are seriously out to lunch.  Apple provides a lot of open source including webkit which Google uses and the Darwin layer of OS X.  Plus many other things like Grand Central.  Google it.  Here, I’ll do it for you.http://www.apple.com/opensource/Proprietary designs and builds?  Like what?  I can do the same hardware mods to a Mac than I can to a PC.You’re not trying to troll?  Right.

    • [Cynical]

      Jobs pushed DRM-free music after 2009; before that iTunes used FairPlay, which was one of the first DRM systems out there. Jobs made a lot of noise about wanting to get rid of DRM but actively sued an awful lot of people who tried to circumvent it.  Jobs campaigned against DRM when it was imposed by the record labels, but opposed it when the French tried to force them to license their DRM to other people, because Job’s implementation of DRM was never about being anti-piracy, but in typical Apple fashion, having control over the end user. Detailed at length by our very own Mr Doctorow here: http://boingboing.net/2006/03/22/apples-hypocritical.html

      Your definition of bloatware may well be different to mine, but I think this sums it up pretty well:  “When you run the iTunes setup program, it unpacks six Windows Installer
      packages and a master setup program, which then installs nearly 300MB of
      program and support files, a kernel-mode CD/DVD-burning driver,
      multiple system services, and a bunch of browser plugins. It configures
      two “helper” programs to start automatically every time you start your
      PC, giving you no easy way to disable them. It installs a network
      service that many iTunes users don’t need and that has been associated
      with security and reliability issues.” http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/the-unofficial-guide-to-installing-itunes-10-without-bloatware/2390

      Anti competitive practices? For a start: http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/apple_accused_of_anticompetitive_practices_in_india_over_iphone/ , http://www.macnews.com/content/psystar-countersue-apple-anticompetitive-practices and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8155795.stm . That’s just a couple; everything Apple does as an organisation is about limiting end consumer choice and “locking in” customers to their products. Ever wondered why you can’t use your iphone on a different network without unlocking it first? Anti-competition.

      Ios is closed-source, Mac OS is closed source on intel devices; on Apple devices it’s open source because you’re already locked in as a consumer.  They may well provide open-source tech, but that doesn’t mean their core business model isn’t based around being as controlling as possible.

      So no, I’m not trying to troll, I’m just genuinely confused that people can a) love this company and b) be so blinded by that love that they fail to see that Apple as an organisation isn’t necessarily the friendly, starbucks-swilling, hippy organisation it portrays itself as.

• [mappo]

  I hate when I drop my marijuana. 

• [Nadreck]

  The segment on iPad Apps for Autism show how seriously Apple takes their motto “For those who think differently!”

• [Florian Braun]

  Ok, he was a businessman, a very successful one who helped to create some incredible, though imperfect, products and who used a very poignant ethos in his advertising.
  .
  But for Christ’s sake, he was not the world biggest humanitarian or smartest person. He did very little as an individual to invent anything truly new, he put together cutting edge technology into cool toys, can we give it a rest already? 
  Sad that he is dead and all but there are really tragic deaths that happen all the time, why does he get so much attention?Leave the man alone already, maybe  then we can focus on the thousands dying daily of aids or starvation, we can actually do something about that.

• [digi_owl]

  So the guy basically thought that rules and social conventions did not apply to him. Maybe we should be glad he only got involved in tech…

• [.. .__.]

  “Early Downloads” are ALWAYS available on Usenet for FREE.

  iYARR

• [pjcamp]

  Just say no.

• [Ant]

  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504803_162-20124378-10391709/what-did-steve-jobs-say-about-his-rivals/ as well!

• [cdh1971]

  I dropped marijuana once in college. 

  My lover and his pussy-cat got to it before I could even exhale!