Apple Confidential (The Real Story of Apple Computer, Inc.)
By Owen W. Linzmayer
No Starch Press
$17.95 (US), $27.95 (Canada)

Review by Gary Coyne

This entertaining, but frustrating book should at least come with a warning: Don't read this book near or around friends or loved ones. Else wise, they will be subjected to you quoting quotes from the book.

My favorite: "He was the only person I met who knew more about electronics than me." (Steve Jobs, explaining his initial fascination with Woz) "Steve didn't know very much about electronics." (Steve Wozniak).

[On a scholarly basis, I wish these quotes were dated and the source identified. Regrettably, they just float on the side of the pages, and beyond the amusement have little depth.]

There is no question that the book is entertaining to read, but that is strongly due to the subject matter. Reading about the history of Apple Computer is like driving past a wreak on the freeway--you really don't want to stare at the gruesome gore in front of you, but it's almost impossible not to slip in a little look. As you read this book, you wonder how Apple ever became a successful company and more so, how it ever remained a successful company. (You also read how it was at one time within five weeks of going under.) You are also left wondering how representative Apple is to other billion dollar companies, and if so whether the whole capitalist system is on the verge of tetter.

It is also obvious that Owen Linzmayer is no Steve Jobs fan and every opportunity to point out the many faults of Steve Jobs, he does. For example, in 1972 when Steve Jobs was working for Atari (pre-Apple days), he had the assignment to create the chip set for a game called Breakout. Steve called upon his friend Steve Wozniak to help him. After four all-nighters they had it as good as it would get in the short time they had. Woz was paid his share of $350 of the $700 that Jobs was to have received. In 1984, Woz learned that Jobs was actually paid $5000. This is certainly not the only story of actions by Jobs that would normally cause people around him to leave in droves. What the book fails to do is to more fully explore Jobs and explain why most people didn't leave him.

One would assume that a book on Apple would (mostly) be chronological. Well, it sort of is chronological, but suffers from the "cute" syndrome. That is, if Linzmayer has the choice of placing "bad career" decisions in the appropriate (chronological) order or a chapter called "What Were They Thinking" as the second chapter, well, you get the idea.

Thus, the book starts in the bedroom of Steve Jobs just before it moved into the proverbial garage. It also introduces us to Ronald Wayne who was one of the partners for Apple Computer for all of two weeks before he got cold feet at the prospect of losing all his startup funds (a potential second time for Ronald) in the risky new company.

The second chapter presents how Apple was not bought by HP, Atari, or Commodore, and how Apple passed on VisiCalc (later to become Lotus 1-2-3), and how Gates (yeah, Bill) could have extracted gobs of money to have Apple continue to use Microsoft Basic in the Apple II line but rather extended the contract solely in exchange for Apple to stop developing MacBasic (a much better product).

In the third chapter you learn about Jobs experiences with Atari mentioned above.

In the fourth chapter you see how Apple starts to be over its (business) head in "The Apple III Fiasco."

In the fifth chapter (I'll be stopping here 'cause I'm finally getting to my point) Linzmayer presents "Code Names Uncovered." To completely break up your reading pattern, any holds on chronology, and any sense of order, this chapter has the code names for all hardware (even keyboards and scanners), CPUs, Apple IIs, Macs, Performas, Power Macs, the whole kit and caboodle. [For example did you know that the code name for the Mac LC 520 was "Hook 25?"]

In short, the reason this book has no appendix is that all the material that should have been in the appendix was placed in the contents of the book.

When one quantifies history, that is to break it into small digestible chunks, one should try to keep full story lines whole. Non-connected events can be successfully separated.

For example, during the time of the American Civil War, elsewhere in the world, there was the emancipation of the Russian serfs, Dickens wrote "Great Expectations," Charles Garnier designed the Paris Opera House, Pasteur presented his germ theory of fermentation, and Krupp began arms production in Germany.* These events can easily be written about separately and never have a need to refer to one another. Yet, when one writes about the Civil War, it is difficult to separate Lincoln's inauguration as the 16th president, the Confederate states leaving the United States, the Confederate Army's success at Fort Sumpter, and other battles of the war without a tight linkage between all events.

In comparison, one learns in Apple Confidential that Jobs is forced out of Apple and finally leaves in 1985. Later one reads that after Amelio's resignation in 1997, Steve Jobs is running the company!?! At this point there is a general feeling that you missed something. When did he get back? You have to read later in the book to learn how he got back to Apple and how he was there to take over the company after Amelio was removed--the part you have just read.

As an attempt to overcome these inconsistencies, Linzmayer fills the book with time lines of everything, hardware, people, software, you name it. He also inserts "textual hyperlinks" directing the reader to other sections in the book. Unfortunately, the author is not consistent in placing these links, so the aforementioned curiosity about Jobs presence is not linked to the section in the book where Jobs is returned to Apple.

By the end of the book, Lynzmayer is either getting soft on Jobs or is rushing to get the book completed and doesn't have the time to seek out dirt on Jobs. (There still are various tails told about Jobs that makes your skin crawl, it's just that there are less of them.) The book ends with Jobs announcement at the 1999 MacWorld conference at San Francisco of Apple's $152 million profit. The implication is that it's all Jobs' doing. Jobs may have been instrumental in this transition, but for all the negative comments and actions previously presented, it's somewhat hard to understand how. As it is, it's a story book ending. But from all that went before, you know that there is a lot more to the story to come.

There is no doubt that Linzmayer has done an exemplarily job of research, and he is an engaging writer (he is a writer for MacAddict). Despite this, I found the structure of the book very frustrating and on occasion tedious.

*The Timetables of History, (c) 1946, 1963, Touchstone (Simon & Shuster) 1982 by Bernard Grun

August 28, 2008