Do I look like I care WHAT you think?
Linux News: Business : Apple Pulls ‘For Dummies’ Books To Protest Jobs Biography — This is so pathetic. First Apple goes after the bloggers, now this.
Apple Computer, Inc. (Nasdaq: AAPL) Latest News about Apple, has pulled all books published by John Wiley & Sons in protest of an unauthorized biography of Apple CEO Steve Jobs about to be released by Wiley, according to a report by the San Jose Mercury News.
Books pulled include titles by New York Times columnist David Pogue, as well as authors and long-time Mac columnists Andy Ihnatko and Bob “Dr. Mac” LeVitus, both of whom write columns for The Mac Observer. Ihnatko and LeVitus confirmed to TMO that their works had been pulled.
At issue, according to Kitt Allan, an executive at Wiley, is an unauthorized biography of Steve Jobs titled iCon Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business (US$16.47, Amazon), penned by Jeffrey S. Young and William L.
Simon.
Steve Jobs makes Bill Gates look like Santa Clause. He’s simply not a nice man. Never has been. Why all the Mac Geeks love him is beyond me. The biography should be an interesting read. I imagine that the portrait it paints will be less than flattering at best.
Apple is starting to sound desperately paranoid. Maybe Steve Jobs has enough money that he just doesn’t care if Apple loses its dedicated base.
I imagine that Jobs has a restraining order against his mother, to keep her from talking about him while at the beauty shop!
That book now is going to sell like Crazy. Maybe that’s Steve’s plan.
I just ignore Apple. Every now and then they pop up with some sort of publicity. Go sue all the bloggers or something. Leave me out of the loop, I don’t care.
Chuckle! I didn’t know you were supposed to be a “nice man” to work in technology or even, perish the thought, retail. Are you supposed to be a nice guy, instead of a curmudgeon, John? I thought about this, overnight, and could only come up with a couple of reflections:
1. If you’re selling stuff, you get to choose what you do or don’t sell. Whatever the reason. One of my careers was in commerce, mostly as wholesale rep; but, I could always choose whose stuff I sold. I worked for a couple of companies where the owner was an absolute prick — some were nice guys.
What did that have to do with whether or not their products were useful or useless?
2. I never have realized why folks presume the ethics of business in ANY culture are supposed to represent some mythical standard akin to National Public Radio — all sides considered. That’s why I get less upset over Bill Gates’ business policies than some folks, I guess. The dude may be over-protective of his empire; but, he built it, along with damned few helpers at the start. And he gives a lot of the geedus away. He certainly does a better job of it than our elected officials. When he gets caught in an unapproved business practice, sometimes, he pays the penalty. Let me know when that happens to Congress or the White House.
3. Apple isn’t harming this publisher in any possible way. A couple hundred stores will stop selling their books. All the other booksellers in the country will pick up the slack and more. These folks understand what happens in the marketplace, They still have the right of boycott. And whether it’s a political act — like the bus boycott in Montgomery, AL — or the spooky religious dolts who boycott Proctor & Gamble because they think their products fund the Anti-Christ, boycotting products is a political act that, as far as I remember, hasn’t yet been made illegal. Most folks don’t consider it unethical.
You can even decide not to vote if you think the only choices suck!
So, if you owned all those retail stores, you wouldn’t choose to sell products from someone you disagree with. Fine. You would never change or vary inventory because you felt a vendor made decisions that weren’t in your interest. Fine.
I didn’t make my decision not to let REAL Player, for example, on my computers because that company’s politics are generally pro-Democrat. I didn’t make my decision to leave the world of Wintel because I thought Bill Gates management style hurts some folks’ feelings. I didn’t buy a Mac after 22 years of Wintel and predecessors because I thought that Steve Jobs was akin to Buddha. It was a logical continuation of my personal experiments with systems alternative to Windows. After I decided Linux wasn’t ready for prime time.
I’m happy as hell with OS X and the PowerPC processor. I don’t think I will vote for Steve Jobs for “Icon”. But, then, I didn’t think he was running for that office?
Robert Blanchette, all the mac-heads I know are as equally dogmatic, overly opinionated, and bull-headed as Jobs. They are “artists” and cannot be bothered with the opinions of mere mortals. In other words, Jobs is their alpha-male!
Ima,
I’d agree with you there. There’s a huge difference between PC “users” and Mac “enthusiasts”. PC geeks view the computer as merely a tool. To Mac geeks it’s a way of life, and they will excoriate anyone who crticizes their Mac or its creator. .
Capitalism is not for the weak of heart.
Does Walmart carry any books critical of their policies?
Does Dell? Does Nike?
Why the disgust that the “iCon” doesn’t want to help put money in his critic’s pocket?
To use “iCon” in a title of an unauthorized biography is morally suspect.
Sorry, my friend and benefactor. I respectfully must disagree here.
And Wiley is a very, let’s say, unusual publisher. Their editors think they are marketers. Maybe they are. But I don’t think they are very good marketers. I think I’m much better.
Wait until I unleash my Complete Idiot’s Guide to Complete Idiots.
The post is already up, as a lite appetizer, at my new blog, Blog Core Values.blogspot.com
Wiley. doesn’t that mean “crafty”?
But I could be wrong.