‘Becoming Steve Jobs’: Rare Insights into Steve Jobs’ Evolution and Personality

After an initial teaser post from John Gruber earlier this month and several leaks and excerpts, the new Steve Jobs biography Becoming Steve Jobs debuted yesterday, and we’ve had a chance to read through the book that offers a new look into the life of the Apple co-founder. While Walter Isaacson’s best-selling 2011 biography of Jobs was undertaken with Jobs’ authorization and participation, many close to him felt it didn’t offer an accurate reflection of his personality.

In the wake of that book’s debut, former Fortune and Wall Street Journal reporter Brent Schlender, who interviewed Jobs numerous times over the final 25 years of Jobs’ life, teamed up with former Fortune colleague and current Fast Company executive editor Rick Tetzeli for an alternative take on Jobs’ life. Notably, Schlender and Tetzeli were eventually able to obtain the cooperation of a number of key figures, including Tim Cook, Eddy Cue, Jony Ive, and Laurene Powell Jobs, to share their perspectives on Jobs.

The new book takes a mostly linear approach to telling the story of Jobs’ life, beginning with Apple’s early days. Much of that early content has been shared in previously published books and articles, but the story becomes more interesting once it reaches 1986, the year Schlender and Jobs first met for an interview when Jobs was in the early stages of building NeXT after having been ousted from Apple the year before.

Schlender’s many interviews and discussions with Jobs over the years give him a fairly rare perspective, and Schlender uses that perspective to argue the Jobs of his later years was a very different and more mature person than the perception developed in his brash younger years.

I can’t think of a businessman who grew and changed and matured more than Steve. Personal change is, of course, incremental. As all “grown-ups” come to understand, we wrestle with and learn how to manage our gifts and flaws over a lifetime. It’s an endless growth process. And yet it’s not as if we become wholly different people. Steve is a great object lesson in someone who masterfully improved his ability to make better use of his strengths and to effectively mitigate those aspects of his personality that got in the way of those strengths. His negative qualities didn’t go away, nor were they replaced by new good traits. But he learned how to manage himself, his own personal miasma of talents and rough edges. Most of them, anyway.

Tim Cook is one of the most high-profile figures to be interviewed for the book, and beyond the already revealed tidbit about Cook having offered Jobs a portion of his liver, Cook addressed the ways in which he saw Jobs change even since 1998 when Cook joined Apple. Read more

Gold Apple Watch Buyers to Get Special Purchasing Experience With 30 Minute Appointments

As of April 10, Apple will begin scheduling appointments in its retail stores for customers who are interested in trying on the Apple Watch before deciding to pre-order or make a purchase. We’ve known that most try-on appointments will be scheduled in 15-minute intervals to allow Apple employees to get to as many customers as possible, but it seems that customers who are interested in purchasing the Gold Apple Watch Edition will get some extra time with the device.

According to the International Business Times, two Apple Stores in Manhattan have confirmed that customers looking to spend upwards of $10,000 on an Apple Watch Edition will get 30 minute appointments with Apple employees instead of 15 minute appointments.

Given the high price of the Apple Watch Edition, it’s no surprise that employees plan to dedicate more time to those who plan to spend a lot of money, as it’s a bigger purchasing decision. In fact, the purchasing experience for a Gold Apple Watch may be quite a bit different from the experience purchasing a standard Apple Watch or an Apple Watch Sport, as Apple is said to have a dedicated group of employees that have undergone special training serving customers who are buying the Apple Watch Edition.

Apple employees, including those who will work with customers interested in the Gold Apple Watch, are being trained to offer fashion and styling advice to customers. 9to5Mac shared some details on this training yesterday, suggesting employees will use each customer’s fashion sense to make Apple Watch recommendations. Apple employees are being given example customers to train with, to help them develop the skills to make suggestions to customers.

Apple retail stores will be transformed overnight ahead of April 10, adding Apple Watch try-on stations that consist of glass-covered display tables that have the Apple Watch underneath. The Apple Watch Edition will only be available at select Apple Stores, and in limited quantities. Stores where the high-end watch will be sold are being outfitted with safes, where the devices will be kept at night to protect them from theft.

Apple wants the Apple Watch Edition buying experience to mirror other luxury shopping experiences, and in addition to selling the device in Apple retail locations through specially trained employees, Apple is also assembling pop up shops around the world in locations like the Wonder Room in Selfridges, a special section of the store that houses other high-end jewelry and watches. Other pop up shop locations include the Galeries Lafayette in Paris, and the Isetan Department Store in Tokyo.

Apple Watch pre-orders and try-on appointments begin on April 10, with the official launch coming later in the month, on April 24.