Steve Jobs and iAds
His weirdly strong enthusiasm for iAds bothered me at the time and still does because he was more excited about people making ads than he’s ever been (publicly) about people making apps. For a guy that always professes to hold the interest of the customers to heart, that’s a strange position.
It’s questions like these that I would have hoped would be asked in the biography, but probably aren’t. However, I’m reserving further comments, and listening to others’, until I’ve finished reading it.
Secondly, I have no strong opinions about Coldplay, but I’ve not been pleased to read all the comments suggesting that it was somehow inappropriate or disappointing for Jobs to have enjoyed their music.
Jesper writes:
The thing that always freaked me out about the post-cancer Steve keynotes was that his very strongest enthusiasm always seemed to be reserved for the stat of the number of active credit cards on file, even more than for iAds. The credit card count moment was when his eyes, face, and voice would light up the brightest, far more than for the products. And I always found that weird and creepy.
"However, I’m reserving further comments, and listening to others’, until I’ve finished reading it."
Well, I don't think I'm tossing out any spoilers here, but I agree with Siracusa in spirit, but not on all the details. Best I can tell, Steve really changed his professional priorities post-cancer. And those changes were for the worse for Cupertino, its ecosystem, and its users, to my subjective POV. The bio doesn't touch on those changes in any way, shape, or form, and I think that's partly behind Siracusa's objections, though his criticism comes from a different and still valid place.
(Clip 'n' save. I'll await your comments until you finish catching up.)