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Publisher Wiley's Books Pulled from Apple Stores
getling writes "Looks like Steve Jobs is almost as unhappy about personal details being publicized as he is with Mac secrets. The book publisher Wiley, who is releasing a new unauthorized biography of Jobs has had its entire line of books banned from Apple stores as a result of their unhappiness with the content of the book. Wiley, publisher of the popular Dummies series of books, as well as the Bible series, is quite surprised, due to the fact that they view the book to show Jobs in a largely positive light ..."
That Amazon link looks like it contains a referrer - it has "ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14". That returns over 6000 hits on google, so either it's part of Amazon's system, or whoever provided it is making a lot of money off it. Here is a ref-free sanitized link: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0471 720836
"That's all he ever wanted out of life... was love. That's the tragedy of Charles Foster Kane. You see, he just didn't have any to give."
"...all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness..." yada yada
So isn't Apple/Steve sort of making the 'mercurial' and 'hot-tempered' point for the author? While the Woz has said that Jobs never treated him badly, he admitted that many people said they'd never work for Jobs again because of alleged mistreatment by Jobs (check out the mp3 of the HOPE keynote from 2004, in the Q&A, where an audience member asks about Jobs' behavior).
....He should step away from it....
Personally I'd be damn annoyed if people started publicising my illnesses, my past and my private life as well. For the second time no less! There's this myth that if you're a public figure you're not entitled to a private life. Bollocks.
Speech is (and IMHO ought to be!) free, and the publishers are well within their rights to go against a man's wishes about his biography. Steve is also well within his rights to tell the publishers that they'll not sell a damn thing in his bookstores from now on.
My sympathies are with the man whose life they're laying bare (irrespective of how they cast it) rather than the money-grabbing publishing house. "Quite surprised" is a laugh as well - they sent the proofs to Apple for approval and were asked to withhold publishing. WTF did they expect ?
One of the things that seems to have been lost along the route to our western democracy is that actions have consequences. I'm made up that the act of publishing this book will cause them financial pain - perhaps it'll be as annoying to them as it obviously is to Steve that they've gone ahead and published. Perhaps it'll make them think twice about doing the same thing again...
Before anyone gets on their high horse about the 'public's right to know', again, Bollocks. The public has a right to know if a public figure abuses his/her position - completely agree with that. On the other hand, this rather distasteful desire to simply nose into other peoples lives is a sad fact of the human condition today.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
A few days ago, my company's VP of Systems (read: head of IT) and I were walking back from lunch when we got on the subject of GarageBand and then Macintoshes. My good friend the VP stated that he absolutely loved the design of the new Mac Minis. The damn things were so functional, and yet so cheap. He'd setup several of these for relatives and they had all loved them. Anyway, as we were talking, we came to the conclusion that Steve Jobs may be an asshole, but at least he's a brilliant asshole!
;-)
A tribute.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Book of Job? .. Oops.
This is pure marketing genius. It is almost certain now that iCon will be a bestseller.
I wonder how much Wiley secretly paid apple to ban their books.
Guess he doesn't like people taking bites outta his Apple.
Publicity. Stunt.
I too have felt the cold finger of injustice.
While interesting,
:-(
- Apple is not the government (therefore, any ridiculous cries of censorship are just a wee tad bit overboard)
- Apple can do what it wants with its own corporate stores
- Yes, this may result in more copies of the book being sold, but consider that this is not an effort to "suppress" the book; it's merely a retaliatory move. Apple is under no obligation whatsover, implied or otherwise, to carry any publisher's books.
In short, business as usual and a BIG yawner:
"It's certainly not unprecedented for a company to protest publication of a book or article it finds unflattering.
IBM, for instance, staged a six-year advertising boycott of Fortune magazine after then-Chief Executive Louis V. Gerstner took exception to a 1997 cover story.
More recently, General Motors withdrew its ads from the Los Angeles Times in protest of an April 6 review of its Pontiac G6."
(From the Mercury News story)
Think what you want, but businesses shouldn't be forced to support other businesses they disagree with.
Further, it looks like there's a referrer in the submitter's amazon link.
Everytime Jobs regain power in the industry, he becomes an asshole again.
This book has always been one of the most comprehensive Macintosh references out there. Strange that Apple would pull it. Hrmmm...
http://www.walkingtaco.com
Maybe the famous "1984" commercial should now only be played in reverse.
get in the way of a good story.
.. Stealing all of Redmond's ideas ..
...
Jobs is not nice
mwahahahahahahahaha
I agree that these guys have a right to some privacy. Most interesting to me is that the comments here on /. are generally supportive so far. What a different thread it would be if this had been Bill Gates and Microsoft instead of Steve Jobs and Apple.
Did Wiley want to sell it in Apple stores (even that would have been, at most, a bit weird) ? With all respect to Apple's hardware and software products, such an action as banning the entire publishing house from stores sound absurdly inappropriate.
Check for yourself the sample chapter at least, to see whether it's such an outrageous book or not.
They'd have all their books banned from the Library of Congress.
I wonder if that's what Sen. Trist meant by "Nuclear Option"?
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
In the Paul Thurott article that calls Longhorn "not positive at all" (see slashdot posting a few hours ago), he also drops this bombshell: This one's bizarre, but we heard at lunch today that Apple is unhappy with the PowerPC production at IBM and will be switching to Intel-compatible cheaps this very year. Yeah, seriously.
Can anyone confirm or deny this for me? Am I just an idiot to be worried about this? PowerPC architecture is as much a reason to love Macs as OSX in my opinion.
Its a positive book!
Called, uh, iCon. It took me til just not to read that as Icon and not iCon. Maybe I am just stupid.
anybody here see "pirates of silicon valley" or whatever it was called, the story about the rise of Bill Gates & Steve Jobs ? I know it's just a movie and maybe it's not true in every detail but that one scene where Jobs is tossing out frisbees to all his minions on the beach was pretty spooky, 'Power hungry Megalomanic!' Is what I was thinking at the time.. seems I was right.
Wiley, publisher of the popular Dummies series of books, as well as the Bible series, is quite surprised, due to the fact that they view the book to show Jobs in a largely positive light ..."
Jobsies bad ass street cred is on the line.. Wiley should feel lucky he didnt get stabbed!
serenity now!
More relevant, though, is the dubious realm of unauthorized-while-they're-still-alive biography. I feel it belongs to the age of cheap celebrity. I'm not interested in Ashton Kuchar's remarkable life, thank you very much. Let's give people a chance to die before we start worshipping them.
Mr. Murphy, meet the Apple Legal Department. They know a thing or two about interpreting the law to my advantage.
...that this incident will probably give Apple and Steve Jobs more bad publicity than the book alone ever would have.
It even showed up on CNN's main page.
I think he's great. He pulled Apple out of the shitter. I'd rather work for steve than Bill. He is innovative and clever.
It's much.... snappier.
everyone seems to have missed one vital piece of information.. the title of the book is iCon.
nuff said.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
So does the title "iCon" supposed be a stylish version of the word icon or does it represent a certain attitude: "I conned you into buying a nice OS on some very expensive hardware to make me a happy SOB"? For some reason, I keep thinking "iCon" might be a better title for a Martha Stewart book.
Please, get it right: Real men program in hex.
So this is Wiley's account, which of course, should stimulate sales of the book.
Most publishers require that resellers take stock that's offered, since they don't want their authors individually censored. (For instance, your local magazine store may find it has to take Penthouse even though it only wants Car and Driver. )
It wouldn't surprise me to find that Jobs didn't want to take a title that can be read as calling him a "con man," and Wiley said, "It's all or nothing," knowing they don't sell volume through the Apple stores -- much cheaper to buy at Amazon -- and the publicity could only help. Of course, the story goes about Apple pulling the inventory, because that the story Wiley puts out. They carefully don't say what the negotiations were.
Two more:
Larry McVoy.
I think it would bother me a lot more if this meant that nobody got to see it. But Apple's economic power isn't that high. It still bothers me a little though.
I believe firmly in the freedom of individuals to engage in whatever contracts they find mutually beneficial. But, I'm not so sure about a big, powerful public corporation. I think as organizations get larger and more powerful, they become more government-like. You die just as surely whether you starve because nobody will sell you food or someone shoots you.
Need a Python, C++, Unix, Linux develop
Pissing off Major IT Corporations for Dummies. Character Assassination for Dummies. Making Bad Business Decisions for Dummies.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
I'm glad I don't work at Apple!
According to this, Steve Jobs owns 10.1 million shares (that figure may be pre-split) of Apple, or 1.2% of those outstanding. 10 million of those are restricted shares granted to him by Apple. Mr. Jobs had sold off all but one of his shares he received from the Next merger soon after it happened.
So he's nowhere near a "majority" owner, and is only the second largest individual shareholder; at least 10 institutions control a bigger stake than Leader, aka Steve Jobs.
What's the real story ?
There will be no issue of lawsuit against the author or Wiley, unless somehow there were libel statements made in the book. The truth can't be libel, by definition. Remember once you're a public figure, you have a more limited right to privacy than otherwise is the case (It's may not seem fair, but those who wish to have the spotlight shined upon them, will sometimes have to accept the spotlight when it's not welcome).
-Mark
"The bass, the rock, the mic, the treble. I like my coffee black, just like my metal" - Mindless Self Indulgence
This is _not_ a troll. It is a very sincere post questioning the readers of slashdot - it makes me wonder about the level of slashdot criticism.
If this were a MS story of Bill Gates doing the same, there would be the usual crazy outbreak of 'MS evil empire' type banter. However, because its Apple , the response is a mild - 'oh its ok, hes the Apple man hes allowed to'. Where is the balance? I think somewhere in between to be honest - Jobs and Gates are simply very ruthless business persons, and yet here at Slashdot there is a decided overflow towards Apple.
Is it the OSX thing - its not a free OS.. its not Open, so why the fanaticism, is it because its most Linux like? Windows has cygwin.. and I know a large number of IT specialists whom use it, but Windows is always rated as poor and irrevlevant (by the slashdot community), yet it is the most used desktop, by a rediculous majority? So where is the balance? Where is the even levelled intelligent arguments for both sides, that usually make for a great discussion?
The more I visit here the more I see very common attitudes:
- Apple and OSX rules, and every other platform/OS sux.
- MS are evil and Windows sux.. but Xbox rules (this one has always been a bit of a conundrum - this must imply MS are less evil than Sony?)..
- Sony are evil and PS2 is crap..
- Linux and all Unix's are above all the best OS's and everything else is crap..
- Any programming language that isnt C++ like or OO is crap..
The above is a mere sample of generalisations and these are the usual source of flame wars. But the important thing about these topics, is that taking an opposing stance usually means getting flamed, chastised, or ridiculed.. It is even more interesting that moderators dont try to keep the discussion balanced, Im sure it would result in much better (more interesting) discussions, and a lot less ' is crap, or it sux'.
This leads me to one fairly basic conclusion. Most of the people posting on Slashdot these days are young, easily impressionable males, that have little sense or understanding of two sides of a discussion and generally are very one-eyed about subjects with little or no flexibilty to gauge information as valid or relevant.
Does *this* look positive to you?
** A Sketch a Week **
http://www.sketchplease.com
"They're trying to forcefully strongarm the actions of another company. In this case it isn't even for corporate self-interests, but rather for someone's ego, which makes it all the more insidious. Customers should be aware of this sort of coercion (which I think is the whole reason why this is news)."
You mean like all those illegal P2Pers are "strong-arming" the content industry?
Hex is for weenies. Real men program in binary, with a toggle switch. ... while walking 20 miles uphill both ways in the snow.
Just another "DOJ fascist authoritarian totalitarian bootlicker" -- Zeio
Run for president...
R(k)
Considering how much people on Slashdot like to talk about their privacy being abused, along with their hatred of online marketing and data gathering, I do find it quite ironic that Slashdot did this without some sort of disclosure.
Or could it be that it's the slashdot user who embedded this and the story editors didn't notice?
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Smarter than Gates? Were that so, why is Jobs holding on to a puny 3% market share?
The real question to ask is who is more succesful?
On the one hand, Microsoft has large market share, but it's starting to fall because people are getting fed up with the product.
On the other hand, Apple has a small market share, and it's starting to climb because people are getting excited about the product.
On the one hand, Microsoft is hated by millions, loved by none, and begruddingly used by millions
On the other hand, Apple is loved by millions, viewed with apathy by most and used by people who love the product.
Where some companies spend their entire lives trying to produce the customer dedication and loyalty that accompanies Apple; Apple managed to take it all in one fell swoop, and took it again in 98.
Jobs is smarter than gates because Jobs has a program that people ejoy using and choose to use because they want to.
This is completely understandable, the cover of the book is pretty much saying I, Con Artist. No wonder Apple doesnt want a book on its shelves more or less calling its CEO a con man. I doubt the average passerby is going to get a positive impression from that sitting on the shelves while they're contemplating buying a $2,000 laptop from a company run by a "con."
Whatever "savvy" marketers decided to go with that title should be feeling the brunt of this decision. Last I checked Apple was a private company with no obligation to carry anything. If I told Microsoft press I was writing a bio of Gates and later told them it was going to be called "Convicted Monopolist" then I wouldnt be surprised if they dropped me.
At the end of the day Apple is a company just like any other. They'll act in a predictable fashion when it comes to protecting their property and image. Look at what one con artist has recently done to Wendy's restaurant. Bad image and rumors hurt business.
I am in awe of your standard for real manliness.
Looks like he's done pretty well for himself!
m l/
http://www.collegetrack.org/organization/board.ht
I was looking just for this book! Jobs for Dummies in 24 hours is just the one I need.
Actually, Jobs is widely viewed (read: by shareholders) - whether or not it's actually true - as the driving force behind Apple's recent successes. Therefore a smear/expose on Jobs that could tarnish his reputation could seem to Apple to be a threat to the corporation itself. In that respect, Jobs 'is' Apple.
In the same vein, Apple could be pandering to its golden boy to keep him happy, having weighed Jobs' ego as more important than allegations of bullying or censorship.
I don't know about you, but if someone wrote a book about me and titled it "iCon" I would be pretty offended. All those people going into the Apple store are immediately going to see Jobs' picture on the front and think he's a con artist. Doesn't exactly mesh with the honest Apple brand no matter what the pages say.
... would have been for Jobs to have a ghost-writer crank out "Why Wiley's Book Is Stupid" and sell it next to the book he hates.
--- Attorneys Assisting Citizen-Soldiers & Families -
iCon - You out of all your money
And the true freedom of speech says that speech has consequences. You have your freedom to publish, apple has their freedom to protest and not sell your shit.
everything is looking somewhat backwards in the 21st century. Dogs acting like cats, Governments moving towards '1984' surveillance, Microsoft opening dialog with the user community, and Apple inflicting the world with vicious lawyers.
Where's the love Steve? What happened to the Apple we loved in the mid-80's? That sweet rainbow colored logo that offered us all hope in the darkness.
No, Apple doesn't have to sell the book. But pulling the entire line is childish. And counter-productive. By going nuclear, Jobs has helped to give the title some buzz--the silver lining in every act of censorship. :-)
Damn, Apple's been getting somewhat evil lately.
a) iPods with built-in obsolescence
b) a fairly crappy recycling track record
c) suing 15 year old kids for blogging information their own employees or partners leaked.
d) Promoting Censorship within it's stores.
Whatever happened to Steve's Birkenstocks?
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
Stop it. Seriously. Stop with the "it's bad, but it's Apple, so everyone thinks it's okay" BS. It was old years ago, and is even older today. To reiterate, to those who keep bringing this up:
No.
Again: no.
Contrary to what some people seem to believe, your average high-karma Slashdot poster is not an idiot. Frankly, this is getting downright irritating. Bad things involving Apple keep occurring, so you people have to come out of the woodworks and say that people are only supporting Apple because they're Apple, when really, the vast majority of these 'Apple supporters' are just looking at the situation with circumspection. Got that? Just in case that was unclear, that means they're reading TFA, thinking about it, considering the situation and its angles, then replying, rather than giving a knee-jerk reaction like the 'If it were Microsoft...' people. It typically has nothing to do with the fact that it's Apple--we're dead serious when we say we'd support Microsoft/Gates if it were them instead of Apple/Jobs--and everything to do with the facts surrounding the situation.
Fact: Wiley was asked not to publish the book.
Fact: The biography was unauthorized, which is legal, but not really that morally okay, especially when the biography is about someone who's still alive.
Fact: Jobs could not have made Apple stop selling Wiley's products without support from a majority of the Board.
Fact: Apple is not preventing the publishing of the book, they are expressing objection to it by not selling the publisher's materials in their stores.
Fact: A corporation has the right to choose what it wants to sell, and whom to obtain their products from.
Fact: Again, you can walk into Borders or Barnes and Noble or whatever, or search Amazon.com, and still get Wiley's books, including the unauthorized biography of Jobs.
Was it perhaps rash of Apple to do this? Yeah, I think so. Was it a horrible, evil thing for Apple to do? Not really, no. I can understand Jobs and Apple's unhappiness with an unauthorized biography about Jobs. I'd not like someone writing about me and including intimate details without my permission, regardless of what kind of light I'd be put in. I couldn't stop them from doing it, but would it really be wrong of me to object to my fullest ability?
By reading this you acknowledge that you have read it.
Hate to say it, but selling something for more than you bought it for is the definition of good business, especially if it's exponentially higher. The market place sets the price of goods, regardless of what you can get them for. Most business people just don't like to talk about it because as soon as the secret's out they make less money.
This kinda story made me run and install Debian on my PowerBook. The recent stories really convinced me that its insane to trust my data to proprietary vendors especailly the ones run by such essentric characters as Steve and Larry.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
Why is this modded flamebait? Perhaps the moderator is unfamiliar with the history of Apple.
Apple I, Apple II, early Mac: Jobs at helm. Apple is profitable.
The Dark Ages: various people, not Jobs, at helm. Company bleeds cash. Apple nearly goes tits up. Repeatedly.
Purchase of NeXT, return of Steve Jobs: Apple is profitable.
It may not be causation, but it sure as heck suggests a correlation.
It's no secret that Jobs is a major league asshole. He's supposedly mellowed in years, but who knows. Read Hackers, The Second Coming of Steve Jobs, etc...
I thought he would be used to it by now though.
One of the reasons I stay away from Apple is because of him. He was never a programmer. In fact, the NeXT crew used to wonder if he ever even touched his computer. At least Gates hacked. He got lucky by knowing Wozniak and got what he wanted by being an asshole to others.
I won't touch an Apple computer until the board kicks him to the curb once again
Maybe he didn't like that they didn't say enough bad stuff about Microsoft stealing all of Apple's good ideas. That is, of course, what Microsoft did, since Microsoft is evil, vile, and wicked; since Microsoft sucks; and since Microsoft represents everything that mankind should avoid at all costs. Microsoft is bad, Apple is good, and Steve Jobs is right to be upset.
Also from Weiley...
Interesting idea, and quite possible.
"There is no such thing as bad publicity."
Jobs' removal of Wiley books will only greatly increase the demand for and readership of the book. Good for Wiley!
that makes me think your FTP site has the best high resolution porn. I just can't put my finger on it.
This is bad news for Apple, its customers (i.e. me and everyone else using a Mac or an iPod), and its shareholders.
No one likes an arrogant arsehole, and people like arrogant arseholes even less who act like mini dictators. It's not like Apple has a 90% marketshare in the computer market to play with, and investors shy away from erratic, irrational CEOs. I can understand him withdrawing the book on his life from the Apple store shelves, as he has the power to do that, but the Dumies series is extremely popular and it could make an enemy of extremely influential people like David Pogue, whose NYTimes tech articles get read by millions.
What worries me most about this is that it reminds me of the bat shit megalomanic attitude that Jobs had before he was canned from Apple the first time in 1985, trying to push others around.
Steve, if you or one of your slaves is reading this, take these words of advice: You, as a celebrity and CEO of a very trendy company, give away a certain amount of privacy as part of your status. You, like me and everyone else, are not an island. You depend on literally millions of other people for your success, from customers, to shareholders, to employees, to reviewers, to the press. Think about that before you fly into a rage like a spoilt five year old brat the next time.
IIRC, Microsoft owns Wiley. Maybe this could be an even better reason for Jobs to not support the book.
Jobs did well for himself!
Apple is not refusing to sell just this book; it is refusing to sell any of the large number of Mac books put out by this publisher. The decision will cost the shareholders money, as the Apple stores profited on each book sold, and they sold quite a few.
Now, it's not horrible and evil, so I'll agree with you there. It's merely massively stupid, and the press that this move has gotten will improve the book sales.
The Wiley people are a bunch of jerks anyway. Who cares? No one here is going to buy a dummies book anyway and Jobs is Jobs as normal.
Having read several unauthorized biographies (Kitty Kelley's Sinatra one for starters), I wouldn't paint them all with one brush. They aren't automatically wrong any more than they are automatically right.
Now, to JoeBuck, I think your assessment of this situation is probably wrong. This publicity will raise the sales of the Jobs biography, but apparently the Dummies books were pulled from the Apple stores too. I don't really believe the increase in sales of this biography will make up for the loss in Dummies book sales in Apple stores.
I have the book "Steve Jobs and the NeXT Big Thing" which was a previous unauthorized biography of Steve Jobs that didn't paint him in a good light. I know now for sure not to ask him to autograph it.
"Fact: The biography was unauthorized, which is legal, but not really that morally okay, especially when the biography is about someone who's still alive."
Curious logic there... so a biography has to be authorised, huh? Like, say, a newspaper story about someone has to be authorised? Or an encyclopedia entry? Do you realise that you'll just end up with self-serving crap if you do that, don't you?
How about this for a correction:
Fact: Jobs is a public figure, and his decisions affect large numbers of people. He is also charismatic and famous. An unauthorised biography of Jobs is therefore is a fair and reasonable thing, provided the content of the biography is obtained legally and without deception.
Hey, if the rubes will buy it. But the little fuckers will have to buy somewhere ELSE. I can understand.
First of all, we probably never would have heard anything about this book, especially the negative parts, if Apple had kept quiet and kept it on the shelves. How powerful is apple? Will this slap on the wrist be enough to make other publishing companies think twice before they insult Steve Jobs or the company? What about other forms of media? So they've sued thinksecret, a devoted fan site, why, because they're not real "journalists?" In America the freedom of the press protects anyone that decides to publish a pamphlet or newsletter, shouldn't a blog count? Of course there are limits to first amendment rights. Namely, libel is illegal, so is endangering the public (classic example: shouting "fire" in a public theater) and matters of national security are typically off limits (remember Geraldo was sent packing when he revealed troop locations on fox). Typically, "public figures" can be subjected to more scrutiny than an average citizen. However, the Supreme Court has ruled that everyone has a reasonable expectation of privacy, in your own home for example. Steve Jobs business practices don't necessarily strike me as a "private" matter though, especially since he is the CEO of a publicly traded company. In fact, to me, it seems very relevant. I know I'm rambling. But what I'm getting at here is that Apple has sort of been a dirty media player lately, and in my opinion, doing damage to the free press. They sued think secret, i recently read about a minor scandal in which a television reporter apparently accepted money to give apple positive reviews on TV (lots of loopholes, not necessarily illegal but probably a little unethical), and now this. That's three of the major medias... And with dominance in the portable music player market Apple may decide to use its muscle to control that medium in similar ways.
...is another man's "somewhat negative" I guess...
Because they *never* stiffed apple on developing processors!
Why the big fuss? You know we are all gonna read the book now so whatever you thought we shouldn't be reading, well, bummer pal, we're gonna read it anyway.
I mean if your afraid about people in an Apple store reading about that time you went to San Jose in womens undies, dude, they still talk about that night in the Blue Monkey...
Man, and if your worried about people getting wind of your DIU conviction, don't worry, even Gate's has his mug shot on the Net and look at celeb-worship he gets!
We know you stole everything from Xerox, Gate's told us so, and we know you earn a 1$ salary because you make 12 million a year in your stock options, that's in your company SEC filing for crying out loud!
And yes, it's obvious you got in the music business just 'cuz you wanted to meet Bono and the boys... don't worry, you really think Tony Blair WANTED to be prime minister? Heck no, he wanted to rub shoulders with Bono too! (and see the Pope..)
So dude, chill out, take things light so the heavy ain't that heavy, a'ight!
--------------
dude, I'm so wasted..aw.. my freakin' head...
Ba dum.
"Steve Jobs is a dick." Yeah, we already knew that. Why did the childish reaction surprise Wiley?
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Jobs couldn't have done a better job of promoting the book if he'd tried. So I'd say that he has been very supportive of it really.
For one thing, there is a major point you didn't mention in your poor sob story of oh so bullied Microsoft/Windows and how many user rate OSX good: The amount of Windows users here on Slashdot that regularly complain about Microsoft/Windows bashing.
.Net are often heavily supported as being good to code in by a decent amount of posters, for example.
And they do this even though articles on C# and
I wonder how the title will be translated into French... 'Con', loosely translated, means 'cunt'...
People will ask about them, then go to Barnes And Noble on the other side of the mall to buy one.
And when people ask, Apple can in general:-
- Be honest, and at best say they don't sell Wiley books and don't explain why
- Be less honest, and say that they withdrew Wiley books because (e.g.) they weren't up to Apple's standards.
- Lie outright, and say that Wiley went bankrupt because their books are rubbish, and would the customer like to buy one of the fine selection on the shelves.
In the first case, Apple lose. In the second case, if it happens more than a couple of times, Wiley can probably sue on the basis of defamation or something (IANAAmericanL). In the third case, Wiley would probably find it trivial to prove and win a case; the only question would be whether they gained more than they lost by pissing off Apple.
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).
...the Google fanboys.
... I hear the Bible is quite a big seller :)
Jobs or anyone like him isn't the type of chap you want to hang around the pub with. To reach this level you have to be dedicated, intense, focused, and somewhat single minded. This leads to tons of ego and an abrasive if not abusive character. This not just applies to business but government and academics as well. One also accumulates a lot of enemies on the way to the top.
Wiley are producing a book that sells, thereby increasing their value to their shareholders. This is not immoral, it is their fiduciary responsibility!
Even though that IS a load of bunk, if Steve doesn't like it, tough. If the book contains untruth, he's got a libel suit to remove this moral stain.
Morally, the situation is neutral until either
1) They give out incorrect libellous information
2) They get their information through illegal means.
That's it.
But most of them can speak English a tad better than your "rediculous" attempts.
As for the 'point' of your rant, no, nobody would slate MS for doing the same thing. Because MS wouldn't be stupid enough to get so petty as this.
I find it hillarious and sad at the same time that the nation most proud of their "freedoms" has no fucking clue what those freedom mean. I've seen "freedom of press", "freedom of speech" or "democracy" used for every possible bullshit (e.g., as some "right" to troll a site or cheat in an online game) _except_ the cases they actually cover.
Here's some free clue: "Freedom of Speech" and "Freedom of Press":
1. Are _only_ applicable to your dealing with the _government_. Not with private persons, not with corporations, not with anyone else.
I.e., pay attention, lemming: it means that the government can't ban you from saying that Kerry was a better candidate than Bush, or viceversa. It doesn't however mean that Bush, as a private citizen, can't sue your pants off if you publish libel about him. E.g., if you were to start writing that Bush rapes small babies, he could very well sue your pants off, and "freedom of speech" would have nothing to do with it.
2. It never said that anyone has to print, broadcast or help sell your bullshit. If anyone, _including_ the government, doesn't want to publish your speech, sell your book, or pay for public access to your blog, they _are_ entirely within their legal righst.
E.g., "freedom of press" does _not_ mean you can go to NYT and have them publish whatever you want published in their newspaper. As they say, "freedom of press" only applies to whoever owns the press.
E.g., if Apple doesn't want to sell another company's books, "free press" and "democracy" have exactly _nothing_ to do with it.
E.g., if an ISP (even a state owned one) decided to unilaterally block all porn sites, or even all opposition sites, they _are_ within their legal rights to do so. Bad PR move? Yes. Violating your sacred "freedom of speech" or "democracy"? Nope.
3. Additionally "democracy" _only_ means you get to vote for your government. Period. Nothing more. It doesn't mean you get a vote in what books Apple should sell. It does _not_ mean you should get a vote even in what your CEO or CIO decides.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
AFAIK, Apple (and also Steve Jobs) is the biggest IP terrorist there is. They just don't want anyone else earning anything through something that even remotely relates to them or don't want anyone to have it for free. So when Wiley, a big computer related books publisher, publishes a book about Jobs, Apple see a few dollars going to someone else and they want it for themselves instead so they ban *all* books of that publisher from their stores. It surprises me how noone else gets this point. What doesn't surprise me, though, is the fact that Apple zealots are now going to mod me down as troll.
jeeze!
Thanks mister "Insightful!" Your comments probably just got Slashdot banned from all of Apple's computer networks.
Nope, Wiley is owned by a Wiley family member and a whole bunch of stock holders.
Wiley owns the Dummies books, Frommers travel guides, Cliffsnotes, Webster's Dictionary, and a bunch of other things so I doubt this will make much of a difference.
As much as I like apple, that's kinda a silly thing to do. If it's all fact, what's the problem? I don't know sometimes with apple. But I know ALL the time with microsoft, which makes the difference.
http://www.6765656b.com it's the ~ for us geek's.
Technical book publishers and computer/software makers have a symbiotic relationship. More books about a particular computer/software increases sales of that computer, more sales of a particular computer sells more books about that computer. Apple needs book publishers to publish Apple computer/software reference books more than publishers need Apple to sell it's books in Apple stores.
Wiley is a top tier technical book publisher that publishes respected reference books and text books. For Apple products, Wiley publishes everything from the popular "Dummies" series to the standard "The Mac OS"X" Tiger Book" to the geeky "Bible" series. I believe that the presence of these books about how to use Apple computers/software enhances the prestige of Apple computers and increases the ability of people to use Apple computers; both of which result in increased Apple sales.
Dropping Wiley technical books from Apple stores because Wiley wrote an unauthorized biography about Jobs is one of the most arrogant things that I have ever heard.
There are probably more definitions for this but at least when I think of the meaning of "charisma", I think "personal magnetisim or charm".
;-)
I think that would be bit like saying the Emperor wanted Darth Vadar because of his charisma
"reality has a well-known liberal bias" - Steven Colbert
Lord knows when I need a book, the first place I go is The Apple Store...
Skippy
take your pick
j ob s
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=&q=steve+
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
I used to manage Software ETC stores - at one point our contract with IDG required us to carry _all_ of their books. Fine and dandy while it was "[insert computer term] for Dummies." Not so funny (or maybe it was) when they released "Sex for Dummies" and we were required to put it on the shelves.
All stores were instructed to shrinkwrap their copies of "Sex for Dummies". It took over 2 months to get the contract changed so we could send them back and not teach all our 12 year old customer base how to have dummy sex.
> Flames! Trolls! Unspported facts! That's what
> Slashdot is about, not mature responses like
> conceding points; the system isn't set up to
> handle that!
You're just saying that because you believe that VI is better than Emacs, GNU/Gentoo/Hurd is better than Fedora and Debian combined, GNUstep is better than KDE, X-window sucks an needs to be replaced by DirectX/framebuffer, and Mono is better than Java.
It's a proven fact, backed by a ton of solid anecdotal evidence and vague references to the Bible and Scientology that you're wrong.
> It's a proven fact, backed by a ton of solid
> anecdotal evidence and vague references to the
> Bible and Scientology that you're wrong.
Best. Sarcasm. Ever.
Apple, like most tech companies likes to whitewash their history to benefit their stockholders. I have had this conversation with many an Apple PR flack - they deny what has been previously printed about themselves even though it has been confirmed.
Long forgotten is Gil Amelio's account of what happened when Steve lead a forceful takeover of Apple - read Gil's book. I interviewed Gil - he still respects Steve but didn't like Steve's professional ethics.
Steve will probably write his own epitaph for his headstone (no really) because if anyone else writes it he'll probably sue them from the great beyond.
I just bought the book at Amazon. I wasn't going to buy it. But now I did.
You sound british. Whiney and british. I could go on and on how we saved your asses twice, but I won't because you are atypical of your countrymen.
Anyway, Stevie has built a whole company on a cult of personality.
Stevie is the person who is still the face of one of the most recognizable brands in the world.
Stevie has made a personal crusade and holy war of bits of silicon and plastic we call computers.
And then you have the gall to say "Gee, the man has a personal life, leave him alone". That's backwards. Look at the leading people in the industry...Gates, Wozniak, Ellison, McNealy... all have had their lives laid bare in multiple books.
But you think poor old Stevie gets a pass just because...wait for it... its Apple, and they're special. You're so wrong, you're off the scale of right and wrong here.
Does anyone else keep reading 'Wiley' as Noah Wiley?
...well... he's acting like a God-damned Republican!
The key word here is "largely". Anything short of "Messiah" is unacceptable. It's a well known fact that the standard Apple employee contact requires new hires to worship Steve and agree to "put no other gods before me".
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence or insanity but they've always worked for me" - HST
I mean, I wouldn't have otherwise known about it, nor been inclined to read the book. But seeing how Jobs is shitting himself over this one, I may very well run down to Barnes and Noble to pick it up.
There is no such thing as bad publicity.
Good job, Steven!
First rule of Steve Jobs Fight Club .... No one writes a dummies book about Steve Jobs Fight Club.
"It's difficult to meditate on amphetamines." - Joe Walsh
They aren't suing him at all, he's been subpeonaed by the court to provide information on his source for the stories.
I guess you need to have a story about the Bush administration doing stuff like this before the modders all flock and give 5 insightful ratings to posts like:
"yeah screw them man!"
If Apple had any sense they would of ignored it, now it will sell like mad because Apple dissed it.
I dunno. This sounds like something Jobs would do, with his ego. However, there's something about this that sorta rings false to me.
Jobs is a master showman and very media savvy. He HAS to know that his actions are going to cause a spike of interest in this book. The two companies have a long standing relationship.
My money is on this being a media stunt - all planned to increase sales of the book. I could be wrong, and we'll probably never know one way or another, but if Steve had done this because he was pissed off, I somehow think it would have been done quietly without press coverage so as to avoid giving Wiley the benefit of the press exposure.
Since when did the author of those ".. For Dummies" books become a biographer? Hahahaha.. right. Guess he must have read "Biography writing for Dummies" and thought he'd give it a go.
Today Steven Jobs has filed a temporary restraining order against his mother. The TRO claims that Jobs' mother kept talking about her son to friends and family, showed embarrassing pictures of him as a kid, and praised him for his success.
A spokesperson for Apple was quoted as saying, "Jobs' mom was always prone to talk about how proud she is of her son, but when she showed the friends in her knitting circle a picture of Steve when he was two years old using the toilet for the first time, her actions went from merely annoying to criminal."
This current action from Jobs has affected others in his family too. His wife of 14 years, Laurene Powell, has had her voice box surgically removed to avoid any chance of her offending her husband. Furthermore, his two children have been killed for talking about their dad in class.
More news on this story as it develops.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
If that is indeed the case, how come Apple didn't ban all the Apple and Mac related "Dummies" books from their stores before this? The simple fact is that Jobs is an egomaniacal control freak and the biography pissed him off. Your assertion is the stupidest thing I've ever heard. Supply some evidence or take off the tinfoil hat. And of course, you were careful enough to inoculate yourself against challenges by stating that people who disagree with you are "Apple zealots". FYI, not all Mac users are enamored of Jobs. I'm a diehard Mac user, and I love Apple's products, but that doesn't mean that I love Apple, or blindly approve of Apple's actions. They are a public corporation after all, not a charitable organization, and they should be subject to the same scrutiny as any other public company. I admire and respect Jobs' vision and leadership, but I wouldn't piss in his mouth if his teeth were on fire. I honestly have never liked the guy.
Sounds like Steve Jobs is trying to win the Spoiled Brat award for 2005... He's always taking away his trucks from the sandbox and leaving when people don't play his way.
to sound like another certain software company that everyone accuses of abusing their monopoly power..
And Apple IS a monopoly (given that x86-based PCs are considered to be their own market, according to Judge Jackson.. we can assume PPC-based PCs would also..)
They don't need to sell the Steve Jobs biography if they don't want to.. but to completely ban the publisher?
Add this tot he fact that Apple doesn't consider bloggers to be a part of the legitimate press.. and we get a pretty bad impression of them, wrt free speech..
I am the maverick of Slashdot
Shaking it's head in agreement with the same dopey blank stare as any other bobblehead.
One thing I love about these Slashdot bits on Jobs' bratty behavior are the legions of Apple/Jobs yes men that come out of the woodwork like cockroaches in an East Village walkup.
Just face facts; a publisher published a book that made Steve out to be petulant and capricious. His actions relative to the book merely demonstrate he's that and venegeful, too.
All in all it reminds me of the unrepentant socialists I know who like to downplay Stalin. "Perhaps he went to far, but you have to remember that he kept the nation together in spite of Nazi aggression." A little denial goes a long way...
Apple is under no obligation whatsover, implied or otherwise, to carry any publisher's books.....Think what you want, but businesses shouldn't be forced to support other businesses they disagree with.
Both I, Adam Smith and the Apple shareholders strongly disagree. Apple's in business to make money for the shareholders. It's not in business to defend Mr. Jobs personality or social standing. If Wiley books sell well at their stores and provide Apple with decent profits, they should be sold, and particularly so if they lead to sales of other core products ("Gee, making movies is easy in this book. I'll take a new Mac.")
Good ole Apple, the paragon of intellectual freedom, creativity, openness. They have mastered the style but their substance is limits, conformity, and closed systems.
There has been a new trend in the past 10 years or so of the celebrity CEO.
Jobs
Gates
Michael Dell
Jack Welch - when he was there
Page and Brin
These people are the company.
They may not own it on paper, however without these charismatic people there is no company, or rather there is just a shell of a company.
This is part of a new shift in the economy that was primed by computers and automation. Busines is becoming less and less capital intensive so the purpose of the stock market is waning.
From 1840 - 1980's, business was based on capital. You had to have a lot of money to create the production capacity. The capital markets were need ed because it required $50 million to build a factory.
So the old way required floating paper as a means of funding the business.
Now, the stock market is being used as a means of making businesses Rich.
An example is Google.
Google was already profitable before they went public. Google could have easily grown by reinvesting their profits.
That's a slow process that definitely VC firms do not like. So they force companies to go public so the VC firm can recoop their investment.
However, this whole scheme is a house of cards.
Think about it...
What happens when Bill Gates and Balmer decide to retire?
What happens to Apple when Jobs retires?
You heard it here first.
Laugh at my ignorance while I learn Rails - a Real ne
Anyone notice on Amazon that they suggest reading books on finding jobs if you're interested in reading about Steve Jobs? I understand why this happened but it's still pretty funny..
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Steve Jobs, you've just made it to the top of my "People whom I have absolutely no respect for" list. First off, banning books is evil. Secondly, it's stupid; you couldn't ask for worse publicity! Third, it's abusive, childish and ill-conceived, ill-mannered and low class. You've singlehandedly give the Mac / Apple community it's worse ever bitch slap. You sir, with all due respect, are an idiot. I can only hope that you're man enough to reconsider the folly of your actions and offer an apology immediately.
Sheesh, you've even gone and made Mr. Gates look good!
This wont be hurting Wiley's sales. They are one of the bigger publishers. When I buy a technical book, I dont normally go down the local apple store. It is a shame if people think that apple took a swipe at Wiley's sales. This will not be hurting apple's sales either. If you are in an area metropolitan enough to have an apple store, book stores will be around every corner. When you go into an apple store, you normally dont do so just to buy books or such. Apple stores get 99% of their revinue from parts, computers, and services (ala repairs).
Give Steve a break. He is one of the most pompus people in the world, but he has a rite to be. Think about it, this guy marketed one of the first functional home computers and got away with it. Because of the two man team that was Steve and Woz, almost everyone with a computer has heard of the Mac. Steve is one of the most brilliant company CEOs out there. He is apple. Without Steve, who would have marketed the apple? Mac would not be a family name as it is now.
For gods sake, Jobs felt that the book cast him in an unsightly light, or if he felt that it dug up some skeletons in his closet, let him be. In the end, what is done is done. Boycotting Mac wont do anything at all. The Mac fans who read this wont stop buying because of this.
TheDefenistrator
Call 1 800 275 2273
Select nothing. Wait until the voice prompts, and then select 0 or say operator.
Tell the operator you want to leave feedback. If you want, you can even give them your name and phone number, which creates a ticket that the PR people are forced to deal with.
simple yet effective, especially if lots of people do it.
San Francisco Photographers
The popular view is to portray Bill Gates as an arrogant, greedy bastard. I've always throught Steve Jobs won that title hands down.
I've certainly heard far more employee horror stories coming out of Apple than out of MS, but that's purely anecdotal.
Hes looked like a middle age slob now and then, between poor grooming and a weight issue. Then he comes back another time looking dapper.
I noticed this in the political biographies last year. Either the cover picture was smiling and confident or evil and dishevled.
I'd say whether or not its pointless depends on your morals.
For instance, I don't do business with Union Carbide or their customers because of how they treated the incident in Bhopal. They may not miss the little bit of money that didn't go their way but, I know that I'm giving them nothing.
I will buy Chinese goods. This is because the Americans being put out of work are the same ones who voted for Bush, and Bush supports big Chinese imports. So, I'm supporting the political position of those factory workers.
There are many people who will not buy fuel from Exon over the oil spill in Alaska. Does Exon miss their money, maybe not. Can those people sleep better at night? Absolutely.
Of course, if you don't give a **** then it doesn't matter. The issue is not about whether you $5 makes a change, its about where *you* chose to put that $5. Its about what you think is important. If you chose not to shop with a jerk, maybe he doesn't care. You'll know that *you* chose to do business with someone else.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
Steve Jobs is a big fat baby with way more money than he ever deserved. There. I said it.
And Jobs is only paid one dollar a year for his work at Apple according to my annual report as a shareholder.
Think I'll go out and buy that Bioniformatics, Biocomputing and Perl book from Wiley now.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
CEO's think they are some type of god and they are worry about their image being ruined by truth and reality.
I used to work for Oracle and then the book about Larry Ellison came out called "The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison: Inside Oracle Corporation : God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison" corporate communications sent out a email message about how bad the book was and it was a bunch of lies. However since I worked for them for over 15 years I have experinence most of those stories in that book is true but they wanted to keep Larry's image "clean".
No matter how much you cover up the truth, the truth will still come out.
I guess since Mr. Gates is dressed as a Borg, /. can Dress Mr. Jobs as an SA brownshirt.
There is no reset button in life; however, there are bonus levels.
Is there really anyone out there that would go into an Apple Store just to buy a Dummies book instead of going to Barnes and Noble and picking up that book or ordering it online? I know I wouldn't. I either go to an Apple Store to either look at the latest products firsthand or buy some product or accessory. Never have I known anyone to go to the Apple Store just for a book.
Two words: impulse buying. It's the reason that grocery stores have chocolate bars near the checkout: only a few people walk all the way to a grocery store to buy a chocolate bar. But, when they're already at the store, many people will buy one.
Similarly, very few people will walk to a computer store just to buy a book. But if they're already there, buying a computer, many people will be quite willing to buy a book to help them understand how to use the mysterious, expensive box they've just bought.
In short, people will buy on impulse things that they won't plan a trip for: the effort/reward curve changes once the sunk cost in time/energy of a trip to the store has been made.
--
AC
read parent carefully: "your a retard."
And what point would that be, exactly? Your inane theory that Apple "don't want anyone else earning anything through something that even remotely relates to them or don't want anyone to have it for free", and they "see a few dollars going to someone else and they want it for themselves instead so they ban *all* books of that publisher from their stores"? I countered your point with my first statement: if your theory is true, why didn't Apple ban all Mac-related volumes published by Wiley and others before this? The simple explanation is that Steve Jobs is an egomaniac who was angered by the publication of an unauthorized biography and responded in a disproportionate and infantile manner.
I suggest that you post facts instead of crackpot theories, but this being Slashdot, what are the odds?
It's morally neutral to publish an unauthorized biography if the person or their estate do not object. However, if there are objections from the person or their estate (more so the person than the estate) then it is indeed morally wrong to publish it, unless it reveals important information that the public needs to know. I'm not saying it should be illegal (though immoral, I do consider it protected speech unless it's libelous) I am merely saying that it is not moral. Ergo, the reaction is not surprising, nor is it unwarranted.
Well, it's illegal to speak or print lies about someone (slander and libel laws, respectively). Are you saying it's immoral to print truths about someone, if those truths are unpleasant, and the subject would rather they not be told? I disagree. I think the truth is important.
I further argue that any biography of any CEO automatically lies within in the public interest. It is the CEO's job to stand up, and say to prospective shareholders: "Trust me."
It's very much in the prospective shareholders interest to know the character of the man who asks for their trust. For a publicly traded company, like Apple, the "prospective shareholders" are the general public.
It's very important for the public to know the character of the CEO, as reflected by his past behaviours. If he broke his marriage vows, declared personal bankrupcy, and lied to his friends, those aspects of his character may well spill over into his professional life as well. A man who can't be trusted to keep promises in his private life is not a man to trust in business, either.
In short, I feel that, if anything, it would be slightly immoral not to publish such a work; given that it is fundamentally in the public interest to know the character of these inscrutable men to which so much of their trust is placed, especially since it can so easily be betrayed, with litle or no consequences to the CEO himself.
--
AC
Closer to ten cents, depending on how much ice and how stingy they are with the syrup dilution ratio control. Usually these drinks are about half ice (cost ~$0.01/cup in icemaker operation capital costs). Standard coke 5:1 syrup runs about $25ish for a 5 Gallon box (marginally cheaper for corporate bulk than non-chain restaurant purchase, made up for by my last purchase being four years of inflation ago), producing 3840 floz of soda, or 320 servings of 12floz to finish filling the cups, for a cost of about $0.08 per. Cups run about $0.02 each in 24 oz size. Total cost $0.11.
Still a heck of a markup for a $1.00 soda. "The perfect product costs a dime, sells for a dollar, and is both legal and addicting." Pretty durn close.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
As an artist, I tend to state my opinion rather matter of factly and then look for opposition to that opinion to instigate a discussion of, in this case, aesthetics and the 'why' behind them. Quite simply, I'm an inqusitive person and merely wanted a well-thought out answer to my 'why.'
I mean no fierce emotion or attack from my end. Just an explanation as to my thought process.
Have a nice day.
dennis
Fact corrections. Requests for revisions on parts they feel are substantially inacurate. Possibly even a request for a change in title-- I can see how "iCon" would offend Steve, even while the ambiguity of the title fits the ambiguity of his personal character. A request to stop the publication entirely is not only suprising, it's utterly ludicrous, unless Apple thinks there are grounds for a major libel suit against the publisher. Publishers are in the business to publish, and they usually pay advances to authors that once they recieve a manuscript, they can't get back except from the royalties on publication.
An act like this is the gesture of a (petty) tyrant, and as an Apple user makes me nervous about the Apple platform. Would Jobs respond as vindictively (to the limits of his ability) against a software publisher who offended him? Or perhaps against a music label?
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Way to reinforce ethnic stereotypes, Steve!
Have you forgotten Wil Wheaton's Just a Geek ?
This is bad news for Apple, its customers
Nonsense. So customers can't buy these books from Apple's online or retail stores - BFD. There are a lot of books Apple does not carry; did you think they were a bookstore? You want a computer book, you can still buy one there from Oreilly or some other publisher. If you must have a Dummies book, you can buy it from B&N like the 90% of the population that does not live within driving distance of an Apple retail store.
All he did was link to the cover, and that makes him a fan boy? Just how much cock do you suck in the average weekend?
This is _not_ a troll.
Oh yes it is.
If this were a MS story of Bill Gates
Blah blah blah retarded shitcanned "if Microsoft was doing this" which gets brought up EVERY SINGLE TIME blah blah blah.
It is a very sincere post questioning the readers of slashdot
By "sincere" you mean "kneejerk responce to a number of posts you didn't even bother to read". Try doing that and then drinking a nice, warm cup of STFU, as most of the posts fall either fall into "Jobs is an asshole" category, or at best "calling someone a Con isn't very flattering."
Most of the people posting on Slashdot these days are young, easily impressionable males, that have little sense or understanding of two sides of a discussion and generally are very one-eyed about subjects with little or no flexibilty to gauge information as valid or relevant.
Oh, don't worry, we have our share of arrogant, stuck up dicks as well. Thanks for making our quota for the day.
Just out of my own curiosity ... are you also one of those guys who complains that iTunes organizes your music for you? I ask because those guys are impossible for me to understand.
I have a friend that has around 300 gigabytes of MP3s and he insists on using CollectorzPro to keep them organized because it has much more flexible directory, tagging, and naming options than iTunes.
His biggest problem with iTunes is the time it takes to re-index his collection when he shuffles his directories around. Otherwise it's the fastest way for him to find a song.
Now, with a reasonable script, one probably could cut that time down significantly by re-using the ID3 tag information in the iTunes Catalog XML file. But a very nice feature enhancement would be for iTunes to do this on its own when re-indexing...
-Stu
Apple users arent about the hardware or the os, they just have this obsessive compulsion to defend and encourage steve jobs meglomaniac behavior. If he was to say tomorrow that all your info would be sent to the government, you fuckers would be lining up to blow him for it. Pathetic really.
Personally I'm not as anal about this but, a couple of examples:
- creating genre directories as your root folders in your music collection
- creating A-G, H-P, Q-Z sub directories because you have too many artists to have as a flat list
- naming the MP3's as "01 [Artist] Album - Song Title.mp3"
This is the kind of stuff he wants....
Anyway. If you just use iTunes to play & burn, it doesn't make sense. If you use external apps and need to use the filesystem, it does. Winamp launches faster when he wants to play specific tracks, for example.
-Stu