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Former Apple employee questions author Adam Lashinsky
Author and Fortune Magazine editor Adam Lashinsky's new book -- Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired - and Secretive - Company Really Works -- is in bookstores now and the author has embarked on a publicity tour to drum up sales. At the first stop on the tour at the LinkedIn headquarters in Mountain View, CA, Lashinsky had a fascinating exchange with a former Apple employee who asked the author "What creates the perfect Kool-Aid drinker?" The ex-employee notes that the book is quite accurate in its portrayal of the secrecy of the company and the rigorous interview process. While this is just a short (and irritatingly low volume) clip of the interview, you can watch the entire 50-minute talk emceed by LinkedIn executive editor Dan Roth here.
Inside Apple offers a quick read, corporate insights
I just finished Adam Lashinsky's "Inside Apple", now available for sale at most major vendors. It's a quick, easy read and clocks in at just over 200 pages with large, readable type. If you're looking for an exhaustive Tracy Kidder take on how Apple works and operates, this book isn't it. Instead, it offers a refreshing overview of Apple history and corporate culture from NeXT to iPhone. There's little here that's new or shocking, but it's all put together in a readable style. It's a perfect airplane book -- it will keep you entertained without requiring too much commitment. You'll find plenty of anecdotes, from how Apple developed its retail strategy to how it acquired Cisco's "iOS" moniker for its own use. You'll also learn about Apple's social structure (designers rule the world while the Mac teams have seen their status plummet) and its penny-pinching policies. There's a lot about Jobs and his quirks, both personal and business as well. What you don't get is a lot of deep analysis. I suspect that's because Apple's closed system didn't allow Lashinsky access to the people who could have provided those insights. There's a lot of back story and very little about the current state of affairs. Clearly, all his research had to be done from the outside, with ex-employees and those who have done business with the company. As the book points out, this secrecy has served Apple well. One section that really popped for me early in the book involved a discussion of Korean phone maker LG. Unlike Apple, they pre-announced a product and under-delivered it. It's a mistake that Apple, with its tight limits on information, would never have made. In the end, Lashinsky describes Apple's corporate culture and business successes, allowing each reader to draw the line from the cause to the effect. I found it an enjoyable read. If you are someone interested in Apple and its culture, you'll probably want to pick up a copy. Adam Lashinsky's Inside Apple book is available in the iTunes iBookstore for US$12.99 and from Amazon.
Adam Lashinsky's Inside Apple now available
I'm sure by now most of you have read Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs. If you're still hungry for more information on Apple, then you should pick up a copy of Adam Lashinsky's Inside Apple book. The book takes a corporate look at the inner workings of Apple. It introduces more of the business side of Steve Jobs and less of the personal side we saw in Isaacson's biography. Lashinsky interviewed Apple's management team and several board members as part of his research into the business magic that drives Apple's brand. Many of those recent tidbits about Apple's inner workings have come from the Inside Apple book. The story about Apple's dedicated packaging room was pulled from Lashinsky's book as well as the idea that Apple is neither a fun nor a lucrative place to work, unless you climb into upper level management. There's also the revelation that Jobs talked with Lytro CEO Ren Ng about his focus-less camera technology. Though the book will appeal to Apple fans wanting juicy details about Apple's corporate culture, Inside Apple is also meant to be a guide for business leaders looking to draw some leadership advice from a team many believe is the best in the business. Adam Lashinsky's Inside Apple book is available in the iTunes iBookstore for US$12.99 and from Amazon.
How Apple tests product packaging
We all know just how obsessive Apple is about the little things. Scott Forstall, Apple's VP of iOS software, has mentioned that he uses a photographer's loupe to make sure that every pixel on the iOS interface is "just right." Now an upcoming book opens the door on a secret room at Apple HQ where product packages are designed and tested. The book, Adam Lishinsky's Inside Apple, will be available in ebook and printed form tomorrow (January 25, 2012) and opens the kimono on the inner workings of the company. NetworkWorld had an early look at the book, and in one section Lishinsky described a packaging design room that is accessible to only a few people who have the proper security clearance. Apple wants the user experience to start when the consumer first picks up a product box in a store. Lashinsky discusses how the room was once filled with hundreds of iPod box prototypes. The reason they had so many prototypes? Apple wanted to determine exactly which box evoked the proper emotional response in a customer when they unboxed the product. In a quote from the book, Lashinsky notes that "One after another, the designer created and tested an endless series of arrows, colors, and tapes for a tiny tab designed to show the consumer where to pull back the invisible, full-bleed sticker adhered to the top of the clear iPod box. Getting it just right was this particular designer's obsession ... What's more, it wasn't just about one box. The tabs were placed so that when Apple's factory packed multiple boxes for shipping to retail stores, there was a natural negative space between the boxes that protected and preserved the tab." Apple's fixation on box design must work: I still have all of the boxes for my iOS devices and Macs. Most other product boxes end up in the recycle bin after a few days.
Inside Apple: On Apple's legendary secrecy
Fortune has published a lengthy excerpt from Adam Lashinsky's Inside Apple, a book scheduled to be released next week that provides an unprecedented look inside a company legendary for its secrecy. I'd encourage you to read the entire excerpt at Fortune, and buy the book when it comes out, but I've included a couple summarized items below to stoke your curiosity. Many new employees are hired into "dummy positions," and they don't know the details of their work until after their first day on the job. No one helps new employees set up their computers on Apple's network; anyone hired by Apple is simply assumed to have the knowledge to do it themselves. Plainclothes Apple security agents supposedly hang out at a bar/restaurant right off the Apple campus and listen for employees discussing company matters. No one knows if this is true or not, but just the rumor of it is enough to keep employees quiet. Apple has an unwritten hierarchy of "coolness" -- iOS engineers are at the top, with iOS hardware engineers coming in second. iTunes and other online services come next, with Mac employees now considered "second-rate" in the pecking order. Sales, HR, and customer service aren't considered even remotely cool at Apple (no offense, but are they anywhere?). According to Lashinsky, "Almost nobody describes working at Apple as being fun." Just reading through this brief excerpt of Inside Apple, the corporate culture at Cupertino honestly reminds me a lot of my time in the military. The extreme emphasis on secrecy, the "need to know" culture, the compartmentalizing of separate divisions, the emphasis on producing results (and not usually seeing tangible rewards for doing so)... it's all very uncomfortably familiar. I don't think I'd enjoy working at Apple. Inside Apple will be coming out next week. Quite a few of us at TUAW are interested in seeing what the book has to say about the company, and we'll have a review of the book itself up later on.
Inside Apple describes Scott Forstall as Apple's CEO-in-waiting
Apple CEO Tim Cook is an excellent business manager and responsible for much of the company's success in low-cost manufacturing and skinny inventories. But as we saw with Cook's first product announcement on October 4, he lacks a lot of the charisma that marked the Steve Jobs era. A new book is now saying that senior vice president Scott Forstall is the most likely person on the Apple executive team to become CEO after Cook's reign ends. The book by Adam Lashinsky, Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired -- and Secretive -- Company Really Works, is a deep dive inside of the operation of the company by a Fortune magazine columnist. The book is scheduled to be released next week (appropriately during Macworld | iWorld) and is based on scores of interviews with "collaborators, competitors, and former employees." Lashinsky notes that Forstall has many of the traits that would make him an excellent choice for the next CEO. He's young (currently 43), comfortable on stage, worked at Jobs' NeXT before moving to Apple, and shares the Jobs obsession with small details. One entrepreneur told Lashinsky that Forstall is "...a sharp, down-to-earth, and talented engineer, and a more-than-decent presenter. He's the total package." Of course, it could be years before Cook decides to step down, but in the meantime Forstall has time to hone his skills and build even more influence inside the company. Considering that he runs the highly-successful iOS software division, that influence is accumulating quickly.
Fortune's 'Inside Apple' article lands on Kindle Top 10 Bestseller list
I write for an Apple-centric site, so I know how much people love any information they can get about Apple. Even so, I never thought such information would land on Amazon's Kindle Bestseller list, but that's exactly what happened this week. Earlier this month, we told you about Adam Lashinsky's "Inside Apple" article for Fortune. In the article, Lashinsky relays several previously-untold Steve Jobs anecdotes and Apple company traditions. However, it was only available to subscribers of Fortune magazine and wasn't posted on the company's website. Non-subscribers could also buy the iPad edition of the magazine for US$4.99. However, in an interesting (and calculated) move, Fortune also decided to sell the article for $0.99 on the Kindle store. This resulted in a single article landing on the Top 10 Paid Bestseller list among books, like Eric Larson's In the Garden of Beasts and James Patterson's 10th Anniversary. Some people's take on this is that publishers have found a new revenue source for full-featured journalism stories. I think that's doubtful. No one is going to start paying per-article for news, no matter what the length of the article. Instead, I think this just shows how enamored our culture is with Apple products and Steve Jobs. Many people want any information they can get about Apple, and lots of them are willing to pay for it. No wonder Apple has become the most valuable brand in the world.
insideapple.apple.com?
The promotional email for the .Mac webmail refresh that went out over the weekend might have been a bit more revealing than we originally thought. Reader Harry noticed the address Apple used to send it was a bit different than the standard 'noreply@apple.com' (and honestly, I'm signed up for so much promo stuff these days I don't pay attention to who it's from with stuff like this anymore). The email was sent from an inside.apple.com domain, and following it redirects you to an apple.com/chatterbox 'we'll be back soon!' maintenance page - not the typical 'Looking for something at Apple?' page.Some googling revealed that others have seen this /chatterbox/ link used before, especially with images that are linked in newsletters, so this might be nothing more than some internal system for site and/or email and newsletter management. The 'we'll be back soon' bit simply makes it a little more interesting, as that sounds like it could actually be something public. In all likelihood it's nothing, and you can simply move along.
