p2pnet news view P2P:- Apple, “reportedly tried to block a lengthy, 4,000-word piece in yesterday’s Sunday Times newspaper,” says softpedia, going on:

“In the story … Apple and its iconic CEO are described as imperfect entities. Bryan Appleyard, respected journalist and author, reveals that Apple tried not once, but twice to halt the story, with no luck.”

But the story was published, and it’s masterful — long, full and carefully researched. And it’s certain to be echoed around the world in the foreseeable future any time Apple and  Steve ‘Mr DRM’ Jobs, come up.

So why did Jobs try to have it quashed?

Could it be because Apple is Jobs and Jobs is Apple?

It’s impossible to separate the one from the other and the Sunday Times story goes into graphic detail about just how desperately ill Steve Jobs was when he was claiming to be suffering from no more than a mere (relatively speaking) hormone imbalance — a nutritional problem.

“Philip Elmer-DeWitt, author of the Apple 2.0 blog at CNNmoney.com, e-mails me the grim details of his operation,” Applyard write. ‘He`s lost his gall-bladder, part of his stomach, part of his pancreas, the upper end of his small intestine and now has someone else`s liver, which probably means he`ll be on immunosuppressant drugs for the rest of his life’.”

Below are a few excerpts »»»

Apple Inc is worth around $140 billion. But is it worth anything without Jobs? It is a company formed around his personality and inspiration.

And »»»

[...] along with computers, iPhones and iPods, secrecy is one of Apple`s signature products. A cult of corporate omerta — the mafia code of silence — is ruthlessly enforced, with employees sacked for leaks and careless talk. Executives feed deliberate misinformation into one part of the company so that any leak can be traced back to its source. Workers on sensitive projects have to pass through many layers of security. Once at their desks or benches, they are monitored by cameras and they must cover up devices with black cloaks and turn on red warning lights when they are uncovered. The secrecy is beyond fastidious and is in fact insultingly petty and political, says one employee on the anonymous corporate reporting site Glassdoor.com, and often is an impediment to actually getting one`s work done.

And »»»

Some say another sign that Apple omerta has gone too far was the death of Sun Danyong, a 25-year-old employee of Foxconn, a Chinese manufacturer of Apple machines. He was given 16 prototypes of new iPhones. One disappeared. Facts beyond that get hazy, but it is clear that Sun committed suicide by jumping from a 12th-storey apartment. Internet babble says he killed himself because of the vanished prototype and, therefore, because of Apple`s obsessive secrecy.

Then there is the recent case of the exploding iPod in Liverpool. Ellie Stanborough`s iPod touch went up in a puff of smoke. Her father, Ken, complained, but Apple said he could only have a refund if he promised not to talk. He refused. They`re putting a restriction on myself, my daughter and Ellie`s mum not to say anything to anyone, said Ken. If we inadvertently did say anything they could take litigation against us. I thought that was absolutely appalling. This isn`t the freewheeling, good-times California lifestyle image the company likes to project. It is, rather, that of a much tougher and paranoid operation.

And »»»

Abused employees, if they survive, often find themselves praised to the heavens. They ride on what is know as the hero-asshole rollercoaster and they live inside the reality distortion field, Jobs`s uncanny ability to convince people that the utterly impossible is, in fact, entirely possible.

And »»»

Jobs is, in the words of the psychiatrist and scholar of leadership Michael Maccoby, a productive narcissist. To Jobs, the world is an epiphenomenon, a side effect of the existence of Steve. Or rather, it is a pyramid with Jobs at the top, a few bright people just beneath him, and then the rest of us — the bozos.

There’s more. Much more. And all of it is intriguing.

“All agree that Jobs made Apple into more than a company,” says Appleyard in the Sunday Times piece, adding:

“To the believers it is a great cause; to the sceptics it is more sinister. ‘Apple is less of a company and more like a cult,’ says Dan Lyons. ‘If the Church of Scientology went into consumer electronics it would be Apple.’ The status of the company is beyond argument. It is watched by bloggers who trawl through its patent applications and analyse its every move. ‘I swim through Apple newsfeeds like a whale swims through krill,’ says Elmer-DeWitt. Yet the company continues to surprise and amaze. I don`t want Jobs to die because my computers and iPhone are, indeed, ‘insanely great’ compared with the dismal competition but, more importantly, because he is an extraordinary figure. I don`t use the word ‘genius’ about businesspeople, but in Steve Jobs`s case I`m prepared to make an exception.

“Geniuses tend to see their own lives as universally significant, embodying the great currents of their age. They may not know they are doing this, but it is evident in their work. Everything about Jobs tells me this is how he sees his life, as the distillation of the high-tech revolution and of affluent, aspirational consumerism. He is, as Dan Lyons says, ‘the ultimate end-user’, both consumer and maker. He is one with the bozos and their gizmos. That`s who he is.”

But one day, Steve Jobs will die. And when he does, will it also be the death of Apple?

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softpedia – Apple Tries to Block Newspaper Story on Steve Jobs, August 17, 2009
nutritional problem – Steve Jobs admits to `hormone imbalance`, January 5, 2009
Sunday Times – Steve Jobs: The man who polished Apple, August 16, 2009

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