Product Description

The inside story of how one of America's most beloved companies--Apple Computer--took off like a high-tech rocket--only to come crashing to Earth twenty years later.

No company in modern times has been as successful at capturing the public's imagination as Apple Computer. From its humble beginnings in a suburban garage, Apple sparked the personal computer revolution, and its products and founders--Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak--quickly became part of the American myth.

But something happened to Apple as it stumbled toward a premature middle age. For ten years, it lived off its past glory and its extraordinary products. Then, almost overnight, it collapsed in a two-year free fall.

How did Apple lose its way? Why did the world still care so deeply about a company that had lost its leadership position? Michael S. Malone, from the unique vantage point of having grown up with the company's founders, and having covered Apple and Silicon Valley for years, sets out to tell the gripping behind-the-scenes story--a story that is even zanier than the business world thought. In essence, Malone claims, with only a couple of incredible inventions (the Apple II and Macintosh), and backed by an arrogance matched only by its corporate ineptitude, Apple managed to create a multibillion-dollar house of cards. And, like a faulty program repeating itself in an infinite loop, Apple could never learn from its mistakes. The miracle was not that Apple went into free fall, but that it held up for so long.

Within the pages of Infinite Loop, we discover a bruising portrait of the megalomaniacal Steve Jobs and an incompetent John Sculley, as well as the kind of political backstabbings, stupid mistakes, and overweening egos more typical of a soap opera than a corporate history. Infinite Loop is almost as wild and unpredictable, as exhilarating and gut-wrenching, as the story of Apple itself.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #651663 in Books
• Published on: 1999-02-16
• Released on: 1999-02-16
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 608 pages

Amazon.com Review
Apple Computer has made for good copy over the years. From its beginnings in the garage owned by Steve Jobs's parents and the launch of the Macintosh to the regimes of John Scully and Gil Amelio, Apple's story is irresistible and has been captured in books such as The Little Kingdom by Michael Moritz, The Macintosh Way by Guy Kawasaki, Insanely Great by Steven Levy, and Apple by Jim Carlton. Now in Infinite Loop, Michael S. Malone offers what may be the best rendition yet of Apple's storied past.

Malone's account begins deep in the heart of Santa Clara Valley and the early lives of Apple's two founders, Jobs and Steve Wozniak. Malone seamlessly interlaces his accounts of the forces that shaped the two Steves--from the nascent electronics industry of the '60s and companies such as Sylvania and Hewlett Packard to Jobs's work at Atari and his repeated, and often deceitful, manipulation of his genius friend, the Woz. From these early beginnings, Malone takes the reader through the life of Apple Computer: its founding and launch of the Apple I, the return of Steve Jobs, the rollout of the iMac. In the end, Malone, a journalist who grew up in Silicon Valley and first covered Apple in 1979, writes that Apple was a company with lots of attitude but one that was bereft of character, and only when that fact was laid bare "did the essential hollowness of the enterprise stand exposed." Infinite Loop is a wonderfully written, even gripping, corporate biography that anyone who has fallen under Apple's spell will enjoy. Recommended. --Harry C. Edwards

From Publishers Weekly
Two years ago, this could have been the definitive book about why one of the world's most well-known brand names almost went out of business. But Apple has since bounced back, rendering someAbut not allAof Malone's analysis moot. (In fact, in his foreword, Malone admits that, having abandoned his Mac for a PC, he is now eyeing an Apple G3Athough he calls the iMac "Steve Jobs's triumph of image over reality.") Still, even given the bad timing, Malone presents a cogent account of how Apple ran into trouble. Malone, editor of the technology magazine, Forbes ASAP, grew up near Apple's founders, worked for the company for a time and has covered the firm since its inception. He unearths new information about the company's founders, Steven P. Jobs and Stephen Wozniak, and he puts them in a far less flattering light than the common hagiography, which presents the two as a pair of garage-bound tinkerers and idealists. The story he tells is how hubris, arrogance and IBM-sized egos prevented Apple's execs from diversifying the company's product line. Determined to write the definitive revisionist history of Apple, Malone takes special aim at the company's famous corporate culture: "Of all the great companies of recent memory, there is only one that seemed to have no character, but only an attitude, a style, a collection of mannerisms. It constructed a brilliant simulacrum of character, in a way a man without empathy or conscience can pretend to have those traits." Such sentences abound in a book thatAat least among Apple execs and the company's famously loyal customersAwill be greeted with something other than a smile.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Apple Computer arguably started the PC revolution in this country. To this day there is still a cultlike Apple following, but the company has fallen on hard times. Malone, editor of Forbes ASAP, presents an authoritative account of the rise and fall of Apple and its iconoclastic founders, Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak. Yes, truly creative things happened in the early years of Apple, and much has been written about the corporate Woodstock culture that spawned technological wonders like the Macintosh. Unfortunately, there was a darker side, and Malone captures it perfectly, revealing mercurial, arrogant leadership; betrayed friendships; the squandering of valuable resources; and corporate skulduggery. A high-tech soap opera? You bet. Malone takes the reader through 1998, focusing on Jobss reinvolvement and the introduction of Apples new iMac. Will the company survive? Malone is skeptical, but he freely admits his book may not be the last word. Highly recommended for public libraries and information technology collections.Richard S. Drezen, Washington Post News Research Ctr., Washington, DC
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Infinite Loop - definitely slanted, but comprehensive
As a devout Mac user, I've been interested in reading Infinite Loop since it was released. And boy is it good -- although it's definitely biased, and Malone certainly has an axe to grind with Steve Jobs and Apple.

The book is good for recounting the story of Apple -- from its rise out of Jobs' garage to his sacking, the dark ages of the mid nineties and the company's reemergence with the iMac. Of course, Malone is skeptical about the iMac's success, and tries to pass his book off as an eulogy when it's clear that Apple is currently in the midst of a resurgance.

More than anything, this is a corporate history, and is often mired down with business and technological details that might boggle the mind of the uninitiated. But if you're genuinely interested in Apple, the PC industry, and a fascinating story populated with colorful real-life characters (minus Gil Amelio of course), then you should check this book out.

good history of apple
A very readable history of Apple computer. I had heard that some of the views expressed in this book were slanted. I could get a sense of that. Even so, the history presented is clear and very interesting to read. Having followed Apple since the II, it was interesting to hear the complete and inside view of the company. There seemed to be more focus on the period up to the Mac. Some people are portrayed badly, but in the end everyone comes across as human, even Steve Jobs.

Informative and entertaining
Michael S. Malone's Infinite Loop: How The World's Most Insanely Great Computer Company Went Insane is the tale of a company that had it all - and blew it.

In the early days of personal computers, Apple had superior technology and customers that displayed fanatical product loyalty. Its young founders became instant archetypes of the bravado and creativity that made the U.S. high-tech industry the envy of the world. But Jobs and Wozniak achieved too much too early in life, and Apple, it seems, lost its magic.

From the unique vantage point of having grown up with Jobs and Wozniak, and having covered Apple for years as a journalist, Malone manages to tell a fascinating behind-the-scenes story of the world?s most insanely great company.

As a technophile, I very much enjoyed this book. As a Mac addict I couldn?t help wanting to put my hands over my eyes and scream as I read about some of the company?s great blunders.

No review would be complete without also noting that while Malone brings to this account authority and understanding of the big picture, his disgust with Steve Jobs at times oozes from the pages of this book. Still, Infinite Loop is a great read and the most comprehensive account of Apple Computer?s history. I also recommend The Little Kingdom by Michael Moritz (if you can find it).