Fantastic story of control freakery from Apple in today's Independent.
The company has tried to veto an unofficial biography of Steve Jobs, even to the point of dropping other books by the author, Jeffrey Young (left), from being carried in Apple stores.
It is not exactly clear what in the book is so upsetting to Apple, although even the title is double-edged. iCon, Steve Jobs: The Greatest Second Act in the History of Business is expected to be published within the next few weeks and has been written by Jeffrey Young with William Simon. It does include passages about Mr Jobs' struggle and recovery from cancer and his divorce. He is notoriously secretive about his private life.
The trouble started after John Wiley dispatched a proof version of the book to Apple headquarters in Cupertino, California, with the simple request that the company survey it for any factual mistakes. According to Mr Young, the company's response was blunt. We don't like any of it and we demand that you cancel its publication.
But Wiley decided to stand behind the book and its author. It was then that other publications by Wiley began to vanish from the shelves of Apple's 104 retail outlets worldwide.
Whoops.
