Knew the movie would be a bit thin, as it was said it'd end right at the iPod days. I was no fan of Jobs, but I always liked the story of how he turned the compant around when he came back. Apple was in serious trouble in those days. Hoping the Sorkin one will be a bit better, but hey - Pirates of Silicon Valley, just watch it, eh? It's on Vimeo and YouTube. That being said, the book you recommend is just great. Not an Apple fanboy here, but the Isaacson book is terrific. It's truly a great read even if you are the most vehement Apple watcher - though I recommend iWoz by Wozniak more if you're into more "general computer" reads. Covers a lot of the fun, renegade spirit that we all encountered during the early days of computing regardless of what platform you used. Woz's book is complete Computer Nerd Porn, but it's well work reading. The dude is an extremely talented and humble man.
I was always extremely interested in how things would have went if Apple had of bought the rights to BeOS versus buying NeXT out when it came time for them to update the Mac OS. Both were a diceroll, really. I loved BeOS, and still do. I've often been curious if Jean-Louis Gassee has had serious regrets about not selling it. I mean, he was asking $200 million and Apple offered $125 million. He stood his ground and Apple went with NeXT. I'm sure I'd like Apple computers more these days if Gassee had lowered his price, though I am not entirely sure things like the iPod would have come around had Apple not picked up NeXT and Jobs. Sculley did a hell of a lot of damage in the time he was there in regards to Apple's long term sustainability.
I used NeXTSTEP briefly back in the day and was never impressed with it bang for buck wise. They had a few NeXT boxes at the local university I fiddled with and really liked, until the computer lab manager mentioned they were $5000+ machines, heh.
None of 'em ever matched the uniqueness and sheer fun that the Amiga offered. Was very few machine then that could do it all, and Amiga was one of them. Gamers and productivity folks such as myself just adored them, and most still do.
