TLDL; Jobs biography not fawning enough for Apple fanboys.
The complaints include that Isaacson used "spike it" in reference to killing a story, without explaining it, and that Isaacson wrote "ATM machine" in the book - which if not originally correct, is clearly in popular use today (see also "PIN number").
Clear, penetrating, insightful grammar criticism from Gruber.
1) Isaacson doesn't know anything about the tech industry.
2) Despite knowing he doesn't know anything about the industry he's writing about, he didn't even try to learn anything about it, and it shows.
3) Because of 1) and 2), Isaacson solely focuses on everyday stuff that any lay-person can relate to; this is all fine and well and the anecdotes add color to any biography, but when it is the sole focus of the biography of a man who is interesting precisely because of what he did in and to the tech industry, it entirely misses much of the point of what people find interesting about his life.
4) As the only guy who ever had direct access to Jobs, he should have used that privilege to dig into more of the reasoning of why Jobs did many of the things he did in the industry, not to write some People-magazine style fluffy personal interest story.
5) On a nitpickier level, what little technical detail it contains is often flat-out wrong, like the claim that OS X didn't use or contain any of the software developed at NeXT.
You cherry picked two minor quibbles – both of which the quibbler (John Siracusa, not Gruber) admitted were minor – which were part of a litany of complaints about the book. He has so many problems with it that he didn't even finish in a single sitting.
Ah, that's reassuring!
I was worried I would be relegated to the HN 'slow readers class' :)
I'll try and listen to it later, although I've never read the book. Reading stuff about people usually doesn't interest me, besides the obvious computer stuff is jobs really a particularly interesting guy? I know he did allot of drugs but so have about half the people I know socially.
If you want to listen to the podcast skip to 18:00. That’s when Siracusa starts with the book review. All the other stuff can be safely ignored if you are a first-time listener.
Perhaps it is not good form to comment on a podcast you didn't listen to...?
edit: As a response I take TLD[R|L] to mean "it was too long so I didn't bother", however I have also seen it (more recently) as a summary to one's own long text. I took the above comment to mean the former.
A "TLDR" is written by someone who HAS read something for the benefit of those who haven't. Thus, TLDL, when followed by an explanation (as in this case) is implied to be written by someone who HAS listened.
(Note that there is a difference between posting "TLDR." to mean "I have not read this" and posting a "TLDR:" or "TLDR;", which means "I have read this long thing, and am trying to be helpful." It is, understandably, a confusing distinction.)
tldr is 'too long, didn't listen', not 'too long, don't listen'. It means that the person didn't finish reading it, not that they're exhorting you do not read it. Some people even put tldr summaries at the end of their own longwinded passages
The person you are replying to was suggesting that since the book "is anything but fawning," as you say, the "fanboy" critics are upset. The OP, in other words, already knows what you are telling him; in fact it was the basis of his comment.
(I don't even necessarily agree with the OP, but there seems to be some rushed reading/lack of comprehension in this thread [not just you!] and I thought I'd correct this one.)
The book is very gossipy and does a decent job with Jobs messy personal life, but he completely failed to capture Jobs' and Apple's impact on the industry.
The complaints include that Isaacson used "spike it" in reference to killing a story, without explaining it, and that Isaacson wrote "ATM machine" in the book - which if not originally correct, is clearly in popular use today (see also "PIN number").
Clear, penetrating, insightful grammar criticism from Gruber.