ty to gauge demand on any given model of Macintosh (invariably, they under-manufactured Macs that people clamored for and stuffed the pipeline with turkeys). In an astonishing feat of reportage, Carlton routinely gets the inside story behind literally dozens of corporate embarrassments, providing not only particulars but smoking guns of culpability.
In the process, we get to know some intriguing characters, particularly those who led this once charmed company from Cupertino Camelot to the brink of bankruptcy. Previous accounts had already fleshed out the imperious John Sculley, but only Carlton was able to get a full accounting of the reclusive, depressed Michael Spindler, under whose reign Apple really tanked. (Spindler, it is reported here, was prone to "stress attacks" during which he would literally hide under his desk
.) Carlton is also relentless in documenting the endgame under which Apple's leaders even screwed up the seemingly no-brainer task of selling the company off -- even seasoned followers of the antics in Cupertino will be amazed at how close the firm was to selling out to IBM or AT&T.
So why, in light of the splendid reporting, is this inside story of Apple such a humdrum tome? Mainly because it consistently fails to go beyond the reporting. Carlton, a
Wall Street Journal
correspondent tackling his first book project, is wonderful at giving us trees, but he doesn't really have a bead on the forest. Instead of providing us perspective on how any of this fits into a view he might have of the soul of Silicon Valley, or how Apple fits into the world at large, Carlton simply provides one painfully detailed horror story after the next, in dry prose loaded with facts and bereft of charm. As someone who covered Apple on a monthly basis during most of the last 15 years, I can attest that I am mo
re interested than most in learning of System 7's tardiness, or the lousy air-conditioning in some of the meeting rooms where discussions were held for the ill-fated IBM merger. I was even willing to hear of the personality quirks of executives like Jean-Louis Gassee. But as Carlton kept dumping his notebooks onto the page, the failed projects kept piling up, and the list of characters began to resemble the telephone book (Fred Forsythe... Ian Diery... Ed Stead... Roger Heinen... Dave Nagel.... Zzzzzzzzz). Eventually, even I wound up crying for mercy.
A less crucial but nonetheless annoying flaw is Carlton's clumsy insertion of himself as a character in the saga, trumpeting occasions when he interviewed Apple executives in the line of duty, or even asked questions at press conferences. However, he is less than candid regarding the one time that his reportorial efforts actually
did
become part of the story -- when in early 1996 the
Wall Street Journal
prominently --
and incorrectly -- reported that Sun Microsystems was almost certainly going to buy Apple. As a participant in this premature obituary -- it was even accompanied by a touching Walt Mossberg (another WSJ writer) eulogy for Apple -- Carlton should have been more frank about his own business blunder.
On the other hand, you can't blame the author for the final problem with
Apple:
The book's revelations have been rendered somewhat less relevant by Steve Jobs's triumphant reemergence as the company's would-be messiah. Though Carlton supplies a hastily written epilogue sketching recent events, it doesn't quite compensate for the damage this development does to what passes for a dramatic arc in the book: how great failures brought Apple to ground. Suddenly, Apple has a new story under way, one which promises, if not necessarily a happier ending, certainly a more compelling one than the dim fade-out with Gil Amelio, the guy Jobs muscled out. Once again, Carlton has declared
that's the game over before the warbling of the fat lady.
Steven Levy is a columnist for Newsweek and author of Hackers and Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, The Computer That Changed Everything.
Book Review: Apple Lives Despite Management Incompetence
