Creative Selection

A nice story about how software development happens at Apple. Very limited to his experience but still insightful and an interesting listen.

A wonderful insight into the creative process at Apple - I particularly enjoyed the anecdotes about internal demonstrations and the iterative design process in place.

In Russian, we have such a concept as verbal diarrhea. This dude needs a doctor and a good editor.

A great, fun read

I really enjoyed reading this book both as an engineer, a product designer and a CEO. This is a great “view from below” of how an engineer's day was at Apple working on the next great thing and this has some great lessons. One striking thing about the way Apple worked (and maybe still does) was by assigning vast amounts of time and ownership to a feature. Ken worked on the iOS keyboard for years, same with the Safari browser. That kind of luxury is largely gone in the internet-time world where sprints are 2-weeks long, there's a major launch every quarter and so on. But this is only how you can create really deep, well-thought our products. There's a great lesson here about that, and I highly recommend you read it.

I expected to get technical insights on product design process but most of the tips are industry standards nowadays, but in the book, they are presented with a generous amount of Apple fandom.
I couldn't finish the book, but if you are new to product design or loves Apple, go for it.

Overall this is a great book. You will especially enjoy this book if you are in the technology industry. Engineers, product management and designers, this book has something each of them will like.

Ken has written about his experiences in a very detailed way. I liked the fact that whenever there is a technical background required in any of his stories, Ken has spent a lot of effort in explaining the technical parts with nice analogies. Also, he has gone into detail about how the “demo” approach works wonders for product development.

Effectively this book is a 4.5/5.
I felt some parts of the book dragged on too much. It seemed that could be to match the publishers' minimum page requirements. Could have been an amazing 150 page book, but anyway, it's not a big deal.

I enjoyed the stories Ken told from the history of Apple. He had interesting insight into what made his projects successful. Some of his insight is helpful for others to learn from to make their projects successful, but mostly the book is an interesting glimpse into what made WebKit and iPhone so successful.

A glimpse inside the Steve Jobs era of design

Remember the popularity of the crackberry? You might remember being a bit fascinated and skeptical about typing on the new iPhone touchscreen keyboard.

We take it all for granted now. But there was a time when no one knew if it would work. This story is told by Ken, the software developer who was at the heart of the unknown outcome and the steps he went through with his team to make the software into the pervasive Interface control we all know and use everyday.

It's easy to take for granted now, but success wasn't assured. Apple had to overcome the risk of failing in the market like it did with the Newton. So the pressure was on and this team delivered, so how did they do it?

Ken walks us through how he made it, what it was like to demo it to Steve Jobs. What it was like to work at Apple during the company's highest moments and how his smart and humble team helped him get it done.

This book is for...
It's an interesting read if your at all interested in the mystery of Apple's top secret product creation process. I'm in the tech business myself, I imagine many of my peers in usability and product design enjoying this book.