Amazon.com: Customer reviews: Insanely Great: The Life and Times of Macintosh, the Computer that Changed Everything

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Edward Thilborn

Technical, but good.

Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2021

A bit technical, but good. If you are really into computers, then you should like this a lot.

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TUS Bob

Very Poor Editing

Reviewed in the United States on July 25, 2020

This is early Steven Levy, and while well-written, it is riddled with editing errors, including strange ASCII characters where smart quotes and diacritical marks should appear. How this made the cut for sale in the Kindle Store is beyond me.

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From the United States

jurogumo

Too little meat

Reviewed in the United States on February 15, 2014

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This is a pretty good overview of the earlier days of Apple, but I can't help but to feel that the real meat of this book is drawn from Folklore-dot-org (which, to be fair, is a common problem for books about Apple history) which leaves some significant holes in the story for some of the later history.

No in-depth discussion about System 7, too little insight into events like Taligent and Pink. Major events in Apple's history that don't really get covered well.

I'd definitely recommend this book if you're not already familiar with some of the early events in Apple's early history, but if you're already familiar you'll probably find yourself skimming.

3 people found this helpful

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C Corbett

Great content. HORRIBLE editing!

Reviewed in the United States on February 20, 2014

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As George Takei says, "Oh myyy." Every few paragraphs as I read along I'd be pulled out of my flow in the book by typographical, spelling, formatting or other inexcusable errors. Great Caesar's ghost, how hard is it to edit a book these days?!

3 people found this helpful

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mdekoning

Interesting book about the Macintosh

Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2014

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An extensive and interesting read about the birth of the Macintosh. I would recommend this book to everybody who is more interested in knowing why the Macintosh paved the way for a new generation of computing and why today, we (as Mac enthusiasts) still love the Mac in its current form.

My only issue with the book was, is that the chapters are quite long and can become a bit boring in the end, as the material is quite deep and technical. Nevertheless, still highly recommended.

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Debbie

Slow read

Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2014

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Read this book if you want to know everything about Macs and where they came from. I live everything apple , but this was a little too much info.

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2muchcoffee

Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2014

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Book was ok. Seller had to fix an issue.

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Joseph Pellerin

Insanely Great or just Half-Hearted?

Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 2006

Let me preface this review with the fact that I love Steven Levy. Well, his books anyhow. That said, this review is necessarily tainted by my experience with some of his other work. The curse of the author who pens a masterpiece (i.e. "Hackers" by Levy) is that everything that came before, and after, will be compared against said masterpiece. The case of "Insanely Great" is no different.

While I found this book to be an enjoyable read (I've read and re-read it more than once), and containing some decent detail about the origins of the original Macintosh, I also found it to be somewhat half-hearted in its presentation. Relative to "Hackers", of course.

I really got the sense that Levy was just plowing through the history, rather than lovingly exploring the details. While it's clear from the book that Levy truly loves the Mac, it's less clear that he loved the story of how it came to be. The writing lacked the obvious fascination and passion that he presents in "Hackers", and the breadth of research and intricate technical detail that he shows in "Artificial Life" and "Crytpo". In "Insanely Great", he just seems to be going through the motions of telling the story.

The most passionate and moving bits of writing in the book are when he is describing his love and respect for the machine. He clearly recognizes and conveys the absolute technical epiphany that Macintosh represented to the computer industry (heck, to the world). These bits are closely followed by some great (and well thought out) rants about the weaknesses of the machine - and the metaphorical medium it has spread across the world.

Finally, the book almost accidentally documents Levy's interesting relationship with Steve Jobs. Clearly any book about Macintosh will prominently feature the Mac Daddy (sorry, I had to use that term) - but the writing clearly shows that Levy was quite affected by Jobs. This is also not surprising, as Jobs' personality is as powerful and complicated as any great human being. In my opinion, the insight into Jobs that Levy offers - as well as the shadows of their relationship that are cast upon the walls of the book - offer a fresh view that other Mac/Apple histories might not offer.

5 people found this helpful

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Eduo

Informative yet needs updating

Reviewed in the United States on April 17, 1999

I found this book greatly enjoyable. I didn't really like the last third of it, which seems to drag along and is written at a very slow pace but the first two thirds were very enjoyable. Written in a dynamic tone it goes through very quickly and that could be the only real caveat I can find in it. It lasts 4 hours at the most. All in all I'd recommend it as a good story and a means to find out about how Apple came to be. I'd recommend it specially for people who also bought "The Mac Bathroom Reader" by Owen Linzmayer, for which this book could be a great introduction. If I had to change anything I'd update it (since it covers only until 1994 or so and misses some great moves Apple has pulled recently) and I'd update the look of it, since it looks very "passe".

One person found this helpful

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stevenuk@aol.com

Detailed book ruined by the authors self praise

Reviewed in the United States on June 20, 1998

This is a very good book with a good history of the mac and what its creation was all about. Pity that the author ruins the book by continously talking about how great he is and how everyone at apple thought he was brilliant.

2 people found this helpful

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From other countries

Celestino Rey López

Wrong non English characters

Reviewed in Spain on February 20, 2014

Verified Purchase

It is annoying how non English characters are displayed in my kindle.

Amazon should fix this and send an update.

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