Inside Apple Computer

This is a lovely little book that I heartily recommend for anyone who's interested in innovation.

It's a detailed study of the innovation process at Apple Computer, which author Leander Kahney reverse engineered by talking to people – not including Steve Jobs, apparently – and reading through the press for clues about what's goes on inside the notoriously secretive company.

I found useful ideas on nearly every page, including discussions of how the iPod was designed, the role of marketing, the story behind Apple's phenomenally successful retail stores (which many retail observers incorrectly predicted would be a total failure), and useful discussions of many other topics.

There's also the amusing nugget that "Apple doesn't have a system to harness innovation," which is obviously completely untrue. It may just be Jobs' intuition (although I doubt it), but there is definitely a system there, clear stages in the conceptualization and development process, as well as a powerful guiding philosophy based on simplicity and elegance of design.

And unfortunately, while Kahney doesn't integrate all the information he collected into a complete model of the innovation process at Apple, I've been remixing the book's many insights into a case study, and I'd be happy to email it to you if you're interested.

Contact me at lmorris [at] innovationlabs [dot] com.