Can Apple make more stuff in the USA?

One of the more topical discussions in Steve Jobs’ biography addresses Apple’s tendency to “employ” a disproportionately large number of workers in China. And that strategy has been fodder for debates on national news networks like CNN because of stubbornly high levels of unemployment in the U.S.

Let’s start with some recent statements by luminaries as politically diverse as Jim Hoffa, International Brotherhood of Teamsters President, Donald Trump, and CNN’s Piers Morgan.

Here’s what Hoffa said in a segment entitled “Fixing the Jobs Crisis” with CNN’s Candy Crowley on September 4. “Instead of investing here, everything they (Apple) do is in China…I think the president should challenge the patriotism of these American corporations.”

Piers Morgan made a similar statement this week to Donald Trump, who has been an advocate of making things in the U.S.

“More people were working for Apple in China than in America,” Morgan said when talking about Steve Jobs’ reign at Apple. Trump also had plenty to say about manufacturing things overseas, such as: “You must stop our jobs from leaving this country. We must start manufacturing our goods.”

Could Apple tap more U.S.-based chip manufacturers like this Globalfoundries plant in New York?

Steve Jobs Book Quotes: Genius or Insanity?

Steve Jobs was a man of contradictions. In Steve Jobs, a biography by Walter Isaacson, his groundbreaking ideas and spectacular technological breakthroughs run like a torrent through the book.

But at the same time, on almost every page are examples of his spectacular arrogance, odd habits, belligerent interactions and emotional breakdowns.

After reading the book, we gathered some of the memorable quotes from its author, Steve Jobs and those around him that illustrate his complex personality.

Let’s use these quotes as a jumping-off point to a discussion: What do you think? Was Steve Jobs a genius or was he insane? Or both? Or neither? MORE

Steve Jobs talks on tape about biological dad.

In his own words, Apple CEO Steve Jobs tells biographer Walter Isaacson he “didn’t like what I learned” about his biological father and asked at the time that they never meet. Hear these and many other revelations about Jobs’ complex life and personality on “60 Minutes,” Sunday, Oct. 23 at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7385529n#ixzz1bXKzXJzo

Steve Jobs Bio: Its 6 Most Surprising Reveals

Walter Isaacson’s biography of Steve Jobs doesn’t go on sale until Monday, but advanced copies have been delivered to the New York Times, Associated Press and Huffington Post, all of which have been dribbling out telling insights and factoids about Apple’s former CEO.

We’ll be getting our own copy of the book — simply titled Steve Jobs — on Monday. Until then, enjoy these surprising peeks into the life and psyche of the 21st century’s most famous, if not celebrated, CEO.

Steve Wanted to go ‘Thermonuclear’ on Android
Jobs was livid when HTC introduced an Android phone that shared a number of iPhone features in early 2010. An excerpt from the book:

“I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong,” Jobs said. “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.” He told Google’s Eric Schmidt, “I don’t want your money. If you offer me $5 billion, I won’t want it. I’ve got plenty of money. I want you to stop using our ideas in Android, that’s all I want.’’ [AP] MORE

Tributes for Steve Jobs, the man who tamed technology

The death yesterday of the technologist and inventor Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple, has roused a torrent of tributes from friends, colleagues, politicians and even his firm’s regular adversaries in the patent courts.

Jobs was an unstinting promoter of technology that is both easy and compelling to use, and famously intolerant of any product ideas that got in the way of that basic tenet. From the Macintosh computer to the iPod, iPhone and iPad, his insistence on usability at all costs has made Apple the watchword for friendly tech: as his Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak told the BBC.

“He knew what made sense in a product,” said Wozniak.

The White House concurs.

“By making computers personal and putting the internet in our pockets, he made the information revolution not only accessible but intuitive and fun,” US president Barack Obamasaid today.

Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, Jobs’s 1980s rival who later invested in Apple when it hit trouble, described working with him as “an insanely great honour”. “The world rarely sees someone who made such a profound impact.”

At movie studio Pixar, chief creative officer John Lasseter said: “Steve took a chance on us and believed in our crazy dream of computer-animated films; the one thing he always said was to simply, ‘Make it great’… He will forever be part of Pixar’s DNA.”

Another firm Jobs founded, Next Computer, released a powerful, multimedia-enabled UNIX workstation in 1990 – and it was the machine on which Tim Berners-Lee wrote the software behind the world wide web. In a web posting, Berners-Lee reveals just what a user-friendly machine the Next machine was. “A big thing Steve Jobs did for the world was to insist that computers could be usable rather than totally infuriating,” he says.

Tributes to Jobs continue to pour in – including one from Samsung, a firm with which Apple is currently embroiled in a bitter patent lawsuit.

Diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2004, Jobs had a liver transplant in 2009 – and in gratitude to the young donor, who had been killed in a motorbike accident, he afterwards urged that everyone should consider joining organ donor programmes.SRC