Benjamin franklin and albert einstein, this is the exclusive biography of steve jobs

CHAPTER FORTY
TO INFINITY
The Cloud, the Spaceship, and Beyond
The iPad 2
Even before the iPad went on sale, Jobs was thinking about what should be in the iPad 2. It needed 
front and back cameras—everyone knew that was coming—and he definitely wanted it to be 
thinner. But there was a peripheral issue that he focused on that most people hadn’t thought about: 
The cases that people used covered the beautiful lines of the iPad and detracted from the screen. 
They made fatter what should be thinner. They put a pedestrian cloak on a device that should be 
magical in all of its aspects.
Around that time he read an article about magnets, cut it out, and handed it to Jony Ive. The 
magnets had a cone of attraction that could be precisely focused. Perhaps they could be used to 
align a detachable cover. That way, it could snap onto the front of an iPad but not have to engulf 
the entire device. One of the guys in Ive’s group worked out how to make a detachable cover that 
could connect with a magnetic hinge. When you began to open it, the screen would pop to life like 
the face of a tickled baby, and then the cover could fold into a stand.
It was not high-tech; it was purely mechanical. But it was enchanting. It also was another 
example of Jobs’s desire for end-to-end integration: The cover and the iPad had been designed 
together so that the magnets and hinge all connected seamlessly. The iPad 2 would have many 
improvements, but this cheeky little cover, which most other CEOs would never have bothered 
with, was the one that would elicit the most smiles.
Because Jobs was on another medical leave, he was not expected to be at the launch of the iPad 
2, scheduled for March 2, 2011, in San Francisco. But when the invitations were sent out, he told 
me that I should try to be there. It was the usual scene: top Apple executives in the front row, Tim 
Cook eating energy bars, and the sound system blaring the appropriate Beatles songs, building up 
to “You Say You Want a Revolution” and “Here Comes the Sun.” Reed Jobs arrived at the last 
minute with two rather wide-eyed freshman dorm mates.
“We’ve been working on this product for a while, and I just didn’t want to miss today,” Jobs 
said as he ambled onstage looking scarily gaunt but with a jaunty smile. The crowd erupted in 
whoops, hollers, and a standing ovation.
He began his demo of the iPad 2 by showing off the new cover. “This time, the case and the 
product were designed together,” he explained. Then he moved on to address a criticism that had 
been rankling him because it had some merit: The original iPad had been better at consuming 
content than at creating it. So Apple had adapted its two best creative applications for the 
Macintosh, GarageBand and iMovie, and made powerful versions available for the iPad. Jobs 
showed how easy it was to compose and orchestrate a song, or put music and special effects into 
your home videos, and post or share such creations using the new iPad.
Once again he ended his presentation with the slide showing the intersection of Liberal Arts 
Street and Technology Street. And this time he gave one of the clearest expressions of his credo, 
that true creativity and simplicity come from integrating the whole widget—hardware and 
software, and for that matter content and covers and salesclerks—rather than allowing things to be 
open and fragmented, as happened in the world of Windows PCs and was now happening with 
Android devices:
It’s in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough. We believe that it’s technology married with 
the humanities that yields us the result that makes our heart sing. Nowhere is that more true than in 
these post-PC devices. Folks are rushing into this tablet market, and they’re looking at it as the next PC, 

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in which the hardware and the software are done by different companies. Our experience, and every 
bone in our body, says that is not the right approach. These are post-PC devices that need to be even 
more intuitive and easier to use than a PC, and where the software and the hardware and the applications 
need to be intertwined in an even more seamless way than they are on a PC. We think we have the right 
architecture not just in silicon, but in our organization, to build these kinds of products.
It was an architecture that was bred not just into the organization he had built, but into his own 
soul.
After the launch event, Jobs was energized. He came to the Four Seasons hotel to join me, his 
wife, and Reed, plus Reed’s two Stanford pals, for lunch. For a change he was eating, though still 
with some pickiness. He ordered fresh-squeezed juice, which he sent back three times, declaring 
that each new offering was from a bottle, and a pasta primavera, which he shoved away as 
inedible after one taste. But then he ate half of my crab Louie salad and ordered a full one for 
himself, followed by a bowl of ice cream. The indulgent hotel was even able to produce a glass of 
juice that finally met his standards.
At his house the following day he was still on a high. He was planning to fly to Kona Village 
the next day, alone, and I asked to see what he had put on his iPad 2 for the trip. There were three 
movies: