Creative Selection

By Ken Kocienda

Creative Selection - Ken Kocienda
  • Release Date: 2018-09-04
  • Genre: Industries & Professions
Score: 4
4
From 353 Ratings

Description

* WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER *

An insider's account of Apple's creative process during the golden years of Steve Jobs.


Hundreds of millions of people use Apple products every day; several thousand work on Apple's campus in Cupertino, California; but only a handful sit at the drawing board. Creative Selection recounts the life of one of the few who worked behind the scenes, a highly-respected software engineer who worked in the final years of the Steve Jobs era—the Golden Age of Apple.

Ken Kocienda offers an inside look at Apple’s creative process. For fifteen years, he was on the ground floor of the company as a specialist, directly responsible for experimenting with novel user interface concepts and writing powerful, easy-to-use software for products including the iPhone, the iPad, and the Safari web browser. His stories explain the symbiotic relationship between software and product development for those who have never dreamed of programming a computer, and reveal what it was like to work on the cutting edge of technology at one of the world's most admired companies.

Kocienda shares moments of struggle and success, crisis and collaboration, illuminating each with lessons learned over his Apple career. He introduces the essential elements of innovation—inspiration, collaboration, craft, diligence, decisiveness, taste, and empathy—and uses these as a lens through which to understand productive work culture.

An insider's tale of creativity and innovation at Apple, Creative Selection shows readers how a small group of people developed an evolutionary design model, and how they used this methodology to make groundbreaking and intuitive software which countless millions use every day.

Reviews

  • A wonderful read

    5
    By therev589
    This book is for a lot of different people. Apple fans of course, software enthusiasts, and tech-heads are the most obvious. But I also recommend this book to anyone interested in how to fuse two seemingly different elements to make a synergistic whole - in this case Ken elaborates on how Apple was able to intersect technology and the liberal arts but beyond that this book makes a case that all elements of life should be done with humanity, empathy, and a focus on who it is we’re trying to help. Such a wonderful book!
  • Essential Insights

    5
    By Trilogi62
    If you create anything, this book has something to teach you.
  • Great insight of Apple Engineering

    5
    By hhayurani
    This book shows internal process of collaboration between design and engineering in Apple, which responsible for birth of several great products in our lifetime. As an engineer, you can learn great approach to tackle such hard problems in creating such marvelous devices. The author really did a great job illustrating the challenge and how it’s feels to work with one of the greatest product owner of all time.
  • Insights into the nature of creativity

    5
    By waldhaus1
    I am something of a computer history junkie having read many books on the subject. The soul of a new machine remains my favorite. This book will have appeal to anyone who is a fan of apple devices. Just as the fifties and studies are often thought of as"rocking" decades, I believe we are now in a smartphone decade with a new kind of interpersonal connectivity. This book provides some insight as to how the foundation was laid. For me Kocienda's thoughts about creativity are important as well. I suspect we are moving from the era of the smartphone to the era of artificial intelligence. One test for Associates intelligence will be the ability to be creative. Kocienda illustrates three elements of creativity: 1) recognition of a problem to be solved; 2) assembly of potential solutions from the parts and ideas at hand, and 3) choosing the best solution based on standards that can be referred to as taste. I hope I am not misrepresenting his idea. It seems a way to move towards role based creativity of that isn't an oxymoron.
  • Changing How I Design

    5
    By Michael Critz
    This is the best book on design you’re not reading. This book, above all others, tells us not how the iPhone was made. But how it was made well.
  • A must-read for any Apple watcher

    5
    By jsauce15
    I mean Apple observer.
  • Fantastic

    5
    By Allewsive
    A book that holds interest all the way through. If you are one who is interested in software design, Apple, and how the industry exploded around the iPhone, then this book will grab you from the very first page.
  • valuable insights

    5
    By Bueno Felicitas
    Valuable insights into the creation of important Apple products, written with care and appreciation for people at the intersection of Liberal Arts and Technology.
  • Amazing and inslirong

    5
    By bpapa
    Even though I’ve been working as a software engineer for quite a number of years, this excellent book gave me plenty of new things to think about. Loved it.