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Walter Isaacson may expand Steve Jobs biography

The hefty 630-page biog of Apple's iconic co-founder is only a first draft, according to Isaacson, and could be expanded.

Joe Svetlik Reporter
Joe has been writing about consumer tech for nearly seven years now, but his liking for all things shiny goes back to the Gameboy he received aged eight (and that he still plays on at family gatherings, much to the annoyance of his parents). His pride and joy is an Infocus projector, whose 80-inch picture elevates movie nights to a whole new level.
Joe Svetlik
2 min read

It's already Amazon's best-selling print book of the year, as well as the best-selling new release in any category, which is pretty phenomenal given how late in the year it was released. And soon Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs could come in an expanded version.

Fortune reports Isaacson told an event in San Francisco he was considering rewriting the 630-page book. One possibility he's weighing up is adding extensive annotations filling in background information. Another is fleshing out the details surrounding Jobs' death -- the publication date was brought forward a month following Jobs' passing in October.

"This is the first or second draft," Isaacson said. "It's not the final draft."

A new version could shed some new light on Jobs' projects, one of which was a yacht he was designing for his family. (There's also that little matter of Apple's standalone TV set Jobs mentioned to Isaacson like it was no biggie.)

Isaacson also revealed Jobs wanted some input on the cover design, jokingly pretending to stop cooperating if he refused. "It took me about one-and-a-half seconds to say 'Sure!'" Isaacson said. "I mean this is one of the greatest design eyes of our time." Jobs' influence is evident, with the minimalist design and Apple font.

While Jobs opened up for the biography, he refused to discuss philanthropy with Isaacson, even ignoring a phone message from Bill Gates asking him to take the Giving Pledge, a program that encourages billionaires to give half their money to charity. Apple has been criticised for its lack of charity work in the past.

Jobs' biography soared to the top of UK bestseller lists, selling 37,000 copies in its first fives days on sale. Among the tidbits it revealed were that Jobs thought the iPhone antenna problem was a Google smear, that he wanted to wage thermonuclear war on Android, which he believed was stolen, and that he wanted to replace phone networks with his own Wi-Fi network. Moon on a stick.

Would you read an extended version of the biography? What would you like it to have more of? Let us know on our Facebook page, or in the comments below.