I gulped this book down. (This is the back cover of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson.) From the book:
Simplicity isn't just a visual style. It's not just minimalism or the absence of clutter. It involves digging through the depth of the complexity. To be truly simple, you have to go really deep. For example, to have no screws on something, you can end up having a product that is so convoluted and so complex. The better way is to go deeper with the simplicity, to understand everything about it and how it's manufactured. You have to deeply understand the essence of a product in order to be able to get rid of the parts that are not essential.
...Design was not just about what a product looked like on the surface. It had to reflect the product's essence. "In most people's vocabularies, design means veneer," Jobs told Fortune shortly after retaking the reins at Apple. "But to me, nothing could be further from the meaning of design. Design is the fundamental soul of a man-made creation that ends up expressing itself in successive outer layers."
Another part I remember from the first few pages:
Even though they were not fervent about their faith, Jobs's parents wanted him to have a religious upbringing, so they took him to the Lutheran church most Sundays. That came to an end when he was thirteen. In July 1968 Life magazine published a shocking cover showing a pair of starving children in Biafra. Jobs took it to Sunday school and confronted the church's pastor. "If I raise my finger, will God know which one I'm going to raise even before I do it?"
The pastor answered, "Yes, God knows everything."
Jobs then pulled out the Life cover and asked, "Well, does God know about this and what's going to happen to those children?"
"Steve, I know you don't understand, but yes, God knows about that."
Jobs announced that he didn't want to have anything to do with worshipping such a God, and he never went back to church.
