Will Steve Jobs' Life Be An Open Book?

According to The New York Times, Jobs has decided to work with former Time Magazine Managing Editor Walter Isaacson on a tell-all book that will cover Jobs' childhood all the way up to his current, successful reign as Apple's leader. According to the report, Isaacson will receive a tour of Jobs' childhood home. This development marks a stunning turnaround for Jobs, who has previously refused to cooperate with any kind of biography of himself or the company he founded. Apple has often banned or blocked press outlets that attempted any behind-the-scenes stories on Apple or profiles of Jobs. And Jobs himself has taken offense to some of the previous Apple books and unauthorized biographies.

For example, the most recent Jobs' biography, titled "Icon: Steve Jobs, the Greatest Second Act in the History of Business" by Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon, upset Jobs so much that Apple pulled all material from the book's publisher, John Wiley & Son, from Apple Store shelves. Some of these books included popular manuals such as "The Mac OS X Bible."

Now that Jobs is cooperating, what can we expect in the new biography from Isaacson? It's highly unlikely, given Jobs' love of privacy and his ability to keep probing press at bay, that Apple's chief will offer a lot of details about his personal history, such as his adoption and his biological parents; his illegitimate daughter, whom he denied paternity of for two years, from a relationship in his early 20s; his affair with folk singer Joan Baez; or his recent health issues and liver transplant.

While Jobs is a celebrity, most readers will want to learn more about how Jobs returned to Apple and helped save the company from oblivion in the 1990s and get the inside track on how such things as the iPod and iPhone came to fruition. Surely, people of all types, from Mac fans and Mac haters, will be eager to read anecdotes related to Jobs' notoriously controlling and temperamental management style.

Isaacson has penned two best-selling biographies, but both subjects, Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, certainly couldn't throw up any road blocks. The Jobs biography, which will likely be published by Isaacson's publisher Simon & Schuster, will present a new challenge for the author.