Here's What Steve Jobs' Biographer Thinks About The Apple Watch

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steve jobs book copy

Simon & Schuster

Isaacson used this image of Jobs (in black and white) for his Jobs biography.

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Steve Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson has a new book coming out called "The Innovators: How a Group of Hackers, Geniuses, and Geeks Created the Digital Revolution," which examines Jobs and other tech pioneers' influence on the information age we live in.

Isaacson spoke to Gizmodo about "The Innovators," and he was asked what he thought of the Apple Watch (and if he would buy one). Here's what he said:

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Yes. I think the Apple Watch is extraordinarily cool. Because it gets to the first part of your question, which is, "Where is this all heading?" I think the narrative of my book is that instead of pursuing the mirage of artificial intelligence, in which machines will think without us, what's been particularly successful and will be in the future is making even more intimate connections between ourselves and our machines - having them much more embedded into our lives.

Certainly when I can just tap on my watch and order up an Uber car, I think that's a leap of innovation that we would have found startling a decade ago. I think that the great innovation has been in making our technology more personal and more social.

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Isaacson spent a lot of time with Jobs as his official biographer. He's likely one of the few people outside of Apple who got a good taste of Jobs' personality.

It's also important to note that the Apple Watch is the first new product from Apple without any involvement from Jobs. The Apple Watch project began shortly after his death.

Isaacson seems to think the digital world's emphasis on developing artificial intelligence is misguided.

Instead, he thinks we should be pursuing technology that enables "intimate connections," like the Apple Watch. That also happens to be almost exactly the way Apple is pitching the Apple Watch.

The notion of having technology embedded into our lives a la Spike Jonze's "Her" sounds like a utopia, but it's clearly less of a pipe-dream than a work in progress.

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A few weeks ago, Apple CEO Tim Cook sat down with Charlie Rose for a wide-ranging interview wherein Rose asked Cook if he had any ideas about what comes after the internet.

Cook demurred, but it sounds like Isaacson has at least a rough idea of what the future holds.