Rating: 
Summary: Comprehensive, with easy-to-read tables and charts
Review: I like this book. Considering Linzayer was not there, he does an admirable job of finding and telling the story. But he does get at least a few things wrong. To avoid disclosing the plot here, I have posted some corrections to the "Fallen Apple" chapter [online].
Rating: 
Summary: More marketing than journalism here
Review: In the author's relentlessly self-promoting Introduction to his own book, he writes, "If you read only one book about Apple, make it Apple Confidential." After the first chapter, I realized that if I finished this book, I had better make sure it *wasn't* the only book I read about Apple.(Note to No Starch Press: it's fine to have someone praise a book's "meticulous research" and "engaging format", but such praise tends to lose its credibility when it comes from the author himself.) I agree with other reviewers that the book is full of Apple lore that will interest Apple fans, and the style is readable and lively. However, the book doesn't hold together either as a narrative history or as an investigation into what makes Apple work or not work. The chapters are liberally sprinkled with sidebars, marginal quotations, timelines, illustrations, and so on, much in the style of the Mac magazine articles that the author writes. However, the same style doesn't work well for a full-length book, with perhaps the exception of the author's previous "Mac Bathroom Reader." (How many people really want to read ten pages' worth of code names for Apple projects? Another puzzling feature is the marginal quotations, which are often attributed to a speaker without any other indication of context, sometimes expressing dramatically different points of view than those being explored in the pages where they appear.) The resulting impression is that this isn't a complete history-just a collection of stories the author considers most interesting. The timelines that accompany each chapter are illustrative, but the author's thematic organization of the book results not only in the repetition noted by the Amazon reviewer but also in the fact that many of them overlap. It would be interesting to see the merged together, to get an impression of how the separate themes of the book come together in Apple's complete history. It's hard to tell what justifies the "Confidential" of the title, or the subtitle "The Real Story of Apple Computer, Inc". There's no way to tell what information comes from the twenty-some books the author cites in his bibliography and what may be due the dozens of individuals the author thanks in his acknowledgments. All in all, "Apple Confidential" seems be more a triumph of marketing than of journalism.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book on Apple Computer
Review: This is a far better book than Infinite Loop, and seems to be more carefully copy-edited. I found no blatant mistakes of fact and only one typo. It is a joy to read although I think that Infinite Loop gives more sense of the personalities, no matter how skewed by the author's biases
Rating:
Summary: 1# GREAT MUST-READ!!!!!!
Review: This book is for any true Mac fan. I loved it. It is fact filled, fun and enjoyable. I want read it again. You must read this book!!!!
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Summary: BUY THIS BOOK!
Review: This book is chock full of details that you may not have known about Apple. Whether you're looking to be the next Apple copycat, or you just want to start a business in some unrelated field, this is the book you should read to get mentally primed prior to siezing your market. Owen Linzmayer is a fine journalist, and a well-known authority on the company everyone loves to love (or hate, depending on who you've invested in). If I ever meet him at a party, I will slap him a nice high-five.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book for anyone wanting to know Apple history
Review: This is a great book for any Mac Freak who wants to know about Apple's history. However, If you already have Owen Linzmayer's "The Mac Bathroom Reader", save your money. It should be offered as an "upgrade". Some new info but don't spend your money
Rating: 
Summary: The best book ever written about Apple (I hope)
Review: If you read only one book about Apple, make it Apple Confidential. As a journalist covering Apple Computer since the early 1980s, I have read nearly everything ever written about the company. Rather than rehash old myths and repeat conventional wisdom, I've uncovered the truth about Apple by rummaging through forgotten archives, interviewing key players, and never taking anything at face value. Apple Confidential chronicles the best and worst of the company's first two decades. Follow Apple as it grows from upstart media darling, becomes an industry-leading powerhouse, falters under a series of disastrous executive decisions, takes its licks as technology whipping boy, and rebounds to profitability after the return of legendary founder Steve Jobs. No boring business case study, Apple Confidential is the only book* that tells the complete history of Apple through revealing stories, illustrations, and quotes, all backed by meticulous research and presented in an engaging format. I'm confident that you will find Apple Confidential as fascinating as it is factual. *Some material in Apple Confidential originally appeared in my previous book, The Mac Bathroom Reader, but has been significantly revised and completely updated with an entirely new layout.
Rating:
Summary: nice attention to details
Review: [A review of the 2nd EDITION.]
Apple has always garnered curiosity, as one of the most creative high tech companies in the world. This book tries to assuage that interest, updated to 2004. It covers in detail many aspects of the company's tumultuous history.
Some tidbits are mentioned that other books on Apple often omit. Like how along with Jobs and Wozniak, there was another co-founder, Wayne. But he sold his interest for around $2k, before Apple went public. Linzmayer estimates that had Wayne held his stock, it would have been worth $500 million in 2000. Ah, the what-ifs. He says that Wayne seemed genuinely unmiffed by this. But the reader must surely wonder otherwise. Like the story of the fifth Beatle. The divergent fates of Wayne, Jobs and Wozniak might be seen as a parable of Silicon Valley.
The book describes events up to 2003-2004. Just in time to include a discussion of the smash hit that is the iPod, and of ancillary packages like iTunes. While perhaps these are too recent to be easily evaluated, Linzmayer doesn't shirk from offering a timely analysis.
Rating:
Summary: very good
Review: this is a great book. i recomend this book to any mac lover or mac user.
Rating:
Summary: Comprehensive, up to date, but dry
Review: The book covers the entire history of Apple in amazing detail, as you would expect. There are chapters covering Wozniak and Jobs that are detailed and up to date. And there are timelines that make it easy to follow the progression of a number of aspects of Apple. This is particularly handy when following the hectic early nineties where Apple was releasing a different set of Macintoshes every couple of months.
However, unlike Cult of Mac, this book is far more dry in style than the company it documents. The point size of the content is almost unreadably small. And the layout is interesting, but not inspired. In particular the timelines which are in almost every chapter are drab.
Downsides aside, if you are a Mac enthusiast and you want to understand the history of the company there is no better source than this.
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