iGod

iGod is a long-form critique by the Belarusian-born technology critic Evgeny Morozov, translated into Chinese by Yu Qian and digitally published in 2013 as part of the "East West Library · Lite" series. The book does not retell anecdotes from Steve Jobs's life—that task was already accomplished by Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs; Morozov asks a different question: people delight in calling Jobs a "philosopher of the 21st century," so what exactly is his philosophy, and where does it come from? The author's argument begins with the German Bauhaus and subsequent design ideas, pointing out that Apple products' pursuit of unity of function and form, of "purity" and "essence," is in fact a kind of industrial Platonism; Jonathan Ive and Jobs repeatedly emphasized "pure white," "essence," and "flawlessness," treating product form as the manifestation of an idea existing prior to the designer. At the same time, Jobs was extremely skilled at marketing, turning a company into an object of religious-style worship with himself as high priest. The book also discusses the influence of The Innovator's Dilemma on Jobs: precisely because he feared being dragged down by his own most successful product, he constantly manufactured internal competition and extended his desire for control to every link in the supply chain. Morozov further criticizes that when users habitually access the internet through closed apps rather than an open browser, the public and egalitarian values carried by the World Wide Web are weakened. iGod is short but a sharp work of demystification: after the halo is stripped away, Jobs remains great, but that greatness belongs to a mortal skilled in design and marketing, not to a god.