Apple's rise as the world's largest company is a poorly chronicled piece of successful capitalism. The company effectively designs and integrates software and hardware.

It outsources the production of its devices while extracting every possible penny from suppliers. Apple's marketing and public-relations machine obtains billions of dollars of free publicity by merely clamming up.

Consumers willingly line up and are ready to pay a huge premium (up to 40-45 per cent in cases) for its ‘i' and ‘Mac' series. Finally, it sells its wares through its own stores, boosting margins further. For observers and participants in the technology industry, doing any one of these tasks well for a string of five years would count as incredible success.

Apple charted its road to success by checking all of the above boxes consistently over the last decade while pulling new products out of its hat effortlessly.

The driving force behind the trick is Steve Jobs, who headed Apple for close to 15 years (second stint) before succumbing to cancer last year. Efforts to explain Apple's success have almost always revolved around the man and his character.

In jobs' image

Adam Lashinsky's Inside Apple follows that tried and worn path. Lashinsky is a senior-editor-at-large for Fortune magazine, and Apple was the subject of a rather extensive piece of his reportage a few years ago.

He pieced together a highly cited profile of Apple's internal machinery after chatting with former employees, limited interaction with senior Apple staff and using their publicly available words.

This book is an extended profile of the company. Lashinsky chronicles Apple through the prism of the former CEO's attributed quirks.

Jobs, according to Lashinsky (and most others), was an authoritative, secretive, competitive, imaginative, bureaucracy-busting, visionary boss. Apple, by Lashinsky's account, embodies all those traits. The book looks to reinforce the popular narrative that Apple is a creature shaped in the mould of its demised founder's ego, aesthetics and sensibilities.

Rather early in the book, the author quotes Apple's current CEO Tim Cook: “That's part of the magic of Apple, and I don't want to let anybody know our magic because I don't want anyone copying it.” The ‘magic' Cook is referring to is Apple's vaunted work environment. Unlike the celebrated worker-friendly environments of Google and others with their free food and fancy gyms, Apple strikes one as austere. The unwritten code seems to follow the CIA's ‘on a need to know basis' tenet. In Apple, until you hit a certain level of authority, you stick to your knitting. If you're an interface designer or a software coder, you etch out a requisite detail in the interface or work on the piece of code assigned to you. Once you're done, you head home. New recruits are put through an often bizarre series of induction tasks to ensure they can be trusted.

A rarity yet

But, as Lashinsky observes, Apple remains one of the few companies that actually brings together hardware and software seamlessly. The 180-odd million iPhones and over 50 million and iPads are a testament to wily engineering. The integration and subsequent platform is an experience many, including Google and Microsoft, have tried to imitate with varying degrees of success.

But here's a question. An Apple device comes together as a result of Jony Ive's meticulous designs, Mansfield's etched hardware innards, Forstall's iOS software, Apple's various cloud services and Tim Cook's well-oiled machinery to put together these devices.

What Lashinsky and several others fail to answer is what makes Apple the chosen one to make this intricate plot work?

Yes, Apple is secretive and Cook and team are obviously doing a lot right. But, here again, you get the impression that Apple moves to the tune of a grand plan devised by Jobs, Cook and Co. Jobs himself held a vice-like grip on the board, as evidenced by the decision to axe Arthur Levitt's board candidature in the last minute for his stance on independent directors actually having a voice. But you never really get an idea of what Apple as a company goes through or how it makes the various parts of the hardware and software jigsaw fit so well.

Lashinsky, through chapters rather lamely titled after various ‘Jobsian' traits such as ‘Focus Obsessively,' ‘Stay Start-Up Hungry,' ‘Overwhelm Friends/Dominate Foes,' recounts tales of Apple's rise to the top of the consumer technology market over the past decade. The book is replete with anecdotes such as the rehearsed, consistent tone maintained by Apple's employees when it comes to describing products.

Apple's PR and marketing revolve around piquing curiosity through giving absolutely nothing away other than what they want the organisation or product to be projected as. If you're looking for a behind-the-scenes glimpse into what goes through the head of a Forstall, Cook or Ive, you're reading the wrong book. A culture of extreme ‘responsibility' basically holds the individual completely accountable for functions he is wrested with. Any leaks, however small, result in ‘swift termination.' Little wonder that Apple manages to run such a tight ship. Unlike the recent New York Times articles on Apple's manufacturing practices, Lashinsky rarely ruffles any of Apple's feathers.

What you come away with from reading Inside Apple is a concise version of the popular story. Entrepreneur Steve Jobs knew what you want. His taste was likely to meet the aesthetic needs of millions. His intensity and exacting nature manifested in Apple's work culture and products. He had an uncanny eye for talent.

Guys like Ive, Cook and Forstall have auras that may not match that of Jobs, but exceed those of their equivalents around. What this gives Apple is the mystique to keep you guessing what colour, shape, material the next iPhone or iPad will have. Once out, the products will be fawned over for months on end.

At the end of the day, Apple's methods are not difficult to grasp. But what the book does not conclusively answer is that with Steve Jobs gone, will Apple's methods that have paid off so far begin to look like sheer madness.

Inside Apple is a neat re-telling of the little that Apple wants us to know from the outside and a fleeting glimpse of all that we don't understand about Apple.

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