Audio Book Review: Creative Selection

A Front-Row Seat to Apple’s Creative Process

I recently listened to the audiobook version of Creative Selection by Ken Kocienda. The book is an insider's account of Apple's creative process during the golden years of Steve Jobs.

If you care about creating and shipping high quality software products, I think it’s an essential read/listen.

“Every day at Apple was like going to school, a design-focused, high-tech, product-creation university, an immersion program where the next exam was always around the corner. With that intensity came an insistence on doing things right,”

The Process without a Name

Creative Selection describes the process that was used to develop products and features such as the Safari web browser, the iPhone and the iPad.

It details the iterative development approach and the focus on using demos to gather feedback. In fact, the approach has been labelled “Demo Driven Development” by another former Apple-employee of that time, Andy Matuschak.

But “Creative Selection” goes deeper and wider than just talking about the use of demos, and draws up a more holistic view of the design and development approach.

“...if you’re expecting to read a handbook about the “Seven Elements That Made Apple Great,” I hope you’ll see that working in the Apple style is not a matter of following a checklist.”

One of the things I really appreciate about the book is how Kocienda captures the human experience of the development process - the doubts, the trial and error, the egos involved, the pressure, the relationships and even the missteps.

Kocienda’s narration on the audiobook is also excellent - clear and engaging.

If I had a major criticism of the book it’s the somewhat long and detailed explanations of the work involved on the iPhone keyboard. I found a lot of this quite dull, apart from the broader overview of the work - but this might be because I was consuming the book in audio form. This might be a lot more digestible and engaging if reading an actual book.

Final Thoughts

Creative Selection is a smart, thoughtful, and motivating account of what it takes to build great software products.

I’d recommend it to anyone who’s interested in product design or creative work. I think it’s one of those books I’ll be revisiting periodically, to make sure the insights and wisdom it captures stay fresh in my mind.