Official iSteve biography gets 2012 release

A biography about Apple boss Steve Jobs will be published in 2012 and it has the all-important official seal of approval from the man himself.

Simon & Schuster, the publisher behind Walter Isaacson's iSteve: The Book of Jobs, confirmed that the author had been working on the biog since 2009.

In that time, Isaacson has interviewed Apple's CEO, his colleagues, his rivals and even some of Jobs's own family members, reports the Associated Press.

This is the first book about Jobs' life to have been authorised by the 56-year-old Apple co-founder, who received a life-saving liver transplant in early 2009.

In February last year, the New York Times reported that Jobs had agreed to an official biog that was being penned by the author, who had previously chronicled the lives of Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin. But the book's publisher has only now confirmed the deal.

Isaacson is a former editor of Time and ex-chairman and CEO of CNN.

"This is the perfect match of subject and author, and it is certain to be a landmark book about one of the world's greatest innovators," said Simon & Schuster publisher Jonathan Karp.

"Just as he did with Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, Walter Isaacson is telling a unique story of revolutionary genius."

In January this year, Jobs told staff at Apple that he was taking a "medical leave of absence". He did not reveal specifics about why he had been given time off from the Mac, iPhone and iPad maker, nor did he reveal when he was likely to return to Cupertino. ®