Macs, messy relationships and making millions: the story behind controversial biopic Steve Jobs

BIOGRAPHICAL dramas are tricky beasts.
On the one hand, when you’re making a film about a well-known public figure, there are only so many dramatic additions you can get away with before you lose all factual credibility.

On the other, you need enough tension to ensure the film works at all.

Danny Boyle’s 2015 film Steve Jobs treads a fine line between the two.

As a tautly plotted character study it’s a near-masterpiece, but as a factual biography, opinion is divided.

However, when you’re dealing with someone as extraordinary as Steve Jobs (played by Michael Fassbender), perhaps a little artistic licence is OK. Although his true story is in itself remarkable, to say the least.

Written by Aaron Sorkin, who also penned The Social Network, the film centres around three key moments in Jobs’ career – each before the launch of a groundbreaking product.

First, the Apple Macintosh in 1984, then the NeXT computer four years later and the iMac in 1998.

The three-act plot device not only serves to tell the story of Jobs’ volatile relationship with Apple – and highlight just how innovative the products he launched were – but also leaves us with the knowledge that even better things are to come.

By the end of the film, the iPhone and iPad are yet to be dreamed of, but naturally the audience knows that these will cement Jobs’ reputation as a man who truly changed the world.

But the technology isn’t the real story. And that’s where Boyle’s film courts controversy.

As the film begins, Jobs is already 29 years old. After being raised in San Francisco, he co-founded Apple in 1976 aged just 21, in order to sell friend Steve Wozniak’s Apple I computer.

A year later, the Apple II arrived, and by the age of 25 he was worth over £75million. 

However, behind the scenes a power struggle was developing. As Bill Gates co-founded Microsoft, and Apple’s control of the market weakened, Apple CEO John Sculley (who Jobs poached from Pepsi Cola in 1983) clashed with Jobs – resulting in him leaving Apple and founding NeXT.

The launch of the first NeXT computer was an event every bit as hyped as that of the Macintosh, but the hardware didn’t have the mass appeal needed. The computer was a flop.

Jobs diversified and he concentrated instead on software development.

He also invested in Pixar, becoming the major shareholder, which went on to make films such as Toy Story.

From humble beginnings, and a near computer disaster, by the mid-1990s NeXT was a huge success.

In 1997 Jobs made a triumphant return to Apple, after the company bought NeXT for nearly £324million.

He set about cementing his position as CEO and reinventing the Macintosh with operating software he developed while at NeXT.

The result was the 1998 iMac, which realised Jobs’ ambition to marry hardware, software and design into one package.