Libor Kubín Dear readers, Jablíčkář is once again exclusively bringing you another sample from the forthcoming biography of Steve Jobs, which will be published in the Czech Republic on 15 November 11. You can now not only pre-order, but to read the collaboration between Jobs and Bono. We continue with chapter 31.
We inform the reader that this text is abbreviated and has not undergone any language proofreading.
Steve Jobs and Bono
U2 frontman Bono has always been a great admirer of Apple's marketing prowess. His Dublin band was the best in the world, but in 2004, after almost thirty years of playing together, they decided to revive their image. She's released a great new album with a track that lead guitarist The Edge has declared to be "the mother of all rock tunes". Sensing that it would need some help, Bono decided to call Jobs.
"I wanted a specific thing from Apple," Bono recalls. “We had a track called Vertigo, which featured this aggressive guitar riff that I knew would be catchy, but only if people heard it over and over again." He worried that the era of radio play promotion was over. So he visited Jobs at his home in Palo Alto, walked the garden together, and came to an unusual agreement. Over the years, U2 has turned down about twenty-three million dollars in advertising offers. And Bono now wanted Jobs to use their song in an iPod commercial for free—or at least as part of a win-win deal. "They've never done any advertising before," Jobs says. "But they were losing a lot to illegal downloads, they liked our iTunes store, and they thought we could help them find a way to reach a younger audience."
Bono wanted the ad to feature not just the song, but the band as well. Any other executive would have jumped at the chance to have U2 in free advertising, but Jobs held back for now. Apple didn't have any celebrities in their ads, just silhouettes. (The Bob Dylan ad didn't exist then.) “You've got silhouettes of the fans,” Bono said, “so what if the next step was to have silhouettes of the musicians?” Jobs replied that it was an idea worth considering. Bono left Jobs a copy of the unreleased album How to Dismantle an Atomic Bombto listen to them. "He was the only one outside the band who had them," says Bono.
A series of negotiations followed. Jobs met with Jimmy Iovine, whose company Interscope distributed U2's music, at his home in Los Angeles' Holmby Hills neighborhood. The Edge and U2 manager Paul McGuiness were also present at the meeting. Another meeting took place in Jobs's kitchen. Here, McGuiness wrote down in his diary the individual points of the future agreement. U2 will appear in the ad, and in return Apple will actively promote their album through a variety of means, from billboards to the main iTunes page. The group will not receive any direct payment, but will receive a commission from the sale of a special U2 iPod series. Bono, like Lack, was convinced that U2 should receive money for every iPod sold, but in the end he managed to enforce this demand at least partially. “Bono and I asked Steve to make us a black one,” Iovine recalls. "It was not a commercial sponsorship, it was an agreement for the benefit of both brands."
"We wanted our own iPod, something different from the other white ones," Bono recalls. "We wanted black, but Steve said, 'We've tried every color possible, but none of them work except white.' But next time he showed us the black model and it looked great.”
The ad alternated energetic shots of dimly lit band members with the usual silhouettes of a dancing woman with iPod headphones in her ears. The spot was already filmed in London, but U2's deal with Apple was still not closed. Jobs did not like the idea of a special black iPod, moreover, the amount of royalties and the amount of funds to be spent on promotion had not yet been agreed upon. Jobs called James Vincent, who was overseeing work on the ad at the ad agency, and told him to stop everything. "It probably won't come to anything in the end," he said. "They don't realize how much value we give them. It's all going to hell. Let's do another ad.” Vincent, a longtime U2 fan, knew how huge a success the ad would be for both the band and Apple, and begged Jobs to call Bono one more time to try to sort things out. So Jobs gave him Bono's phone number. Vincent caught up with the singer in his Dublin kitchen.
"I don't think it's going to work," Bono told Vincent. "The band doesn't seem to like it." Vincent asked what the problem was. "When we were boys, we said we'd never fuck," Bono replied. Vincent, though he was no stranger to rock slang, asked Bono exactly what he meant. "That we're not gonna do shit just for the money," Bono explained. "We care about the fans. And we'd feel like we'd rubbed their ass if we starred in a commercial. We don't want to. I'm sorry we wasted your time.'
Vincent asked him what more Apple could do to make it happen. "We give you the most precious thing we have - our music," Bono said. "And what do you give us on the slice? Advertising. But our fans will think it's an ad for you. We need something more.” Vincent didn't know what stage the negotiations had reached for a special U2 version of the iPod and the royalties, so he decided to gamble on it. "This is the most valuable thing we can give you," he told Bon. Bono had been pushing for this since he first met Jobs, so he took it. "That's great, but you have to let me know if we're really going to do it."
Vincent immediately called Jony Ive, another big U2 fan (he first saw them in concert in Newcastle in 1983) and explained the situation to him. Ive said he was already toying with the design of a black iPod with a red control wheel as envisioned by Bono to match the colors on the album cover How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb. Vincent called Jobs and suggested that he send Ive to Dublin to show the band what the black and red iPod would look like. Jobs agreed. Vincent called Bono back and asked him if he knew Jony Ive. Little did he know that the two had already met and admired each other. “Do I know Jony Ive?” Bono laughed. "I love that boy. I drink the water in which he bathes.'
"Power," Vincent replied. "But what if he visited you and showed you how good your iPod could look?"
"Okay, I'll come pick him up in my Maserati," Bono replied. "He will live with me. We'll go out together and have a good meal together.''
The next day, when Ive headed to Dublin, Vincent had to tame Jobs, who again began to think about everything. "I don't know if we're doing well," he said. "We wouldn't do it for anyone else." He was worried about setting a precedent for other artists who might also want a commission on every iPod sold. Vincent assured him that the contract with U2 would be special.
“Jony came to Dublin and I put him up in my guest house. It's a quiet place by the track, overlooking the sea," recalls Bono. "He showed me this beautiful black iPod with a red wheel and I said, OK, let's do it." And they went to a local pub to work out some details and then called Jobs in Cupertino to ask if he would agree. Jobs argued for a while about the shape of some arrangements and the design, which made a huge impression on Bono. "It's really amazing how the executive director cares about such details," he said. When everything was agreed, Bono and Ive went to drink it. Both are at home in the pub. After a few pints, they decided to call Vincent in California. He wasn't home, so Bono left him a message on his answering machine - one that Vincent would never delete. "Bubbly Dublin here, we're sitting here with your pal Jony," Bono wailed. "We've had a few drinks and we're enjoying our beautiful iPod, I can't even believe it actually exists and that I'm holding it in my hand. Thanks!”
Jobs rented out a theater in San José to celebrate the new commercial and special edition iPod. He was joined on stage by The Edge and Bono. Selling 840 records in its first week, the album immediately topped the charts Billboard. Bono then said in the press that he shot the ad for no royalties because "U2 makes as much money from advertising as Apple". Jimmy Iovine added that it would also help the band "get closer to a younger audience".
It is worth noting that the connection with the computer and electronics manufacturer helped the rock band to impress young listeners. Bono later said that not every deal with a major corporation is a deal with the devil. "Take a good look at it," he told Greg Knot, a music reviewer from Chicago Tribune. “The 'devil' here is a bunch of creative people, people more creative than most rockers. And their frontman is Steve Jobs. Together, these people have created the most beautiful art object in musical culture since the days of the electric guitar. It's an iPod. The task of art is to fight ugliness.”
In 2006, Bono got Jobs to collaborate again. This time it was the Product Red campaign, the aim of which was to raise money for people suffering from AIDS and to spread awareness among the public about the fight against this disease in Africa. Jobs was not a great philanthropist and was never interested in charity. But he decided to dedicate a special red iPod to Bono's campaign. However, he did not take this step with pure enthusiasm. For example, he did not like the fact that the name Apple was supposed to appear in brackets next to the word in the campaign NET (red) in superscript – (APPLE)NET. "I don't want to bracket Apple," he declared deliberately. And Bono was persuading him: "But Steve, this is how we express unity in this case." The conversation took a passionate turn, an argument flared up, and harsher words began to fall. Then they agreed to sleep on it. Eventually, in a way, Jobs relented. Bono can do what he wants in advertising, but Jobs will never put the Apple name in parentheses on any of his products or in any of his stores. On the iPod was the inscription (PRODUCT)NET, not (APPLE)NET.
“Steve can get fired up,” Bono recalls, “but those moments brought us a lot closer, because you don't meet many people in life with whom you can have such passionate conversations. He is very stubborn, he has his own opinion on everything. Every time I talked to him after one of our concerts, he had an opinion about it.” Jobs and his family visited Bono and his wife and four children from time to time at their residence near Nice on the French Riviera. One vacation in 2008, Jobs rented a yacht and docked it near Bono's residence. They dined together and Bono played tapes of songs that he and the band were preparing for an upcoming album No line on the horizon. Despite the friendship, Jobs did not take napkins. They tried to agree on more advertising and a special edition of the song Get On Your Boots, but they were unable to agree. When Bono injured his back in 2010 and had to cancel a tour, Powell sent him a special gift package that included a DVD of comedy duo Flight of the Conchords, a book Mozart's Brain and the Fighter Pilot, honey from his bees and pain reliever cream. Jobs attached his message to the last item: "Pain Cream - I really like this stuff."
I'm really looking forward to this book!!! Anyway, I'm a little worried about the translation, can someone judge it now? My point is that the translation into English is not standardly messed up in small nuances, which completely overturn the meaning of the expression... See the first example from the book:
If I have a soulmate at Apple, it's Jony. We come up with most of the products together, and then we go to others and ask them, 'What do you think about this?' He is able to see the whole of each product as well as the smallest details. And he understands that Apple is a company built around products. He's not just a designer. That's why it works for me. He is as operational as few at Apple but me. There is no one in the company who can tell him what and how to do or to go away. This is how I set it up.
The thought in the second third of this excerpt should not have been, by any chance, "He is as operative as few at Apple, including me."
Not that I want to impose this way of thinking, but it says a lot about Steve's personality. If he was a dictator or also a human person who made all his mistakes/shortcomings...
I'm not afraid of a bad translation. The book went through at least three readings: factual/technical, editorial and typographic proofreading.
The excerpts are shortened quite a bit, I don't know if by a third or a half, and I don't want to count the characters now.
We will hopefully have a complete sample from the book available. But everything is in negotiations with the owners of the rights.
It's true that I also noticed the same sentence and turn of phrase and paused over it...hopefully the translation will be really ok, because I don't want to read a 600-page book in English :)
…original in English:
"...He has more operational power than anyone else at Apple except me."
I am not a translator, but the mentioned translation is definitely inappropriate, because the meaning of the sentence is different.
"He has more operational/executive power at Apple than anyone else but me."
At least that's how I understood it..
I would translate it exactly the same as you. "It is operative" is an unfortunate compound.
"You have silhouettes of the fans," said Bono, "so what if you had silhouettes of the musicians in the next phase?" ... BONO - where are we!? In the eighteenth century? Am I the only one who finds this disgusting? I'm starting to worry if I made a mistake with my order. It's probably not possible to cancel a paid pre-order anymore, right?
You're not here either, I paused to think about it... And there are more such passages.
you can't do bono. I prefer to give the book in English
But in the final version it is a little different. I think the first judgments are somewhat hasty. Place works there is he says. Would that be enough?
to Vencca: ...and all this just because of "Bono works"?
No, not really just for that. I only listed that as the biggest mishap. As many have written here before, the translation is really quite "un-Czech" in places, and it certainly does not help the book that it is being translated by someone who is able to produce something similar. But that's just my opinion, maybe others won't mind. Happy people…
"But in 2004" - "but" is also a very old-school word.. it seems as if the translator was scared of the criticism of "terrible stylistics" after the first sample from the book and decided to show us how rich his vocabulary is :-)
We inform the reader that this text is abbreviated and has not undergone any language proofreading.
It's right in the title of the article. I have no idea what is so incomprehensible about that.
Find the abbreviated examples that were published in America and then compare.
And I would like to see these diggers translate a book of 500 pages in three months.
Complete agreement!!! The Rejpals... every zero can criticize! If you don't like something, sit down and do it better! But I warn you that there will still be someone who doesn't like the smell... ;-)
Are you telling me that a translator produces this and then some language specialist chews it up into digestible form for the reader? :-)) that's a) nonsense, the result won't be much different b) even if it were, it would be pretty stupid to release such a semi-finished product among potential readers in order to attract future buyers (which is certainly a natural intention)..
The comment about the rejpals translating a book of 500 pages in three months is completely out of line - I certainly wouldn't translate it and that's why I don't do that kind of work. But for those who can translate and do it well, it won't be a problem for them and the result will certainly be worth it.
I don't know what you find strange. Have you ever written a book? Do you have any experience with translation, graphic editing or editorial work?
A regular book goes through several stages of editing:
1/ rough text/translation
2/ content and factual proofreading
3/ language proofreading takes place at least 1x, usually 2x or more, depending on the text
4/ pouring the text
5/ typographic proofreading
For translations:
it depends on the text and this one is quite specific, there is quite a lot of technical stuff. The translator's normal performance is a maximum of 8 standard pages/day.
Here, I would estimate it to be a maximum of 6 standard pages/day.
Try not to philosophize about what you probably don't understand much.
Bimbosi, Venca (below) got it absolutely right.. anyone who uses the word "do" and composes sentences without any sense of language is out of place. Dot.
Try not to defend something you probably can't defend ;-) (btw I'm guessing you're someone from the translation team, I'd be surprised if someone didn't come here to read opinions from readers ;)
i agree
Patrick is absolutely right. It is of course clear that a "rough" translation will not be perfect, everyone understands that, but someone who uses the word "děl" (yes, only one example for all) in the twenty-first century - in the translation of such a book - and translates sentences into Czech as he sees fit that's fine, there probably won't be any master in the field, that's all. For Hobbo: Yes, I'm only average at translations, which is probably why I'm not a translator. For that reason, I would expect good translations from a professional translator. If Steve could speak Czech, he would sentence the author of the translation to use an android for life! :)
exclusive, no, no jablickar, no chat, the exact same text was also posted on ihned.cz
Well, no bullshit.
Economic newspapers have exclusivity for print media, we for the web. See when the first part of the samples was published by us, at what time and when it appeared on the iHned website. Help 14205.w5.wedos.net Oct 19 at 0.01:XNUMX am.
We do not disclose details of the agreement with the rights holder.
So from the other side: I am glad that the Czech translation will be published and that it will not be xweeks or xmonths late compared to the original. I believe that it was undertaken by the publishing house, which is not the first to do such a thing, that it was not translated by high school students, and therefore that the translation will be correct in terms of meaning.
And if somewhere "if" is used instead of "if", I don't really care, it's not fiction, but non-fiction, at least for me. I am looking forward to the book and will order it in the Czech version.
And I would like to wait a week or a month to read a book well translated into Czech. The delay compared to the original is not a problem, because there is no hurry. If I read the story of one of today's geniuses today or in a month, I don't really care, it won't be any less of an experience for me. But what can spoil the experience for me is the level of translation. But what, let's be surprised, I believe that in time there will also be a sample of the final form, and if our criticism would start changes for the better, it would be great. I too would prefer to read the book in Czech.
On the other hand, I understand that among Steve's fans there are a number of purely technically oriented people without language sensitivity, for whom the translation in the form presented here is no problem, and I honestly envy them! :-)
The book goes into production tomorrow. Nothing can be changed anymore.
I can assure you that the publisher, translators, editors and other people involved in the preparation of the book are certainly not currently searching discussions and not responding to discussion posts. They don't have that much time.
I am glad that crowds of quality translators and Czech speakers appeared here. I would like to ask them to cooperate in the creation of an apple tree.
Contact me at: libor at 14205.w5.wedos.net
Thanks.
Sorry, don't take this as a scolding, I like 14205.w5.wedos.net. But what I don't like is your ironic questioning of some of the opinions here about the translation. If someone has a feeling for the language and complains about the quality of the translation, I think it's fine. But what is not right is the attitude: what would you not want for the money and such a short time for translation... Did someone force the publishers to release it so quickly? Really? Next time to the point, thank you.
I guess we didn't understand each other. That just happens sometimes.
It clearly says in the header that this is a working, abridged, unpatched version. Is it really that hard to understand that it's not the final version?
The final version of the book will be published next week.
Then feel free to get into me.
Anyway, I'm not going to get into you anyway, if the translation won't be worth anything even in the final, you're the last one to blame. I hope that I will be really more satisfied in the final, we just have to wait. I appreciate your work here and thank you for it, so don't get poisoned by nitpickers like me :) Criticism belongs to the translator...
the bottom line: I value your contribution to the discussion, they are factual and considerate, and at the same time I do not deny your opinion. I would like to add an observation: the translator, with his archaic expressions, apparently did not use a Mac for the translation, but a PC :) work pantomime. ps I'll order the book from amazon just to be sure, this order scares me too much.
“…says Bono.” Do you like it better? That's how it is in the book translation.
I'd love to hear your thoughts when the book is on the shelves and in iTunes.
An interesting sample, however again it contains a paragraph that is very confused. At first it looks like Jobs got his head built, and then again it looks like Jobs is trying to talk U2 into doing the ad. It doesn't work very well as an advertisement for a book, if there are more similar quirks (as long as it's a sample, it's a quirk), then the reading will be mainly annoying, and the alibi sentence at the beginning of the article won't change that.