"Like most people who work at the intersection of programming and user experience, I am a big fan of simple. Because of this I thought this book would be right up my alley. Unfortunately, I was so wrong that I had to put this book down after getting only half way through it.

My main problem with the book is that this book never really defines, or even seems to have a good understanding of, what the term Simple means. In the end this is not a book about simplicity, it is a book about how much the author loved his experience of working at Apple. There is nothing wrong with this of course, and there is much to admire in Apple's work, but if you think this book will help you understand how to create insanely simple products like those from Apple you will be disappointed because to the author, "simple" appears to mean "whatever Apple does".

As an example, the author's first main push about simplicity is 'always have small meetings'. This may be a great rule, but I don't really think it is about simplicity or complexity in any meaningful way. Another example: the author likes to throw out true-isms in the form of 'simple is ____' and an early one is 'simple does not tolerate taming a bucking bronco'. Is this really supposed to inform me about the nature of simplicity?

In the end this book was not worth my time to finish, and I did not get much out of what I did read."