Steve Jobs biography to be published next year

"iSteve: The Book of Jobs," will be written by former Time magazine managing editor Walter Isaacson and will hit bookstores in early 2012, Simon & Schuster said in a statement.

The authorized biography of the intensely private Apple co-founder will be based on three years of exclusive interviews Isaacson has conducted with Jobs, family members, Apple colleagues and competitors, the publisher said.

Isaacson is the author of biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Henry Kissinger, and currently heads the Aspen Institute, a non-profit think tank.

"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," Simon & Schuster publisher Jonathan Karp said.

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

Jobs, 56, went on medical leave in January, his third since 2004, but has retained his title of chief executive at Apple.

Jobs underwent an operation for pancreatic cancer in 2004 and received a liver transplant in 2009, but he has not released any details about his latest health issues.

Apple's fortunes have been uniquely linked to Jobs, who returned to the then flagging company in 1997 after a 12-year absence and introduced innovative and wildly successful products like the iPod, iPhone and iPad.

(c) 2011 AFP