Steve Jobs was a central creative force in bringing technology products to society in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Through his relentless focus on design, storytelling, and the intersection of technology and the humanities, he reshaped personal computing, digital music, mobile phones, and consumer electronics. His influence extended beyond products, redefining how technology is presented, experienced, and woven into everyday life.

The depiction of Jobs in The Compass is grounded in a broad and carefully curated set of primary and secondary sources. Core references include Walter Isaacson’s authorized biography along with the books Becoming Steve Jobs by Brent Schlender and Rick Tetzeli, Apple Confidential 2.0 by Owen W. Linzmayer, Insanely Great and The Perfect Thing by Stephen Levy, and The One Device by Brian Merchant. These works are complemented by an extensive collection of online materials, most notably Make Something Wonderful, which gathers Jobs’s speeches, interviews and correspondence, as well as the Folklore website with its rich trove of Macintosh-era anecdotes. Archival documents, photographs, and oral histories from the Computer History Museum website and many other sources further inform the historical backdrop of the novel.

This section of the website brings together these sources in a structured and accessible way, offering readers deeper context for Jobs’s career and a clearer view of the ideas, conflicts, and creative breakthroughs that shaped Apple and the modern digital world. The section includes the following pages:

• Cast of Real-Life Characters

• Chronology of Events

• Real-Life Places

• Photos & Videos

• Links of Interest

• Selected Articles

• Oral Histories & Interviews