Scott Forstall Hungry For Apple Top-Spot Claims Biographer

Apple CEO Tim Cook may have to work hard to achieve that CEO bonus, with speculation that senior vice president of iOS software Scott Forstall is not only eyeing his job but already shoring up influence within the Cupertino company. Detailed in a new book by Adam Lashinsky – Inside Apple – Forstall apparently "blatantly accumulated influence in recent years" Fortune reports, even while Apple founder Steve Jobs was away on medical leave.

"If there's a knock on Forstall it's that he wears his ambition in plainer view than the typical Apple executive. He blatantly accumulated influence in recent years, including, it is whispered, when Jobs was on medical leave" Adam Lashinsky, author, Inside Apple: How America's Most Admired – and Secretive – Company Really Works

Lashinsky's book is set to go on sale next week, and is already being seen as a counterpoint to the official Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson. Whereas Isaacson had official access to Jobs, Apple execs and others, Lashinsky has been forced to dig around Apple rather than inside it, literally haunting the 1 Infinite Loop entrance to speak to visitors as they exited the head office.

The argument around Forstall, it's suggested, is whether his ambitions can be sated to give Cook a fair shot at the CEO role. "Whether Forstall will happily remain a supporting player will be one of the great internal dramas of Cook's tenure" the biographer writes.