“Jobs” aims to be the first biopic* about tech giant Steve Jobs (Sony’s Aaron Sorkin project is the next), but instead of offering insight* into the man, it’s a chronology* of Apple, and the arrival of personal computers.

    Ashton Kutcher plays Jobs well enough. But first-time screenwriter Matt Whitely’s script* focuses more on company events than characters, so there’s no chance to look deeper into the man behind the Mac.

    “Jobs” opens with the Apple chief introducing the first iPod in 2001. Then it jumps back almost 30 years, when Jobs was a barefoot Reed College dropout* on campus just for kicks*.

    Jobs hallucinates* in a field, travels to India, and suddenly it’s 1976, and he’s struggling in his job at Atari. He turns to his friend, Steve “Woz” Wozniak (Josh Gad), for help. Jobs discovers a computer prototype* Woz built, and a few months later, Apple Computers is born. Woz is a lovely character.

    Jobs, on the other hand, could be a real jerk*. He dismisses his pregnant girlfriend (Ahna O’Reilly) and denies he is the father of their daughter. He withholds* stock benefits from founding members of his team. If a colleague doesn’t share his vision, he fires them on the spot. Loudly.

    After he and Woz make a deal with investor Mike Markkula (Dermot Mulroney), the film spends a lot of time at Apple headquarters, where Jobs is a hot-tempered perfectionist*. His insistence on quality and innovation above all doesn’t sit well with board director Arthur Rock (J.K. Simmons), who unites with CEO John Sculley (Matthew Modine) to remove Jobs from his post.

    The decade* the film skips* — when Jobs created his software company NeXT, which he later sold to Apple — seems like a lost chapter. The film picks up* in 1996, when Jobs has a new wife and young son; his now college-age daughter snoozing* on the living-room couch. He’s lured back to Apple and transforms it into the most profitable company in the world. That’s not a spoiler*, it’s history — you can check it on your iPhone.(SD-Agencies)