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Steve Jobs and the History of Cocoa
lopati writes "O'Reilly Network is running the first of a two part series about the intertwined histories of Apple and NeXT, and more specifically NeXTSTEP and the foundations of Cocoa. Nothing really new, but a nice overview of Mac OS X and a quick rundown of how old missteps (no pun intended :) evolved into the present product and company. I thought this was an interesting tidbit: 'But NeXT wasn't just a software company -- Jobs was also obsessed with building hardware. And this proved to be the company's downfall.' Ironic, because this has been Apple's salvation, or portentous, because history is doomed to repeat itself? You be the judge!"
I thought this was an interesting tidbit: 'But NeXT wasn't just a software company -- Jobs was also obsessed with building hardware. And this proved to be the company's downfall.' Ironic, because this has been Apple's salvation, or portentous, because history is doomed to repeat itself? You be the judge!"
I very much doubt history is doomed to repeat itself.
One difference between NeXT boxes and pretty much
all Macs these days is installed user base. Don't
get me wrong, NeXT boxes were pretty kickass (and
they made a lovely fire, they were
trying to carve out a new market for themselves
while simultaneously competing with both Apple and
Microsoft.
The hardware was also woefully proprietary.
Macs are moving away from that proprietary stance,
most of the hardware is interchangeable with x86
analogues (IDE, USB, VGA, AGP etc...) Now, that's
not to say that there's nothing wrong with Apple
hardware, (slow FSB, pc100 RAM, Motorolla making
your CPUs) but the positions aren't exactly the
same. Say what you want about El Steve, he does at
least learn from some of his mistakes...
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine...
Perhaps the most important is to accept standards: USB, IEEE1394, DVI, etc.
Yeah, and if there isn't a suitable standard, invent one!
(If you don't know the story, Apple invented Firewire about seven years ago. It later became an IEEE standard interface. Earlier this year, Apple won a technical Emmy for Firewire.)
Yes, I think that is still my point. If there isn't a suitable standard (there wasn't, unless a seven year wait for USB2 was acceptable) then design one and release it.