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Steve Jobs and the History of Cocoa

Posted by pudge on from the next-week-the-history-of-tea dept.

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!"

2 of 37 comments (clear)

  1. NeXT's hardware woes... by Surlyboi · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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...
  2. NeXT Hardware vs Apple Hardware by jd10131 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The greatest problem with NeXT hardware was how proprietary it was. Even the monitor interface was proprietary.

    Compared to NeXT, the current Apple hardware is very standard. (Some people would disagree, but my TiPB has USB, FireWire, VGA, and a PC Card slot) There is also a substantially larger installed base of Apple hardware than there ever was of NeXT hardware.

    I think that more people will be buying computers based on aesthetic style, rather than pure performance. While the currently available processors in Macs are less powerful than their PC cousins, I don't think that the difference is significant enough to matter. (The average user just doesn't need that much power)

    I think the combination of NeXT Generation (apologies for the pun) software with nice looking Apple hardware is the most sexy general purpose computing option. (My PC loving boss is getting tempted by the new iMac even!)

    PS I'll hear nothing about how many buttons the mouse has...that's been done to death!