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Top 10 Apple Flops
Kelly McNeill writes "Though Apple computer is known for some of the computing and technology industry's most notable innovations, its not as if the company hasn't also taken its lumps. Thomas Hormby submitted the following editorial contribution to osOpinion/osViews, which supplies us with his top ten list of Apple's (and some of associated partners) most significant flops throughout the company's history."
I wonder why the cube isn't on the list. Seems like it should be.
I'm very responsible, when ever something goes wrong they always say I'm responsible.
I love it. As perfect a description of a slashdotting as I've ever seen.
Do you want to play a game?
Looking for a Rails developer in Chapel Hill?
did they host this on a newton, a pippin, or an apple ///?
Even at flopping, they're quite innovative.
This is a fairly good list of notable Apple flubs, but why include Microsoft Word 6? It sure was a dog, but that wasn't Apple's fault.
///. It was such a failure that perhaps the list's originator doesn't even know about it.
In it's place, I'd like to nominate the Apple
According to the first one in TFA:
Problem in database connection
You'd think they'd be a little more specific.
I think a recent blunder many remember but will soon be forgotten is the whole iMac G5 blunder.
Apple misjudged product availability and actually ran out of iMac G4's for two months before they released the iMac G5.
Yeah, the iMac G5 has relaly been making sales records at Apple, but how much of that is due to there being nothing in the iMac line for people to buy for two months?
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
At least one of the flops isn't the OS the entire company is based on. Just sayin'.
I know nothing
Why the heck isn't the Apple /// in there? They made it for three whole years, less than 100,000 units (something around 75,000 I believe?).
///'s reputation was ruined almost right after it was out of the gate, despite the advanced SOS. Production stopped in '83 I believe, and it's a damn good thing Apple had the Mac coming out right afterwards.
The first models were plagued by quality control problems - a clock chip from National Semiconductor that wouldn't work, inadequate ventilation resulting in the unseating of chips (which was rectified by lifting the computer a few inches and dropping it), too-short keyboard cables, and very little software.
The Apple
The coolest voice ever.
Apple has always had significant trouble when Steve Jobs is not at the helm. Gil Amelio and his drive to gain business credibility really put a huge pain on the company.
It has always been about Steve Jobs. The man has insight and what could almost be considered clairvoyance when it comes to building things that people crave. God knows that I'm one of those at his feet, weeping and bathing him in frankincense.
What a bad place for this notice on this website. I know where to go if I want a server that can't stand the heat.
-rich
The database would appear to be hosted on a Newton.
Personally, I always loved that color and thought it was the most stylish one of the lot.
"she comes in colors everywhere..."
Sam
Any company that challenges the state of technology at any given time has to have flops. Hell, ANY business that strives to push the boundary has to have flops. Has MS had flops? Yep. Has GE? Yep. But the underlying strength of any company is how it deals with those flops, how it changes direction, how it survives, and how it kicks ass in the long run. However, the list would be interesting to see...though it's not loading for me.
A blog like any other.
lol... mirrordot couldn't even grab the story before the server melted.
why has the PC become synonamous with X86? AFAIK PC still stands for Personal Computer... I haven't questioned the trend before, the thought just struck me.
Game Overdrive - Gaming News
(For every Cube Apple produces, Microsoft is happy to come back with a Windows ME or MS Passport. At least with Apple, the flagship OS doesn't kick you in the jewels every time you sit down to use it. ^_^)
I just think it's a bit sad to concentrate on someone's failures.
I think if you were to look over the last few years of posts on slashdot, regarding Apple, you'd see that "we" have been concentrating on their successes, with very few exceptions. I don't think an article that will probably generate interest for a few hours will do Apple's rep any harm.
...got to him.
Problem in Database Connection
Speak poorly of Apple, and you will suffer. The smily face in my Finder window is merely a distraction.
Because the only way you can innovate and try and make better is by getting out there and trying risky things and learning from your mistakes. I applaud any company willing go out and try these things.
What do you know I wrote a novel
http://www.mynewoffice.com/pcmuseum/AppleIII_336.j pg
You have to admit that it is cool looking. Weird-ass keyboard (why make a numerical keyboard with just subtraction?!), but cool looking.
I dunno, I honestly thought the cube "cracks" could take the place of something as lame as the asinine iMac colors.
For those who don't remember, the Cubes would occasionally develop these "cracks," for lack of a better term. IIRC, owners started to see hairline fissures slowly appear underneath the ploycarbonate surface. Apple played it off by saying it added to the "personality" of the cubes, since each set of cracks was unique.
Heck, I love the cubes and I'd probably put them in that blunder list; if Apple could've figured out a way to make them a bit more powerful or a bit cheaper, they may have been succesful. As it was, their exorbitant pricing simply reinforced the notion that "macs are too expensive."
So glad mirrordot is able to mirror the "Problem in Database Connection" page.
-Ted
-=-=- Quantum physics - the dreams stuff are made of.
Posted anonymously to avoid whoring karma!!
--
Top 10 Apple Flops
Though Apple computer is known for some of the computing and technology industry's most notable innovations, its not as if the company hasn't also taken its lumps. Thomas Hormby submitted the following editorial contribution to osOpinion/osViews, which supplies us with his top ten list of Apple's (and some of associated partners) most significant flops throughout the company's history.
[Image] Apple and its compatriots have been highly innovative. These companies have proven that even if their ideas are well implemented, they cannot always promote them correctly. Other times, a good idea is implemented poorly, and despite their best marketing effort, the product fails. I have compiled 10 of the most notable products released by Apple or its comrades that have failed.
Apple Pippin
[Image] Introduced under Spindler's rule as CEO, the Pippin should have won Apple a position in the console market, one Apple had yet to penetrate. Apple's goal was to make the Pippin a multimedia machine, capable of reading CD ROMs, surfing the internet and to play games.
Apple had decided to share the Pippin's source code with developers for a licensing fee. The developers had a lot more flexibility, and would be able to redesign the Pippin's software to make it attractive for any number of markets. However, Apple was able to recruit only 4500 developers willing to pay the licensing fee.
The operating system of the Pippin was based on the MacOS and with a PowerPC 603 running at 66 MHZ, the Pippin used a similar processor to desktop macs at that time. Being a multimedia machine, the Pippin was capable of producing CD quality sound, and displaying up to thousands of colors. With the powerful Power PC processor, Apple thrashed Nintendo and Sega consoles performance wise, but never won a sizable portion of the market.
OpenDoc
[Image] The concept behind OpenDoc is an intuitive one. Many elements of applications are redundant (calculators, multimedia players, spreadsheets). Why not 'cut them up' and use different modules interchangeably. Each file would then make calls on these different modules as needed. With OpenDoc, if a user wished to create a word processor document that includes a spreadsheet, the user would not have to copy it over as a table, or use a gimped up version included with the word processor. Instead, they could call up the ClarisWorks for OpenDoc Spreadsheet module and have a full-blown spreadsheet in the middle of a word processing document.
OpenDoc development started in 1995 in collaboration with Novell, IBM and Apple. In 1997, Apple integrated OpenDoc into its core strategy, releasing several OpenDoc apps, and including the technology in Mac OS 7.6. At the same time, the technology was being developed for Windows and UNIX. The companies created the Ci Labs which would authorize OpenDoc components that proved to be compatible as Live Objects.
In accordance to Apple's vision, it became possible with the OpenDoc compatible version of ClarisWorks to create a document that integrated various OpenDoc modules. The example below has an integrated Video Conferencing session with QuickTime, a browser frame from CyberDog and a graph from another OpenDoc module.
Since 1996, Novell has ceased Windows development of OpenDoc, forcing IBM to take on responsibilities for the platform at the same time they continued development on their AIX (UNIX from IBM). The two versions both evolved and were mature commercial products in 1997. There were problems for OpenDoc, however. At the same time, Microsoft released ann updated version of OLE, and released ActiveX, that closely mimicked the OpenDoc principles. OpenDoc was embraced by major OS developers, but it had
I'll need to know this information before I can top one, much less ten of them!
When things get complex, multiply by the complex conjugate.
was really the whole Performa line of computers. At the time the Performa's were aimed at the home user and overall they were a decent computer. But the flop part was the fact that there were something like 8,000 different versions! (Of course, I am exaggerating, but only by a little bit.)
I remember going to OfficeDepot and looking at the Performas and they along had like six different models with six different model numbers. Something like 6510, 6511, 6512, 6514, 6515, etc. (I know the actual numbers were different. These are to illustrate my point.) There were just very subtle differences between the models but for whatever reason, it warranted a different number. Basically it was a nightmare trying to remember what was the difference between any two numbers. That whole scheme of trying to provide a range of configurations was a flop. Fortunately, Steve undid that and cut down the product line into four basic models. I, for one, welcomed that.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
http://mlagazine.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=N ews&file=article&sid=137&mode=thread&order=0&thold =0
This one is probably the original that osviews.com is referencing.
creation science book
Actually, if you RTFA, the author appears to be an Apple fan; I quote:
"Thomas Hormby is a high school student in Nashville, Tennessee. He maintains two Mac history websites, http://www.mlagazine.com and http://www.macreate.net."
So, it's not so much Apple bashing (although the editorial by-line does make it appear that way) as much as it is a look at some of the ideas that flopped: some were very good ideas not well implemented, others were just ahead of their time, and some were jsut bad ideas (e.g. Word 6.0 for Mac from Microsoft). Oh yeah, not every comment in there is against Apple - some of them are about Apple-related products.
Macreate.net /.'d fast, but it's here as well!
This may be
----
Go canucks, habs, and sens!
10 FLOPS? Come on, guys, even my pocket calculator does more than that. :)
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Still ... Apple was one of the early leaders, one who made some absolutely bone-headed mistakes that cost them the lead. Granted, Apple is one of the few survivors from the start of the personal computer revolution, a revolution littered with dead products and companies: the Commodore Pet, 64, Amiga, Ohio Scientific, Southwest Technical Products, Atari's 400 and 800, Franklin, the PC Jr., the various Radio Shack toys and many more ... all gone. But given the fact that Apple was there at the beginning (hell, the Apple ][ defined the PC revolution) they really should have come out on top, with Bill Gates relegated to the status of proud owner of a fifth-rate CPM clone. Bill Gates even told them how to do it! But between Jobs, Scully and Markkula, Apple failed to capitalize on their head start.
//e the way they did. About a year after the original Mac came out, I called up to order a replacement gate array for a //e motherboard. The person I spoke to wouldn't acknowledge that Apple Computer had ever manufactured an Apple Computer and instead recommended that I buy a Mac. They basically just dropped an entire product line and alienated a whole lot of users, many of whom promptly bought an IBM PC or compatible. So, yes, I think it is fair to slam Apple's decisions over the years. They're where they are now (a highly competent technically, but basically marginal player) because they blew it and left the market to Gates and the IBM-compatibles.
//c.
Frankly, I'm still pissed at Apple for abandoning the Apple
And don't even get me started on the Apple
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
You can take a program for the original Apple ][, pop it into a 5.25" drive on a GS, and run it without a hitch. A program for a 1977 computer running on a 1993 computer.
;)
That's the kind of backwards compatibility Microsoft, Sony, etc. can only dream of.
The coolest voice ever.
* Apple - Mac: Top 10 Apple Flops :: Open Content
Posted Jan 31, 2005 - 01:31 AM
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Apple
Contributed by: Thomas Hormby
"Though Apple computer is known for some of the computing and technology industry's most notable innovations, its not as if the company hasn't also taken its lumps. Thomas Hormby submitted the following editorial contribution to osOpinion/osViews, which supplies us with his top ten list of Apple's (and some of associated partners) most significant flops throughout the company's history."
--
Apple and its compatriots have been highly innovative. These companies have proven that even if their ideas are well implemented, they cannot always promote them correctly. Other times, a good idea is implemented poorly, and despite their best marketing effort, the product fails. I have compiled 10 of the most notable products released by Apple or its comrades that have failed.
Apple Pippin
Introduced under Spindler's rule as CEO, the Pippin should have won Apple a position in the console market, one Apple had yet to penetrate. Apple's goal was to make the Pippin a multimedia machine, capable of reading CD ROMs, surfing the internet and to play games.
Apple had decided to share the Pippin's source code with developers for a licensing fee. The developers had a lot more flexibility, and would be able to redesign the Pippin's software to make it attractive for any number of markets. However, Apple was able to recruit only 4500 developers willing to pay the licensing fee.
The operating system of the Pippin was based on the MacOS and with a PowerPC 603 running at 66 MHZ, the Pippin used a similar processor to desktop macs at that time. Being a multimedia machine, the Pippin was capable of producing CD quality sound, and displaying up to thousands of colors. With the powerful Power PC processor, Apple thrashed Nintendo and Sega consoles performance wise, but never won a sizable portion of the market.
OpenDoc
The concept behind OpenDoc is an intuitive one. Many elements of applications are redundant (calculators, multimedia players, spreadsheets). Why not 'cut them up' and use different modules interchangeably. Each file would then make calls on these different modules as needed. With OpenDoc, if a user wished to create a word processor document that includes a spreadsheet, the user would not have to copy it over as a table, or use a gimped up version included with the word processor. Instead, they could call up the ClarisWorks for OpenDoc Spreadsheet module and have a full-blown spreadsheet in the middle of a word processing document.
OpenDoc development started in 1995 in collaboration with Novell, IBM and Apple. In 1997, Apple integrated OpenDoc into its core strategy, releasing several OpenDoc apps, and including the technology in Mac OS 7.6. At the same time, the technology was being developed for Windows and UNIX. The companies created the Ci Labs which would authorize OpenDoc components that proved to be compatible as "Live Objects".
In accordance to Apple's vision, it became possible with the OpenDoc compatible version of ClarisWorks to create a document that integrated various OpenDoc modules. The example below has an integrated Video Conferencing session with QuickTime, a browser frame from CyberDog and a graph from another OpenDoc module.
Since 1996, Novell has ceased Windows development of OpenDoc, forcing IBM to take on responsibilities for the platform at the same time they continued development on their AIX (UNIX from IBM). The two versions both evolved and were mature commercial products in 1997. There were problems for OpenDoc, however. At the same time, Microsoft released ann updated version of OLE, and released ActiveX, that closely mimicked the OpenDoc principles. OpenDoc was embraced by major OS developers, but it had failed to attract third party developers. Mac OS 8 was the last release from Apple to incl
Actually, the Apple /// was a fairly successful small business computer in the early 80s. Visicalc sold a lot of machines for Apple -- including Apple ///'s.
/// -- that was the problem.
Now, Apple SOS (Sophisticated Operating System) for the Apple
-Mark, who's having SOS coding flashbacks now, thankyouverymuch
Ben and Jerry's.
Like hell. They stopped making "Coffee Coffee Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!" and they named a flavor after Dave Matthews.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
For those who don't remember, the Cubes would occasionally develop these "cracks," for lack of a better term. IIRC, owners started to see hairline fissures slowly appear underneath the ploycarbonate surface.
I don't know whether you're serious or not?! You've used "IIRC" (which you don't) so I actually think you are being serious!
As a cube owner, I've described what the cracks actually were in a post above.
I have to say, it's very funny what some people can be made to believe.
Virginia Tech did.
Great... someone who wasn't alive in 1984 is running two sites about Mac history?
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
I'm no fan of apple (I do like them, just not all their fanbois... same thing as linux, and to a lesser degree, windows)
.. Athlon XP 2800+ probably cost me $1200... with monitor)
But my guess is three things... PRICE and PIRACY.
Apple boxes are way too high priced for what you get, IMHO and the opinions of ALOT of people... if I can do the same thing on a PC for half the price, I will). Even their high end systems, are not high end by my standards... I mean if I'm paying close to $3000 (CND money) for a machine, I expect it to have a better video card then a Radeon 9600 (currently i have a 9800 pro which cost me $400 CND.. the whole machine it's in
Geek factor.. even tho I hate the term geek, nerd is much better. I prefer to build my own machines, even tho it's not very exciting anymore as I've done it a billion times, I prefer to chose every piece that is going into it.
Piracy... who here knows someone (besides a company) that pays for all their software? Piracy is accepted by most people as a worthwhile risk. It's much harder to find "warez" for the macs then for pcs. Incidently, I believe this is also a contributing factor as why Windows has the monopoly... both pirating of their OS, and of the apps for it. Kinda funny how MS is trying to fight it now.
Also, I have never met anyone who bought a mac to throw Linux on... altho I know it is possible. Yet friends of mine, and myself included, have bought machines specifically for linux (or BSD)
If I can't smoke and swear I'm fucked.
I'd personally like to find a list of SOS system calls so I can compare them to the ProDOS MLI calls I know and love. Too bad the web kinda fails at letting me have this info. Maybe it really doesn't exist!
Anyway, if SOS is anything like ProDOS from an assembly language point, I can't possibly see it being all -that- bad. After experiencing the hell that was programming to the File Manager for DOS 3.3, ProDOS (and perhaps SOS, since ProDOS was based on SOS) is a dream.
From what little I've used of the Apple III (on the Sara emulator), it seems fairly impressive. No way I'd be able to hack it like I can any Apple II series, though...
--
Me spell chucker work grate. Need grandma chicken.
If Apple is really the brains of the industry--if its products are so much better than Microsoft's or Dell's or IBM's or Hewlett-Packard's--then why is the company so damned small?
Does the size of a company determine the quality of it's product?
Does the quality of a product determine it's company's size?
If you answer yes to either of those questions, you're out of your fucking mind.
I'd also like to point out that the year-old article you're linking to predicts that the iPod will be crushed by competitors such as the Dell DJ "selling for as little as $299", that the iTunes Music Store will be crushed by Wal-Mart, Microsoft, and Sony, and that it will take "at least a year" for Apple to sell 100 million songs. None of these things are even remotely true.
Don't become a regular here -- you will become retarded.
What, you were expecting one button mouse to be here?
k.
"In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart." - Anne Frank
Actually, the Apple /// was a fairly unsuccessful small business computer system. Remarkably so, although by rights it should have been a runaway success as it addressed all the business-related issues that had been plaguing the Apple ][ series from the beginning. Improved keyboard, cool enclosure, decent display, faster CPU .. pretty slick actually. Honestly, the Apple /// should have eclipsed the IBM PC ... it was there first, had the applications, an actual Business BASIC and backwards compatibility with the older Apple ][ software. What killed it was the initial (and well-deserved) bad rap it got for being unreliable (as well as pricey.) At the time (1980) I was working as a service tech for a local computer store, and the early units I serviced were flaky as hell. Hardly suitable for a home machine much less a business system. Furthermore, initial production runs had a defective real-time clock (great idea, Apple was again ahead of its time) chip. It wasn't until the IBM AT came out that IBM had a built-in hardware RTC. Anyway, Apple did eventually fix the problems with the Apple ///+, but by then it was too late ... it was considered a flop. A few months later the original IBM PC was released (I was sent to IBM sales/service school in Boca Raton the week before the official unveiling) and that sounded the death knell for the Apple ///.
But, yeah. SOS was kinda weird.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
don't even get me started on the Apple //c.
Don't forget the II GS. That was a killer machine with sound processing to die for. When it was released it made the available Macs look a bit weak (I think all there was available was the 128/512K models, the Mac Plus, and the Lisa/MacXL). All monochrome, very dull, totally unexpandable. Very pricey!
People who say that Apple's rot began when Jobs was fired miss the point. Jobs had managed to convince the execs (both regulars and the people who replaced him) that the II line was dead as a dodo and they should focus on the Mac. So Apple did, basically letting their mindshare evaporate within the personal and education markets. Apple had an extremely strong position but managed the transition to Mac very badly, or in fact failed to manage it at all. The II died from neglect.
One reason lots of other companies that emerged as PC makers in the 80s went on to massively outgrow Apple (think, Compaq...) is that they managed their transition from the 8/16 bit IBM PC through lots of architecture and CPU generations without suddenly dropping support for their existing customer base or alientating them completely. That kind of demonstrated lack of commitment to preserve existing relationships is why so many companies and purchasers found and find it hard to trust Apple, or to believe that its direction or strategy will endure past a few quarters.
Apple has always had problems as a company splitting its focus between different product lines. Witness the prolonged dullness and fading away of the Mac line the past few years as the iPod has obsessed the one-track-mind of Jobs.
The best thing for Apple the *computer* company right now might be to spin off or float iPod as a separate division, much as 3Com spun off Palm. use the massive cash raised to do something exciting for the computer line like, I don't know, buy Sun or something! Apple would then be selling both low-end, mid-range, and high-end Unix products!
Or given undercurrent of US regulatory resistance to Lenovo's purchase of IBM's PC business, why not buy that? An Apple-IBM PC combination would easily pass regulatory hurdles, and uniting two premium brands might work quite well. And of course, the ironic denoument would be priceless.
Da Blog
Guess you haven't been around very long.
The reason Apple gets credit around here (and believe me, they used to get NO love whatsoever) is because they consistently deliver kick-ass products. If I could read the article, I'd be curious to count how many of these "flops" were presided over by Mr. Jobs, and how many were the responsibility of the not-visionary CEOs Apple got beleaguered under.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I bought a Dual G5 to put linux on it in a lab at work. I got one of there "cluster node" Xserves that is now running Gentoo Linux PPC64. It is exactly what I needed it to be... fast, fast, and more fast. Especially with that nice 1.15 Ghz. system bus and 2GB of DDR400 memory.
Sure, installing it with on a serial port console was a little annoying... but once we got an iso setup right it wasn't too bad.
I also don't happen to think 3k for a dual processor box with a Nvidia 6800 Ultra DDL card capable of driving two 30" 2560x1600 resolution displays is too bad a price.
Course... that being said, I do still have a x86 PC running linux on my desktop.
Log in and we can talk.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
This article doesn't mention Apple's flirtation with clones-- probably the single largest flop in the company's history. I still fondly remember my PowerTower.
Over the years I spent a goodly bit on my //e's system. Transwarp, 10 MEG HD, 1 MEG of RAM on my 80 col card. Now even though the base //gs system had a lot of things built into it such that some of my hardware would be obsolete the handwriting was already on the wall for the // series.
//e around for some time and it did ok but I eventually had to turn to the PC. It had the feel of a real hackers box rather than the handholding you got with a Mac and didn't cost an arm and a leg to boot.
I kept my
Well that's all water under the bridge at this point and I'm happy to see Apple doing well but now they are up against Linux/BSD for the hackers market and of course MS will not go quietly.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
If you plugged the pins in out of line at the next power up they went BANG and dislodged your boss' toupee. Mind you, once bitten...
-- Free software on every PC on every desk
I read a link to the story yesterday off of OSNews, and it was damn slow even then. It wasn't so much critical of apple as it was pointing out alot of cool things that never came to fruition, Copland having a huge emphasis. I didn't take it so much as flops as I did "here's a list of cool little known items".
College Humor at it's best
No, no...that's linux fanatics. Apple fanatics bitch about PCs all the time ;-)
(I'm both a linux and mac fanatic and I do use PCs and Windows quite a bit, so I feel entitled to say this!)
IP Therefore I am.
From the article:
The new manager decided to just use WinWord 2.0's code-base on the Mac.
Not quite correct. I worked there around that time.
The decision was to use the same source code to build both Windows and Mac versions.
With Pyramid, the goal was to make a word processor that would be carefully designed: back end universal, front end specific to each supported OS (which would be Windows, MacOS, and possibly OS/2 PM). When Pyramid didn't work out as well as they hoped, they decided to take the Windows source code and build it for MacOS.
Rather than running wild with #ifdef statements and trying to make a native Mac interface, they used a compatibility library. IIRC this was called WLM (Windows Layer for Macintosh). It was not unlike the "winelib" library.
Because both Windows Word and Mac Word were compiled from the same source code, the two products became fully compatible. This was a major leap in features for the Mac Word product. Previous versions of Mac Word had been much smaller and faster, but they were also missing features compared to Windows Word, which meant that file compatibility was not 100%. (You can't import a file, and then export that file with edits, if your word processor does not support all the features that file uses!)
Business users were much happier with Mac Word 6 because of the file compatibility. Home users, students, and magazine reporters tended to be annoyed about the slower speed of Word 6 compared to the older versions. There was a bug that made the "word count" feature particularly slow, and Microsoft caught a lot of heat from the press because magazine reporters tend to care a lot about word counts.
As for it being a top 10 flop, I disagree. I don't think you can reasonably call it a failure. From Mac Word 6 onward, every version of Word for the Mac has had good feature compatibility with Windows Word, and of course Macs got faster and got more RAM. And Microsoft wasn't making enough money on the Mac version to continue to support a complete extra development team with its own code base.
And by the way, the Mac developers I knew at Microsoft all really loved the Mac and wanted to make good software for it. You can accuse Microsoft of not caring about the Mac, or grudgingly writing code for it, but it's not true.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
The Newton was a Palm Pilot before there was a Palm Pilot, and it was supposed to have handwriting recognition, but it didn't live up to expectations. The breakthrough of the Palm was that you had to relearn your handwriting in this gestures thing the computer could understand.
OK, here's a REAL flop that is so obscure, I bet that 99.9% of Macheads never heard of it, even if they were Mac users at the time it shipped:
A/UX, the first Unix OS for Mac.
A/UX included special battery support for the Macintosh Portable (yeah, the first portable, the flop, the really heavy one that used lead-acid batteries) and also had sleep support, which was totally unheard of at that time.
I took a certification class in A/UX, and the Apple guys told me they didn't seriously expect to sell many units, the product only existed to fulfill requirements for government sales that specified a Unix OS must be available for any personal computer CPU being requisitioned. Nevermind that the users never intended to USE Unix, the bids were rigged against Macs by specifying Unix must be available, and it wasn't, so that meant Macs were disqualified from bids and only PCs would be considered. But Apple won back some major government business by meeting this petty requirement. Cost em a bundle though.
Apple didn't stop production on the IIe until like 1993, almost a decade after the Mac was introduced. The push was for Mac sales, but the II line was still supported for many years; I bought my IIgs new in 1988 IIRC. "Apple II Forever."
geek. lawyer.
Free or cracked/hacked software is just as available for the Mac platform as it is for the PC.. What I found in the Mac community was that the process was more...organized. Neat. Tidy.
For example, finding a serial for QT on the PC, while easy, necessitates me navigating through up to a dozen poorly layed-out webpages crawling with pop-ups, exploits and viruses,
On the Mac, however, I just needed to make sure I had downloaded the latest list for an elegant and easy to use "serial directory" program that had been around for years and was well-trusted and well-updated.
Basically, as with everything else, the Mac can do whatever the PC can, just with more style :)
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
Does the size of a company determine the quality of it's product?
no one in their right mind would say yes to this.
Does the quality of a product determine it's company's size?
Well, the quality of a company's products should contribute to its growth, and thus size.
On to TFA. I think that a company without a history of great failures will never have great innovations. The history of a willingness to accept the risk of failure is a sure sign that they are interested in innovation. I think Apple's problem has been less their products and more a misunderstanding of the market.
The Newton was pretty cool and innovative for the time. The market just wasn't ready at the time, and their marketing left a lot to be desired. Palm came in a few years later (with a less functional product) with some kick butt marketing and succeeded.
Now to argue against myself: Success in business comes from knowing the market, the product is secondary. For example, McDonalds sells the absolutely worst hamburger of any fast food chain. They also sell more than all the other chains combined.
----- If communism is a system where the government owns business, what do you call a system where business owns govern
A list of Apple's greatest mistakes must include the company wide product quality failure that occurred under Michael Spindler (*spit*).
Every major product shipped in late 95-early 96 under Spindler (*spit*) had a major flaw requiring recall or replacement.
System 7.5, the 6200 logic board, the plastics on the Powerbook 5300, flaming batteries on powerbooks, video cables on several all-in-one models, and many other flaws. I worked in Apple Tech support at the time and it was hell.
These were not failures of design but they were severe failures in execution, specifically Spindler's (*spit*) dismantling of all quality control groups and procedures within the company. The "Great Quality Implosion", as veterans call it, would have killed any normal company. Only Apple's near fanatical consumer base saved the company.
yes. arab toilets have hose-jets. its not only muslim that washes their poo-holes afterwards - its most of the Eastern countries. Both cultures (Eastern and Western) sees the "other" practice (toilet paper or water) with equal revulsion.
The Dell comes pretty close, I'll admit, but it's missing a CD burner and wi-fi, and the extra RAM isn't enough to make up for that. Plus, it's got a 14.1" screen, so it's too big. Oh, and the biggie -- it's batter lasts about half as long as the iBook's.
So it's already not as good a value, even before you start getting into "intangibles" like OS X. Sorry.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
If he called them sites about ancient Mac history, would that make you feel better? Or worse?
paintball
PDP-10 rules!
Yeah. In other news, history professors who weren't alive during Rome's heyday are writing textbooks about ancient Roman civilization.
In further new, my history prof actually WAS alive during Greece's heyday. Or at least he looked it.
If the 'horror stories' are true, having an unmellowed Steve Jobs raise a child during its formative years might not have been such a good thing.
"Daddy, I drew a pony!"
"Pony? That looks like a lizard. This is shit. You're fired."
"Daddy, you can't fire me."
"Then learn to draw."
September 2011: Looking for Cocoa/iOS work in Boston area Cocoa Programmer Quincy, MA
The "government contract" angle might have had something to do with the birth of A/UX but I really doubt that was the only reason they built it. They continued to improve it for years - later versions were really quite nice. The documentation was also wonderful - probably the best set of printed manuals I've ever received with a UNIX distribution. Oh and running MacOS apps under it actually worked pretty well.
:-)
I definately think they tried to make a go of it. It just didn't work.
I think what killed it was the bang-for-the-buck problem. The serious UNIX users were running on RISC-based workstations far more powerful than a Mac. The cheapskates were running UNIX on PC's (SCO and its many competitors at the time). There just didn't seem to be a market for a UNIX box that was expensive and slow. Maybe if they had brought A/UX along when they moved to PowerPC it could have finally caught some traction.
Then there was Apple's 2nd foray into UNIX -- the Apple Network Server back in 1996. It was an Apple machine designed to run IBM's AIX. I think it was available for about 5 minutes before they cancelled the project - one of Apple's most impressive flops.
They also had mkLinux which was pretty cool (linux with, IIRC, a 1.3 kernel running under Mach on powermacs) I actually used this for quite awhile - I still have a 8100 that can boot it. The project never really went anywhere... I'm not sure if I can call it a "flop" since it was never an official product though.
Apple's fourth foray into UNIX seems to be working out better for them, though
I wouldn't say Mac gaming is non-existent. If you are not dying to play the latest titles you can find many decent games on Macs, but they are pricy.
Mac game typically come out one year after their PC equivalent, cost the same as the PC version when it was first shipped, and don't come down in price very fast.
It's almost impossible to find games for Macs on shelves even at Apple stores (they usually have a few token ones). You need to buy them online.
However a few publishers do have Mac-PC games in the same box like for the Myst series.
As for Linux the situation is not very good. Of recent memory only the Neverwinter and the ID games series have been good on Linux. The rest must be run through Cedega/WineX, and this is *hard*.
Neither Linux or Mac games are a patch on the Windows scene, and that one is being overtaken by consoles at the moment.
Uh huh. I had one of those beige boxes, and that PC card. (It wasn't PCI, it was Processor Direct). Great card: I played Wing Commander III on it years before the Mac version shipped. It worked beautifully.
I liked Apple then. I like them better now. Go Steve Go.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
I never ran A/UX on a regular desktop Mac, but I used to administer a Mac network at the ad agency I worked at just out of college. We had a Workgroup Server 95, basically a souped-up Quadra 950 designed specifically to run A/UX. It was our file server, connected not via Ethernet, but via oh-so-ungodly-slow AppleTalk, served over plain old twisted-pair phone cables via PhoneNet connectors.
The server was rock-solid, we never had a single problem with it, whereas our old file servers (running System 7.something I think) would crash all the time. I do wonder what I would have done had it broken, because I sure didn't know much about UNIX in those days (1993-1994).
ha.. I also have an old 8100 that's loaded with mkLinux, it's sitting about 3 feet from my desk right now, haven't booted it up in years.
I think what really killed A/UX was MAE, the Mac Application Environment for Unix, which was how you got Mac apps running on A/UX. I think I recall it ran on other platforms like SUN. There was a lot of pressure to release it on more platforms, which Apple definitely did NOT want to do. The last thing Apple ever wanted was to see a Mac GUI running on Intel hardware, and that's where they saw it going.
Now if you want a REALLY obscure Apple Unix, here's one: SCO Xenix for Lisa. I actually configured and delivered one to a client. He had a custom written accounting package, he got a serial I/O board and hung 4 dumb terminals off the Lisa, and had 5 working terminals (including the Lisa) to do data entry. I just couldn't believe it when I saw the Lisa boot up to a command line and run Unix. After seeing the Lisa's distinctive white screen with black type for so long, seeing white text on a dark Lisa screen was like staring into a black hole.
Aston Martins, mamma mini-vans, and red-neck giant tires stupid trucks all serve the same purpose. They take you from point A to point B. There is a distinction between tasteful design, practical, and just bad taste. It's irrelevant if you cannot afford it. Just recognize the distinction.
The original Mac ran on a 68000. A slow 16/32-bit processor with no MMU or support for VM. It also had limited memory.
There is nothing wrong with assembly language or cooperative scheduling, if you are willing to take the time to do it well and in a disciplined manner.
The Mac team did their best with what was available at a reasonable cost. I'm not going to blame them for decisions that were suboptimal on processors that would not exist for many years.
If you wanted a Xerox workstation, they were available, at stratospheric prices.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
That was pretty much Moofie's point - all of the things you mentioned were done after Jobs was fired, and before he was re-hired.
Lost: Sig, white with black letters. No collar. Reward if found!
So is BMW. Not all business models are alike.
Unfortunately, the only measure of success for a public corporation is whether it makes money. Apple makes money. Apple is a successful company. Just because Microsoft makes even more money doesn't mean that Apple (or any other successful company) is a failure.
http://www.fool.com/news/foolplate/2000/foolplate0 00412.htm
I'm sure they didn't sell many of them, but a couple years later people figured out how to install linux and netbsd on them, so I imagine there are a few of them still humming along somewhere. Probably not too many of them still running AIX though :)
The author is rather given to hyperbole. The remaining Lisa computers (rumored to be 2700, although there doesn't seem to be any evidence for the exact number) were gutted and buried in Utah's Logan Landfill - hardly a "field".
Nor do I believe that 16.7 pounds would be sufficient for the average aircraft tray table to "snap under the weight" - if they were, airlines would be regularly repairing them every time a passenger accidentally leaned their body weight against an extended tray table when avoiding the in-flight service cart.
The @world Pippin. Basically a PPC 603 Mac, custom designed as a videogame console with net capabilities. in conjunction with Bandai. Barely sold enough in Japan, barely registered a blip in America. Considering it was released in 1995 and surpassed the Playstation in computing and graphical capabilities, it was definately ahead of its time, but miles behind decent marketing.
n /a pple_bandai_pippin.html
http://assembler.roarvgm.com/Apple_Bandai_pippi
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
I managed one of those Apple Network Server AIX beasts for while. Not a bad machine, really, served a lab full of mac clients with aplomb...
But the serial number, I shit you not, was 008.
Averatec 3200 series. http://www.averatec.com/notebooks/3200series.htm
My dad got one for $999 with DVD burner, 80gb HD, etc.
Not only is this laptop sub-1000$, it specs closely to the Mac and is a much better deal than the 12" iBook. In fact, I bought one myself when I was shopping for a laptop and even w/ the Apple education discount, the Averatec was a better deal.
Failed_Apple_initiatives
atleast they learn from their mistakes unlike other wellknown companies.
its pretty aptly titled.. could have made a better post than this one (which has anyway been slashdotted so i havent seen it yet).
btw how well does wikipedia take to slashdotting ?
vik
[all generalizations are untrue except this one]
Look at Sinclair. Sir Clive is constantly mocked for his bizarre little ideas and failed concepts. However, that's not to belittle that fact that the Spectrum was arguably the best home computer of the eighties.
Hell, look at the C5! A single person electric vehicle? Don't be silly! Oh, wait look at that Segway, and the thousands of little electric or small petrol engined scooters, or....
When someone is successful and respected, a little light rib-poking is generally considered acceptable.
This manipulates the supply side, not the demand side, as was implied. They're not "creating demand" they're "preventing a supply spike" caused by old and new models overlapping. You can't "create demand" by manipulating supply, you create demand by e.g. doing more marketing. Most shoppers aren't after a particular model, they just want a X or a Y, and could go either way while shopping depending on how they feel that day, which means X and Y effectively compete. By clearing stock of X before introducing Y you lower the supply and variety of choice.
Of course, by clearing stock totally before introducing a new product, and leaving a gap inbetween, with the hopes that those shopping during the gap will then wait until Y because they can't buy an X, is unwise because that shopper is more likely to just use that gap to switch to a competitor's product Z .. this is especially true in the PC market, where there is mostly competition amongst component manufacturers, e.g. ATI vs NVIDIA, Seagate vs Western Digital, and so on. For an Apple user it might mean buying a PC.
Honestly, I don't know if current PowerBooks can do that, but my current IBM T30 can't.
/. told a funny story about sitting on a plane and switching the battery in sleep mode. The guy in the next seat saw that and thought it was cool so he'd tried it on his IBM. An IBM that didn't support such things. And lost all his work.
Yes they can. Someone on
Very quiet. I still only have 256 megs in mine, so there's a lot of swapping going on. I can't remember exactly what I was doing, but somehow I got the fan to REALLY crank up once (so far). When it's going full force, it is pretty loud. That lasted for less than 30 seconds and then it throttled back down to near silence. I haven't heard it get that fast and loud since and my 512 meg upgrade is on it's way.
What if the Hokey-Pokey really is what it's all about?
Market share is just not that important.
If you really believe that then you and the Amiga people have a lot to talk about...
Da Blog
Well, it's rather difficult to find anyone who was alive when there were dinosaurs. On the other hand, around here you can't swing a dead cat without hitting 10 people with fond memories of the Apple ][.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
Yep triple platform here... and eh.. windows really does suck a frog out of a lemon on any day of the week. Linux only on alternate wednesdays..
-if at first you don't succeed, stay the heck away from paragliding.
That was the place to go for all sorts of A/UX help. It was a sad day when it went offline, though it seems a mirror is still available.
s a. gov/pub/aux/
http://mirror.apple.com/mirrors/jagubox.gsfc.na
I still have my A/UX 3.0 CD's with the final 3.x update CD's, A/UX user guide and X manuals as well. I keep a Quadra 700 around in case I ever get nostalgic.
A/UX is the UNIX I ran my first Apache server on. I bought the A/UX CD's off of Usenet's AUX channel. I think Apache still has A/UX compiler diretives in it's source code, have'nt checked lately.
Apple created an amazing flavor of Unix with A/UX. It ran OS 7.1 as a process, integrated some nice BSD type features into it's SVR2 core and then added a bunch of Apple extras that made administration quite handy.
I think A/UX was reflective of something happening in Apple, mostly lead by Jobs. At the time Apple had worked with Sun on developing a Unix with an Apple UI, but Apple backed out. However, when Steve jobs was forced out of Apple he went and started NeXT, basicaly a Unixy Mac. Then Steve comes back to Apple and we have OSX. Not exactly sure what it all means but Apple spent a long time with what was basicaly OS 7 while Steve Jobs had become a Unix head. Apple had an opportunity to really do something special with A/UX but several factors got in their way, mainly themselves and AT&T licensing I'm sure. BSD got them out of the licensing bind.
Kind Regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
Actually, A/UX _was_ SysV UNIX. OS X is a BSD derivative, but apparently back in the day that A/UX was an idea about to materialize, everyone thought SysV was the way to go...
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
A/UX was the first commerical Unix for the Mac.
When I started at VT in the '85, one of the requirements for incoming CS majors was a Mac XL (rebranded Lisa 2), with a version of SysV.
That was a HUGE fiasco, the machine was cancelled before VT even started giving them out. So our class was stuck with this huge paperweight, that might run Mac SW or might not, MacWorks was good, but not perfect.
Come on, lighten up! Anytime Mac users talk about PC's, they aren't exactly singing their praises, now are they? Since the site is down, I can't be sure, but I would think it's just an interesting retrospective on the side of Apple not many people talk about.
It's nice once in a while to be reminded that nobody's perfect, and despite failures one can be wildly successful. We're talking about an American computer company here, not our supreme dictator. I think we can poke fun occassionally.
"I'd actually be defending MS on the same charge"
So I'm curious, how exactly do you support yourself if you spend all day and night defending Microsoft on Slashdot? Or do you only read Apple related posts? I find it amusing that with all the negative MS and Gates stories on here, the second an even remotely negative Apple story goes up, first post is telling us how sad it is to "knock down" rather than "build up".
The Lame meter is officially broken.
PS- MacTV. Perfect example. We could have a very positive discussion about how far ahead of their time they were with that one, but it still remains a huge flop for Apple. Why must you assume flops are a bad thing? Hmmmm?
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
Apple's biggest problem, after the release of their new Macintosh computer, was a failure to court software developers. While Microsoft was giving away free software development toolkits and having conferences everwhere to get developers on-board, Apple was inactive. Microsoft won the operating system war in '86 by capturing the mindshare of developers.
I didn't say the Athlon 64 is 99% faster. I said that probably 99% _of_ the performance gain _between_ 32 bit programs and 64 bit programs, on an A64, is because of the extra registers. And yes, the performance difference between 32 bit and 64 bit is there, and proven by a ton of benchmarks already.
So I'll say the opposite: I keep hearing the "old, tired rant" that performance doesn't matter, architecture doesn't matter, even developper or code quality doesn't matter. Let's just make a turd and let the compiler handle it.
Nope, sorry. Just isn't true. The performance difference in the A64's case _is_ there. That's what 64 bit vs 32 bit benchmarks measure there: the speed with and without the extra registers.
You may notice how for any other CPU, 64 bit mode is actually _slower_. E.g., the UltraSparc comes to mind. In case you wondered why most applications on a shiny new UltraSparc machine are still 32 bit. On it a 32 bit program actually runs measurably faster than the same program compiled as a 64 bit program.
Because when you have the exact same instructions, and the exact same number of the registers, transferring more data slows you down.
But not the A64. There 64 bit mode is actually faster. What's different? Twice the registers, that's what's different.
Compilers have come a long way, yes. They can do much better with a bad ISA than 10 years ago, yes. Indeed. And you can even take the tired old argument that "bah, for Word and Internet explorer they don't need a faster CPU anyway."
But completely polish a turd into a gold nugget, no, they can't. They can bring it sorta close enough, but no more.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Sometimes, as with the iPod, they come up with the right product at the right time and win big. However, sometimes they get there too early: the Newton was ahead of it's time and much better than the other first generation PDAs, but people just weren't ready to buy them yet.
Why is it that the proponents of "one nation under God" are so eager to get rid of "liberty and justice for all"?
Meaning, it gained rather than lost a few minutes each day?
It's also hard to sell a machine to businesses when part of standard maintenance on it was to lift it two inches from the desk and drop it--especially when that suggestion came from the manufacturor (it caused the RAM chips to reseat).
hawk
Now, under heavy use, it does start getting VERY loud. I've had Microsoft RDC crash twice on me, and each time I didn't realize it until I heard the fan spin up to a jet engine pace and volume. When that happened, each time I looked in Activity Monitor and saw that RDC, that I had just closed, was taking up every spare CPU cycle I had. Force quitting the processes brought my CPU use down to normal levels, and within 10 seconds, the fan was silent again.
Leave it to Microsoft to produce the only software that'll crash on my mac. =P
Apple Pippin
Introduced under Spindler's rule as CEO, the Pippin sould have won Apple a position in the console market, one Apple had yet to penetrate. Apple's goal was to make the Pippin a multimedia machine, capable of reading CD ROMs, surfing the internet and to play games.
Apple had decided to share the Pippin's source code with developers for a licensing fee. The developers had a lot more flexibility, and would be able to redesign the Pippin's software to make it attractive for any number of markets. However, Apple was able to recruit on 4500 developers willing to pay the licensing fee.
The operating system of the Pippin was based on the MacOS. With a PowerPC 603 running at 66 MHZ, the Pippin used a similar processor to desktop macs. Being a multimedia machine, the Pippin was capable of producing CD quality sound, and displaying up to thousands of colors. With the powerful Power PC processor, Apple thrashed Nintendo and Sega consoles performance wise, but never won a sizeable portion of the market.
OpenDoc
The concept behind OpenDoc is an intuitive one. Many elements of applications are redundant (calculators, multimedia players, spreadsheets). Why not 'cut them up' and use different modules interchangeably. Each file would then make calls on these different modules as needed. With OpenDoc, if a user wishes to create a word processor document that includes a spreadsheet, the user would not have to copy it over as a table, or use a gimped up version included with the word processor, instead they could call up the ClarisWorks for OpenDoc Spreadsheet module and have a full blown spreadsheet in the middle of a word processing document.
OpenDoc development started in 1995 in collaboration with Novell, IBM and Apple. In 1997, Apple integrated OpenDoc into its core strategy, releasing several OpenDoc apps, and including the technology in Mac OS 7.6. At the same time, the technology was being developed for Windows and UNIX. The companies created the Ci Labs which would authorize OpenDoc components that proved to be compatible as "Live Objects".
In accordance to Apple's vision, it became possible with the OpenDoc compatible version of ClarisWorks to create a document that integrated various OpenDoc modules. The example below has an integrated VideoConferencing session with QuickTime, a browser frame from CyberDog and a graph from another OpenDoc module.
Since 1996, Novell has ceased Windows development of OpenDoc, forcing IBM to take on responsibilities for the platform at the same time they continued development on their AIX (UNIX from IBM). The two versions both evolved and were mature commerical products in 1997. There were problems for OpenDoc, however. At the same time, Microsoft released ann updated version of OLE, and released ActiveX, that closely mimicced the OpenDoc principles. OpenDoc was embraced by major OS developers, but it had failed to attract third party developers. Mac OS 8 was the last release from Apple to include OpenDoc, and it was quietly killed at the hands of Gil Amelio.
Mac TV
Apple was the first major personal computer manufacturer to release a machine with a bundled TV tuner to the public. The Macintosh TV was Apple's first effort in merging the home theater and personal computer. The machine was also one of the only two black Macs ever made (the second being a special edition 5400 sold only in Europe)..
The Macintosh TV was first envisioned as a tenth anniversary Mac, but it was eventually cancelled. After the unexpected success of the Color Classic, John Sculley requested that a machine comparable to the Color Classic be made with a CD ROM drive and a 14" Trinitron CRT. The logic card was a slightly modified IIvx, Apple's midrange 68030 machine. The Macintosh TV was released on October 23, 1993, shortly after being resurrected.
The new machine was designed to be low cost and have a small footprint. Its most notable features were its TV tuner card and remote control. The TV tuner code had RCA and coaxial inputs, allowing us
is an apple flop some kind of dessert?
where do you think Sims (SimCity) and Tetris came from?
SimCity? First released in 1987 on Commodore 64 (first demo in 1985!). Re-released in 1989 simultaneously on PC and Mac. Also released in 1989 for Amiga, Spectrum/Timex-Sinclair, Amstrad, and Atari ST.
Tetris? First implemented on Electronica 60 (PDP-11 clone!) in 1985. Ported to IBM PC during 1986 and circulated. Ported to Apple II and Commodore 64 in 1986. Spectrum Holobyte commercial re-release on IBM PC in 1986.
Da Blog
Even OS X technologies are technologies (UNIX, Postscript, Objective-C) from around the time when the original Mac was created
Wow. That's a pretty wild interpretation. It's kind of like saying that because cars have wheels and we've had wheels since before the beginning of recorded history that cars aren't all that big a deal.
Let's start at the beginning: Yes, elements of the Mac OS are based on UNIX. But only stuff like the scheduler and the process model. The kernel itself and fundamental things like interprocess communication are based on Mach, not UNIX. And, of course, none of the user experience has anything to do with UNIX.
Mac OS X really has nothing to do with PostScript. The Quartz 2D drawing model was deliberately designed to be very similar to PDF, making it trivial to translate from PDF to Quartz 2D and back, but that's really where it ends. The window-drawing subsystem -- Quartz Compositor, now Quartz Extreme --has nothing to do with either PDF or PostScript. And, of course, Quartz 2D is just one way of putting lines on the screen. OpenGL is another, and even QuickDraw is still supported, though no new work is being done on it.
Yes, the Objective-C language dates back quite a ways, but programs written for the Mac have about as little to do with the Objective-C language itself as programs written for Windows have to do with the C language itself. What makes the Mac unique are the Cocoa application programming interfaces which were based on work done at NeXT in the late 80s and early 90s, but which go way, way, way beyond that.
So you see, to imply that Mac OS X is based on 80s-era technologies is just plain misleading. In fact, Mac OS X was the culmination of decades of work in all sorts of areas. It's not like somebody in Cupertino just decided one day that everything invented since 1988 was crap and that the wave of the future would be retro-innovation. Not at all.
Yes, and when do you think Mach was created?
Mach 3.0 was developed around 1991. XNU, the Mac OS X kernel which evolved from Mach, was created over a period of several years in the late 1990s.
Quartz is a "PDF engine"
That's marketing-speak, and it's not really accurate. Quartz 2D is a 2D display-list rendering engine that just happens to be conceptually similar to PDF. PDF is a native file type, and Quartz 2D display lists can be converted to PDF trivially.
which replaces DisplayPostscript in NeXTStep
Not really. To the extent that both Display PostScript and Quartz 2D have to do with drawing shapes on the screen, yes. But that's where the similarity ends.
it has many of the same problems.
Problems? What problems?
Programs you write in 2005 for Cocoa look almost identical to the programs you would have written in the 80's for NeXT.
Um. Yes, to the extent that they use the same syntax: interfaces, implementations, protocols and so on. But other than that, no, completely wrong. In particular, Mac OS X includes something called bindings, which obviate the need for a separate controller object. Model objects are directly bound to view objects, and the runtime itself is responsible for updating one when the other changes. This is fundamentally different from the NeXT programming model, which included three separate objects: a model, a view and an autonomous controller.
That ignores basic things like NSNetService, advanced text rendering, Web Kit, Search Kit (and soon, Spotlight), Address Book and, as mentioned, Quartz 2D. These and other important core technologies are entirely new in Mac OS X, not legacy tech from NeXT.
Basically, any Mac OS X program more sophisticated than "Hello, World" is going to be fundamentally different from the same program written for NEXTSTEP.
GNUStep, which followed the NeXTStep/OpenStep programming model closely, is also very close to Cocoa.
Completely false. Gnustep makes a decent attempt at creating a copycat implementation of App Kit and Foundation Kit, but that's all. That's only the tiniest part of Cocoa.
Mac OS X is basically NeXTStep with a few tweaks and theming.
Analogy time again: "A car is basically a wagon with a few tweaks." (You're completely wrong in every way about themes. Copland was going to include support for themes. Mac OS X doesn't support themes. There are third-party hacks that replace system bitmaps with custom bitmaps, but that's hardly the same thing.)
For you to imply that OS X is brand new technology is just ridiculous.
Do us both a favor and educate yourself, okay? Let's run down the list, in the order that they popped into my head.
Message Framework
Apple Help
Address Book
AppleScript
Key-Value Coding and data binding
Serialization (XML hadn't even been invented when NeXT was in business, remember)
Search Kit (and Spotlight)
Property Lists
NSUserDefaults
the Undo architecture
Cocoa Drag and Drop
Quartz 2D
Distributed Objects
Cocoa XML-RPC and SOAP APIs
the various NSURL interfaces
Web Kit
Core Audio (soon Core Image, Core Video, Core Data)
Rendezvous
CFNetwork
the printing API
QuickTime
Keychain
Certificate services
Authorization services
the entire massive text subsystem
Every single one of these things is brand new technology developed for Mac OS X (except QuickTime and AppleScript, which are Mac OS X implementations of existing Apple technologies). Even the ones that might seem familiar to you -- like drag and drop --are completely new implementations. Compare implementing drag-and-drop in X11 to "implementing" drag-and-drop in Cocoa. I put "implementing" in quotes because compared to X11, you don't have to do hardly anything at all. While new Apple technologies like Rendezvous and Search Kit and Core Audio are huge, the real power of Cocoa is the ability to do things that are possible under old systems with little or no effort at all. That's where it really shines.