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I can imagine an alternate universe where Jobs has a "Xerox" moment and immediately pivots NeXT's software efforts to developing a cross-platform graphical brow

I can imagine an alternate universe where Jobs has a "Xerox" moment and immediately pivots NeXT's software efforts to developing a cross-platform graphical browser. The "cross-platform" part is the most optimistic, to be sure. But if Jobs believed that NeXT's real value was the software (as OS X, and especially iOS, bear out), then you can imagine a strategy that used a web browser as a Trojan Horse for a platform that could overthrow the currently dominant Windows monopoly. That was basically Netscape's strategy a few years later, after all.

ams6110 11y ago
NEXTSTEP was cross platform, so not really such a far fetched idea.
- stickfigure 11y ago
  NeXTSTEP only became "cross platform" (meaning: ran on x86 hardware) as a desperate alternative to their failing proprietary hardware business. Seeng as how at that point the OS itself was NeXT's business, it's hard to imagine Jobs supporting software that ran on competing OSes. Even today the only real cross-platform product Apple makes is iTunes, and that only exists so they can sell iPods (and now iPhones) to windows users. Facetime, ApplePay, iBooks... all would be better as cross platform apps, but Apple isn't interested because it doesn't help them sell more macs/iphones.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    > it's hard to imagine Jobs supporting software that ran on competing OSes. Perhaps hard to imagine, but they actually did it. OPENSTEP Enterprise allowed you to use the NeXT development tools to build apps for 32-bit Windows platforms. That came toward the end of the NeXT saga, so you could argue it was a move of last resort. But it clearly wasn't out of the question.
    - ksherlock 11y ago
      until 10.5 or 10.6, OS X still included the classic NextStep and Windows GUI images. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - joshu 11y ago
    this is not correct. please be more careful not to assert opinions as facts.
  - joezydeco 11y ago
    And that decision almost never happened: While it seems a given that the iPod was to be made compatible with Windows, Jobs was very resistant to the idea. At one point he said that Windows users would get to use the iPod "over my dead body". After continued convincing, Jobs gave up: "Screw it," he said at one meeting where they showed him the analysis. "I'm sick of listening to you assholes. Go do whatever the hell you want." http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/25/steve-jobs-biography-what-might-have-been/ http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/25/steve-jobs-biography-wha... Think about what iPod sales would have been if iTunes never made it to the PC platform. Would there have been enough profit to fund the development of the iPhone? Would we be where we are today?
    - digi_owl 11y ago
      Well Android may still have happened (but perhaps looked more like Blackberry in its initial form). And Nokia may be around selling Maemo based phoned, though i wonder if what sunk them was Samsung (and later Chinese companies) undermining their feature phone sales in Africa etc.
  - mentos 11y ago
    I wonder if we'll ever see the day Apple makes a windows machine
    - coldtea 11y ago
      If we do, it wouldn't be Apple but in name, just like with SGI's NT machines.
      - rbanffy 11y ago
        Those were the most depressing SGI machines I ever saw. The ugliest too.
  - pupeno 11y ago
    But maybe, NextSTEP would have been more relevant if it was an OS that allowed you to use the web. But then, the web back then wasn't that great and I think the tipping point was ISPs offering commercial internet access in 94 or 95.
    - joshu 11y ago
      er, the web was invented there...
- Esau 11y ago
  But Nextstep was a very expensive OS. I looked into it and they wanted somewhere in the neighborhood of $900.00 for a copy. I eventually bought a used NextStation from Sam Goldberger's Spherical Solutions.
  - wpietri 11y ago
    Sure, but that's only because they were selling it into niche markets willing to pay a lot for its advantages. If they had been targeting deployment to consumer platforms, they would have priced it appropriately.
dboreham 11y ago
Regular people couldn't afford Next computers. They used PC clones (running mostly 16-bit Windows at the time, which is why Netscape was successful -- their browser ran on 16-bit Windows).
- coldtea 11y ago
  Which is why the parent mentions "cross platform" repeatedly.
wpietri 11y ago
Interesting. The problem with the NextStep stuff at the time was that it required high-end hardware. Even years later when they started to make cross-platform development tools, they were limited to niche markets where you new your users would pay up for plenty of RAM. That was fine for, e.g., financial trading. So I think they would have had to start basically from scratch, sullying their hands by writing for the sad world of 16-bit Windows 3.1. If they had done it, though, it could have been incredible. On the other hand, they could well have been killed by the same issue that killed Netscape: the web, being definitionally open, doesn't provide a lot of defensible advantage to early movers.
- twoodfin 11y ago
  All true. I think this is good evidence we live in the best of all possible worlds: A Jobs/NeXT WWW browser a couple of years ahead of Netscape probably would have fared even worse against Microsoft's inevitable counterattack. For all we know, we could have ended up in a "Blackbird" (aka MSN) dominated universe, and without a revitalized Apple to give us Unix on the desktop. Still, I do find it totally plausible that Jobs could have been inspired to redirect NeXT's struggling business to the nascent web. Some of those old WebObjects interviews that get posted to HN periodically demonstrate the he "got" the web and its potential as an application delivery platform much earlier than most.

ams6110 11y ago

NEXTSTEP was cross platform, so not really such a far fetched idea.

stickfigure 11y ago
NeXTSTEP only became "cross platform" (meaning: ran on x86 hardware) as a desperate alternative to their failing proprietary hardware business. Seeng as how at that point the OS itself was NeXT's business, it's hard to imagine Jobs supporting software that ran on competing OSes. Even today the only real cross-platform product Apple makes is iTunes, and that only exists so they can sell iPods (and now iPhones) to windows users. Facetime, ApplePay, iBooks... all would be better as cross platform apps, but Apple isn't interested because it doesn't help them sell more macs/iphones.
- wpietri 11y ago
  > it's hard to imagine Jobs supporting software that ran on competing OSes. Perhaps hard to imagine, but they actually did it. OPENSTEP Enterprise allowed you to use the NeXT development tools to build apps for 32-bit Windows platforms. That came toward the end of the NeXT saga, so you could argue it was a move of last resort. But it clearly wasn't out of the question.
  - ksherlock 11y ago
    until 10.5 or 10.6, OS X still included the classic NextStep and Windows GUI images. http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/09/02/mac_images/
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- joshu 11y ago
  this is not correct. please be more careful not to assert opinions as facts.
- joezydeco 11y ago
  And that decision almost never happened: While it seems a given that the iPod was to be made compatible with Windows, Jobs was very resistant to the idea. At one point he said that Windows users would get to use the iPod "over my dead body". After continued convincing, Jobs gave up: "Screw it," he said at one meeting where they showed him the analysis. "I'm sick of listening to you assholes. Go do whatever the hell you want." http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/25/steve-jobs-biography-what-might-have-been/ http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/25/steve-jobs-biography-wha... Think about what iPod sales would have been if iTunes never made it to the PC platform. Would there have been enough profit to fund the development of the iPhone? Would we be where we are today?
  - digi_owl 11y ago
    Well Android may still have happened (but perhaps looked more like Blackberry in its initial form). And Nokia may be around selling Maemo based phoned, though i wonder if what sunk them was Samsung (and later Chinese companies) undermining their feature phone sales in Africa etc.
- mentos 11y ago
  I wonder if we'll ever see the day Apple makes a windows machine
  - coldtea 11y ago
    If we do, it wouldn't be Apple but in name, just like with SGI's NT machines.
    - rbanffy 11y ago
      Those were the most depressing SGI machines I ever saw. The ugliest too.
- pupeno 11y ago
  But maybe, NextSTEP would have been more relevant if it was an OS that allowed you to use the web. But then, the web back then wasn't that great and I think the tipping point was ISPs offering commercial internet access in 94 or 95.
  - joshu 11y ago
    er, the web was invented there...
Esau 11y ago
But Nextstep was a very expensive OS. I looked into it and they wanted somewhere in the neighborhood of $900.00 for a copy. I eventually bought a used NextStation from Sam Goldberger's Spherical Solutions.
- wpietri 11y ago
  Sure, but that's only because they were selling it into niche markets willing to pay a lot for its advantages. If they had been targeting deployment to consumer platforms, they would have priced it appropriately.

dboreham 11y ago

Regular people couldn't afford Next computers. They used PC clones (running mostly 16-bit Windows at the time, which is why Netscape was successful -- their browser ran on 16-bit Windows).

coldtea 11y ago
Which is why the parent mentions "cross platform" repeatedly.

wpietri 11y ago

Interesting. The problem with the NextStep stuff at the time was that it required high-end hardware. Even years later when they started to make cross-platform development tools, they were limited to niche markets where you new your users would pay up for plenty of RAM. That was fine for, e.g., financial trading. So I think they would have had to start basically from scratch, sullying their hands by writing for the sad world of 16-bit Windows 3.1. If they had done it, though, it could have been incredible. On the other hand, they could well have been killed by the same issue that killed Netscape: the web, being definitionally open, doesn't provide a lot of defensible advantage to early movers.

twoodfin 11y ago
All true. I think this is good evidence we live in the best of all possible worlds: A Jobs/NeXT WWW browser a couple of years ahead of Netscape probably would have fared even worse against Microsoft's inevitable counterattack. For all we know, we could have ended up in a "Blackbird" (aka MSN) dominated universe, and without a revitalized Apple to give us Unix on the desktop. Still, I do find it totally plausible that Jobs could have been inspired to redirect NeXT's struggling business to the nascent web. Some of those old WebObjects interviews that get posted to HN periodically demonstrate the he "got" the web and its potential as an application delivery platform much earlier than most.