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Here's what I always wondered: how much did Steve need Apple? (The other way around is well known). But couldn't Steve Jobs have done the iPod, iPhone, iPad etc

Here's what I always wondered: how much did Steve need Apple? (The other way around is well known). But couldn't Steve Jobs have done the iPod, iPhone, iPad etc. without Apple? Apple was pretty much in shambles right, when he returned? So what was there that he couldn't do with NeXT (or any other company for that matter)?

tambourine_man 11y ago
Millions of loyal customers and a very recognizable brand. But yes, why couldn't he build that on Next when he could at Apple is a good question. I guess the personal computer was a singular opportunity in history to start something from scratch and still compete with the big guys (in hardware)
- TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
  Apple had a huge dealer network, a global supply chain, a famous brand, and a collection of industry relationships. NeXT had none of the above. It had some enthusiastic academic customers, but by the end it was trying to sell an OS with very limited success.
- mikeash 11y ago
  Apple was in a slump. They had millions of customers just waiting for Apple to stop being stupid and start being awesome again. That meant that when e.g. the iMac was released, there were a ton of customers primed to buy it. When the iPod was released, that customer base was ready to give it a try. NeXT, on the other hand, struggled from the beginning. They sold a total of 50,000 computers, ever. They had, relative even to Apple in its deepest slump, zero name recognition and zero customer base. Resources probably mattered a lot too. Even when doing poorly, Apple could sink significant resources into new projects. The problem with pre-Jobs Apple was that the sank their resources into bad (or badly executed) projects like Newton, Copland, and Gershwin. They were able to put that into developing the iPod, whereas I think NeXT just didn't have the money for such a project.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  > Millions of loyal customers and a very recognizable brand. Maybe in USA, but for the rest of the world it was barely known outside of recording studios and newspaper photo labs.
kls 11y ago
At the time NeXT was not in great shape either, IIRC they where contemplating killing their hardware in favor of just providing an alternative OS and where starting to pitch their visual IDE in the market. The consensus at the time is that NeXT would not have made it if not for the acquisition. They where not bankrupt by any means but what little market share they had gained had started to erode. Slightly before this time, at the dawn of the web I had a NeXT box and they where great machines, but they where expensive and outside of early web dev and some scientific stuff they where not heavily used. Sun was eating at their scientific market with the Sun Stations and web dev kind of took off on every platform so the price point became less and less justifiable. My personal opinion is that NeXT would not have survived had Apple not come knocking at their door and would have suffered the same fate as BeOS, though jobs had the resources to drag it out far longer that Be did. It was not his success at NeXT that brought Apple back to the table with hat in hand, but rather it was his success with Pixar. It was a time of consolidation, The Amiga had died, Atari was long out of the game and the Mac OS was aging rapidly hardware was fixed the only two options on the table where PC and Mac everything else had fallen by the wayside and the Mac's operating system was on life support. Copeland had died which was supposed to be the savior OS and as such the Mac, while holding it's own in pure hardware specs given the move to the PPC was not capitalizing on modern hardware or computing due to the OS. Meanwhile the hardware game was set so Steve was having no luck breaking into the market with his own hardware platform. Apple and NeXT needed each other and Apple needed Steve so it was a do or die for both. Apple was on the ropes pretty bad, there stock was $11 a share (god it sucked to be a broke college kid) and Gates shortly after this point would bail them out with a loan to stave off anti-trust allegations for another decade. Had the NeXT / Apple merger not happened both companies would not exist today. Kind of funny to think how close one of the largest companies of the times, almost blinked out of existence.
- glhaynes 11y ago
  NeXT quit making hardware (and renamed to "NeXT Software Inc") in 1993.

tambourine_man 11y ago

Millions of loyal customers and a very recognizable brand. But yes, why couldn't he build that on Next when he could at Apple is a good question. I guess the personal computer was a singular opportunity in history to start something from scratch and still compete with the big guys (in hardware)

TheOtherHobbes 11y ago
Apple had a huge dealer network, a global supply chain, a famous brand, and a collection of industry relationships. NeXT had none of the above. It had some enthusiastic academic customers, but by the end it was trying to sell an OS with very limited success.
mikeash 11y ago
Apple was in a slump. They had millions of customers just waiting for Apple to stop being stupid and start being awesome again. That meant that when e.g. the iMac was released, there were a ton of customers primed to buy it. When the iPod was released, that customer base was ready to give it a try. NeXT, on the other hand, struggled from the beginning. They sold a total of 50,000 computers, ever. They had, relative even to Apple in its deepest slump, zero name recognition and zero customer base. Resources probably mattered a lot too. Even when doing poorly, Apple could sink significant resources into new projects. The problem with pre-Jobs Apple was that the sank their resources into bad (or badly executed) projects like Newton, Copland, and Gershwin. They were able to put that into developing the iPod, whereas I think NeXT just didn't have the money for such a project.
digi_owl 11y ago
> Millions of loyal customers and a very recognizable brand. Maybe in USA, but for the rest of the world it was barely known outside of recording studios and newspaper photo labs.

kls 11y ago

At the time NeXT was not in great shape either, IIRC they where contemplating killing their hardware in favor of just providing an alternative OS and where starting to pitch their visual IDE in the market. The consensus at the time is that NeXT would not have made it if not for the acquisition. They where not bankrupt by any means but what little market share they had gained had started to erode. Slightly before this time, at the dawn of the web I had a NeXT box and they where great machines, but they where expensive and outside of early web dev and some scientific stuff they where not heavily used. Sun was eating at their scientific market with the Sun Stations and web dev kind of took off on every platform so the price point became less and less justifiable. My personal opinion is that NeXT would not have survived had Apple not come knocking at their door and would have suffered the same fate as BeOS, though jobs had the resources to drag it out far longer that Be did. It was not his success at NeXT that brought Apple back to the table with hat in hand, but rather it was his success with Pixar. It was a time of consolidation, The Amiga had died, Atari was long out of the game and the Mac OS was aging rapidly hardware was fixed the only two options on the table where PC and Mac everything else had fallen by the wayside and the Mac's operating system was on life support. Copeland had died which was supposed to be the savior OS and as such the Mac, while holding it's own in pure hardware specs given the move to the PPC was not capitalizing on modern hardware or computing due to the OS. Meanwhile the hardware game was set so Steve was having no luck breaking into the market with his own hardware platform. Apple and NeXT needed each other and Apple needed Steve so it was a do or die for both. Apple was on the ropes pretty bad, there stock was $11 a share (god it sucked to be a broke college kid) and Gates shortly after this point would bail them out with a loan to stave off anti-trust allegations for another decade. Had the NeXT / Apple merger not happened both companies would not exist today. Kind of funny to think how close one of the largest companies of the times, almost blinked out of existence.

glhaynes 11y ago
NeXT quit making hardware (and renamed to "NeXT Software Inc") in 1993.