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> Insofar as NeXT's tech has helped Apple it's just that they've had a portable operating system that they could move between ISAs and form factors. That isn't

> Insofar as NeXT's tech has helped Apple it's just that they've had a portable operating system that they could move between ISAs and form factors. That isn't unique to NeXT/OpenStep NeXTStep was not just a portable operating system. The Smalltalk-based runtime environment, that programming API was far more effective than anything Apple had at the time. And the WinTel PC still had some work of its own, before Microsoft client-server corporate apps could deliver. The other big thing that NeXT brought back to Apple was a culture of very effective, small engineering teams. Clearly there are limits to that, but this management style was well-placed to make virtue of necessity, desperation.

watersb 5y ago
And about that portability... While NeXT had just released their NextStep for the Intel PC, it was more precise to say that it worked on a very specific Dell PC or Canon workstation configuration. I was able to get it up and running on a home-built 486, but I needed help from some friends at NeXT to make that happen. A late-night personal plugfest was clearly not a realistic option for corporate IT or for mass-market consumers. Whereas Windows NT 3.1 installed out of the box. NeXT also ported to the HP PA-RISC platform, that grew out of their relationship with NeXT NetObjects (or whatever their object-based RPC architecture was called) on HP Enterprise servers. But I've never met anyone who actually ran NextStep on an HP Gecko.
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
None of the Cocoa / NS API stuff you're talking about here had much impact on Apple's tech stack as actually deployed in the field until at least 2005 or so. The iMac was successful with a modernized legacy Mac OS on it, and the first iPods shipped with their own embedded OS, not iOS as we know it. Apple survived by becoming leaner and more lifestyle focused. Maybe your last point applies, and maybe Jobs learned this management lesson and others through his startup time at NeXT, I dunno. But more than anything I think Apple's revival came through dramatically shrinking product lines, cutting fat, and focusing on just in time production. Unfortunately in the process a lot of interesting tech was also thrown away (Newton!)
- watersb 5y ago
  You're absolutely right about the focus, the narrowing of product lines and a return to consumer products, giving Apple a path to the iPod and financial success. Apple needed a story, a reason to exist, and then needed to bring that story to their chosen market. Apple could not afford to cover every bet, to run the table. The Sculley strategy had failed. And none of that shift was technology. NeXT vs BeOS would not have made a difference on the relevant time scale. But we love to nerd out of the tech, and Be had some wonderful stuff. Love their filesystem, their interrupt handling, dang the PowerPC could destroy Intel in context-switch latency speed... What an awesome Jeff Goldblum ad campaign that would have been! Pour one out for BeOS. And Dylan. And Newton soup... But as I consider tech details, again most of the good ideas did not die. ARM handheld hardware, dynamic but typed TypeScript, tuple-space data message passing noSQL soup. After a while, you see the bits and get that familiar feeling.

watersb 5y ago

And about that portability... While NeXT had just released their NextStep for the Intel PC, it was more precise to say that it worked on a very specific Dell PC or Canon workstation configuration. I was able to get it up and running on a home-built 486, but I needed help from some friends at NeXT to make that happen. A late-night personal plugfest was clearly not a realistic option for corporate IT or for mass-market consumers. Whereas Windows NT 3.1 installed out of the box. NeXT also ported to the HP PA-RISC platform, that grew out of their relationship with NeXT NetObjects (or whatever their object-based RPC architecture was called) on HP Enterprise servers. But I've never met anyone who actually ran NextStep on an HP Gecko.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago

None of the Cocoa / NS API stuff you're talking about here had much impact on Apple's tech stack as actually deployed in the field until at least 2005 or so. The iMac was successful with a modernized legacy Mac OS on it, and the first iPods shipped with their own embedded OS, not iOS as we know it. Apple survived by becoming leaner and more lifestyle focused. Maybe your last point applies, and maybe Jobs learned this management lesson and others through his startup time at NeXT, I dunno. But more than anything I think Apple's revival came through dramatically shrinking product lines, cutting fat, and focusing on just in time production. Unfortunately in the process a lot of interesting tech was also thrown away (Newton!)

watersb 5y ago
You're absolutely right about the focus, the narrowing of product lines and a return to consumer products, giving Apple a path to the iPod and financial success. Apple needed a story, a reason to exist, and then needed to bring that story to their chosen market. Apple could not afford to cover every bet, to run the table. The Sculley strategy had failed. And none of that shift was technology. NeXT vs BeOS would not have made a difference on the relevant time scale. But we love to nerd out of the tech, and Be had some wonderful stuff. Love their filesystem, their interrupt handling, dang the PowerPC could destroy Intel in context-switch latency speed... What an awesome Jeff Goldblum ad campaign that would have been! Pour one out for BeOS. And Dylan. And Newton soup... But as I consider tech details, again most of the good ideas did not die. ARM handheld hardware, dynamic but typed TypeScript, tuple-space data message passing noSQL soup. After a while, you see the bits and get that familiar feeling.