9 ms·

First, you are right. Jobs himself said that he wanted to go beyond selling computers, and sell information appliances. In that respect, he and Woz were diametr

by a4isms 4y ago

First, you are right. Jobs himself said that he wanted to go beyond selling computers, and sell information appliances. In that respect, he and Woz were diametrically opposed. When he was squeezed out of management in his own company, it is not a coïncidence that he elbowed his way into Jef Raskin's Macintosh project: Raskin was also interested in building information appliances, the difference between the two men was that Raskin was coming to the notion of an information appliance from the HCI perspective, and wanted to focus on simplicity and low cost. The UX he designed was text-centric and used high-speed incremental search as its navigation paradigm. Jobs was infatuated with what he'd seen at Xerox Parc, and also wanted to build an information appliance, but he wanted it to be powerful and flexible and centered on the WIMP paradigm.[1] Jobs was the boss, so Raskin left the project and the company. But Jobs never lost his vision that Apple should sell appliances, and people who wanted to "wrench their own devices" should buy PCs. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIMP_(computing) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIMP_(computing)

Terretta 4y ago
Jobs called it "bicycles for the mind".* Back in the beginning there was lots of talk of "toasters" as an appliance every household has and even a child can use (to the point there was a famous screensaver of flying toasters). The Mac 512, Plus, and SE were embodiments of this. (The Apple //c with LCD attachment and carry handle was an earlier attempt.) Note that all of those included portability as a feature, while the all-in-one Macs (not the Apple //c) emphasized usability by non-tech and non-tech job people. Their spiritual successor is the last 3 years of iPad Pro w/ magnetic magic keyboard/stand. It's pretty clear there's only a relatively short period of time the hobby shop and hackers are "changing the world", while the real shift comes when "everyone" can access and leverage the new tech (like a toaster, or fluoride in water). --- * There's another subtle difference between "bicycles for the mind" and "a computer on every desk and in every home." One of those is vendor centric, the other is user outcome space.
- a4isms 4y ago
  I remember "Bicycles for the mind" well: http://raganwald.com/assets/images/bicycle-jobs.jpeg http://raganwald.com/assets/images/bicycle-jobs.jpeg But as a metaphor, I don't think of a bicycle as an appliance. Mainstream bicycles are brutalist: The chain and gears are usually on display and user-serviceable. Parts like wheels, saddles, and handlebars are standardized in a way that allows users to mix and match components freely. In the days of steel frames you could make art bikes and trikes and all kinds of things from a bicycle. The metaphor works well to describe a lever for the mind's own motive ability.
  - Supermancho 4y ago
    > Mainstream bicycles are brutalist: The chain and gears are usually on display and user-serviceable. Parts like wheels, saddles, and handlebars are standardized in a way that allows users to mix and match components freely That's a matter of perspective. If I create a simple bike drawing in crayon, it has none of those things, but everyone knows what the drawing represents if they had it. Maintenance and extensibility concerns are incidental. Framing things to be attractive, was one of SJ's talents.
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    I wish they were more like an appliance. The fact that I constantly have to fiddle with the damn things is why I don't ride more. If they were more like modern cars or, indeed, iPads, that'd be ideal. Instead it's like "well, let's go discover what work I'll have to do on my bike before I can ride it...." Ugh. I do enough handy shit, I don't need a bicycle-maintenance hobby.
    - michaelt 4y ago
      If you want a low-maintenance bike, may I suggest a commuter bike? Hub gear, Marathon Plus tyres, don't store it outside, and just drop it into your local bike shop every ~2000 miles or so as the brake pads get worn out.
    - yencabulator 4y ago
      Pro-tip: I used to curse my bike: the chain fell off all the time, the gears slipped, the shifting was fiddly, the brakes were crap. Then I, by luck[1], stumbled on owning a more expensive mountain bike, and things stopped failing. Cheap bikes are crap. [1]: I bought a mid-price mountain bike, nothing fancy, in the era before rear suspension was common. It got stolen within a year. I was part of my parents' grandfathered insurance plan that had unbelievably good coverage for bicycle theft. Insurance replaced the bike with one that had all the same features. Not price matching, matching checklist features. Number of gears, etc. It ended up having some extra features, too, because that was what was in the inventory. After that bike was also stolen within a year, they replaced that with one that had all the features that were in the second one. Plus disc brakes, plus many others, because nothing else fulfilled the checklist. The price of my bike more than doubled in two years. No, you can't get that insurance anymore.
- rchaud 4y ago
  1984: A bicycle for the mind 2010: Post-PC age. cURL? Why not curl up on a couch with your favourite movie instead?
lolinder 4y ago
> Jobs never lost his vision that Apple should sell appliances, and people who wanted to "wrench their own devices" should buy PCs. And honestly, I don't think information appliances are a bad thing to have in the world. It's not the kind of device I would choose for myself, but there's a class of users for whom a general computing device isn't just overkill, it's downright dangerous. Android is fine for my use case, and while there are specific policies I wish Apple would change, I don't begrudge them the philosophy.
- adql 4y ago
  But it's worse than appliance. Appliance doesn't actively block you from using it for something not listed in instruction manual
  - lolinder 4y ago
    An appliance is engineered to serve a narrow set of purposes, which can also be said for iOS. The only way in which an iPhone is worse is that it is an information appliance built on hardware that could be general purpose if run with different software. But if you consider the appliance to be both hardware and software, it is no more restrictive than any other appliance.
    - fsflover 4y ago
      The difference is that iPhone is intentionally restricted by Apple to not allow you to use it in unintended ways, which "incidentally" brings a lot of additional profit to the company.
  - a4isms 4y ago
    If you feel around the margins, you can find exceptions for everything. e.g. You can cook a fish in a dishwasher. But while anyone can modify a toaster to do wild things, they aren't designed to facilitate that and it isn't a mainstream thing to hack your toaster. PCs are hackable by design. It's a perfectly mainstream thing to build your own PC from parts. Hacking toasters, on the other hand, is not mainstream. Best Buy sells toasters, but not parts for toasters. I personally wouldnt draw the line between information appliances and computers at whether the manufacturer actively blocks you (as Apple and John Deere do), but rather at some combination of what the intended purpose is, and whether hacking and customization is considered mainstream or fringe. Hacking toasters and dishwashers and microwaves and refrigerators is possible, but fringe. Hacking cars and houses is mainstream.
cma 4y ago
At NeXT it seemed like Jobs did the opposite, making workstations for professionals.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  Always felt that was because there were a few things he wanted in the machine, power, high storage, high resolution, multitasking, networking, voice recording and the only way to achieve those was a price tag that could only be sold as a workstation.
  - a4isms 4y ago
    I am not in a position to say why the original NeXT was so different in philosophical underpinnings than the Mac, but there are a few differences one can observe from the outside that may (and I only say may) have contributed to the final outcome: 1. When Jobs left Apple, he was barred from competing with them in the general computing/appliance market. NeXT when it launched was advertised as a product for higher education. 2. Jobs had to bootstrap a company from scratch into what was by then a much more sophisticated industry than existed when the Apple // or mac were launched. Building on top of Unix and Mach was way lower risk than trying to invent an entire operating system from the ground up when your interest was really in the user experience.
- rchaud 4y ago
  That's because there wasn't any Linux back then. Apple has basically given up on enterprise offerings.
poulsbohemian 4y ago
>But Jobs never lost his vision that Apple should sell appliances, and people who wanted to "wrench their own devices" should buy PCs. You present an excellent historical case of how Apple got here, but here's where I see a dichotomy: Back in the day, tools like RezEdit, Hypercard, AppleScript came included. There were countless "apps" to reconfigure how the Mac looked and felt to create a personalized experience. Average users had developer-like tools that enabled them to become producers. Even today, things like Swift Playground send a message that Apple wants a technically-enabled user base. Perhaps this is really an issue like centralized vs decentralized computing, states vs. federal, IE: there will always be a fundamental fight where some people within Apple want a black box appliance, and others want a fully customizable hackable device.
- a4isms 4y ago
  Speaking of HyperCard: Inspired by a mind-expanding LSD journey in 1985, I designed the HyperCard authoring system that enabled non-programmers to make their own interactive media. HyperCard used a metaphor of stacks of cards containing graphics, text, buttons, and links that could take you to another card. The HyperTalk scripting language implemented by Dan Winkler was a gentle introduction to event-based programming. Steve Jobs wanted me to leave Apple and join him at Next, but I chose to stay with Apple to finish HyperCard. Apple published HyperCard in 1987, six years before Mosaic, the first web browser. —Bill Atkinson https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Joining_Apple_Computer https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor... My recollection of HyperCard is that it was a grassroots success, Apple did not invest in it, Apple never made a compiler to turn stacks into Mac apps, &c. I personally did two professional HyperCard stacks. One was an internal tool used by a consulting client. The other was a configuration tool for a very successful (at the time) Java development suite. I wrote it in a weekend to meet a deadline, which is why it was written in HyperCard and compiled to run on all our supported operating systems using a third-party compiler. My employer was aghast at this, our mantra was that if we’re selling Java tools, wherever possible we would write them in Java. I thought I was a decent programmer at the time, but no way I could bang out a robust customer-facing tool in a weekend using Swing or AWT or whatever. It was eventually rewritten in Java by a co-op student, it took their entire work term. So eventually, everyone was happy. But HyperCard got the job done when shipping fast mattered.
actually_a_dog 4y ago
> The UX he designed was text-centric and used high-speed incremental search as its navigation paradigm. That sounds exactly like emacs with company-mode or ido-mode.

by a4isms 4y ago

Terretta 4y ago

Jobs called it "bicycles for the mind".* Back in the beginning there was lots of talk of "toasters" as an appliance every household has and even a child can use (to the point there was a famous screensaver of flying toasters). The Mac 512, Plus, and SE were embodiments of this. (The Apple //c with LCD attachment and carry handle was an earlier attempt.) Note that all of those included portability as a feature, while the all-in-one Macs (not the Apple //c) emphasized usability by non-tech and non-tech job people. Their spiritual successor is the last 3 years of iPad Pro w/ magnetic magic keyboard/stand. It's pretty clear there's only a relatively short period of time the hobby shop and hackers are "changing the world", while the real shift comes when "everyone" can access and leverage the new tech (like a toaster, or fluoride in water). --- * There's another subtle difference between "bicycles for the mind" and "a computer on every desk and in every home." One of those is vendor centric, the other is user outcome space.

a4isms 4y ago
I remember "Bicycles for the mind" well: http://raganwald.com/assets/images/bicycle-jobs.jpeg http://raganwald.com/assets/images/bicycle-jobs.jpeg But as a metaphor, I don't think of a bicycle as an appliance. Mainstream bicycles are brutalist: The chain and gears are usually on display and user-serviceable. Parts like wheels, saddles, and handlebars are standardized in a way that allows users to mix and match components freely. In the days of steel frames you could make art bikes and trikes and all kinds of things from a bicycle. The metaphor works well to describe a lever for the mind's own motive ability.
- Supermancho 4y ago
  > Mainstream bicycles are brutalist: The chain and gears are usually on display and user-serviceable. Parts like wheels, saddles, and handlebars are standardized in a way that allows users to mix and match components freely That's a matter of perspective. If I create a simple bike drawing in crayon, it has none of those things, but everyone knows what the drawing represents if they had it. Maintenance and extensibility concerns are incidental. Framing things to be attractive, was one of SJ's talents.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  I wish they were more like an appliance. The fact that I constantly have to fiddle with the damn things is why I don't ride more. If they were more like modern cars or, indeed, iPads, that'd be ideal. Instead it's like "well, let's go discover what work I'll have to do on my bike before I can ride it...." Ugh. I do enough handy shit, I don't need a bicycle-maintenance hobby.
  - michaelt 4y ago
    If you want a low-maintenance bike, may I suggest a commuter bike? Hub gear, Marathon Plus tyres, don't store it outside, and just drop it into your local bike shop every ~2000 miles or so as the brake pads get worn out.
  - yencabulator 4y ago
    Pro-tip: I used to curse my bike: the chain fell off all the time, the gears slipped, the shifting was fiddly, the brakes were crap. Then I, by luck[1], stumbled on owning a more expensive mountain bike, and things stopped failing. Cheap bikes are crap. [1]: I bought a mid-price mountain bike, nothing fancy, in the era before rear suspension was common. It got stolen within a year. I was part of my parents' grandfathered insurance plan that had unbelievably good coverage for bicycle theft. Insurance replaced the bike with one that had all the same features. Not price matching, matching checklist features. Number of gears, etc. It ended up having some extra features, too, because that was what was in the inventory. After that bike was also stolen within a year, they replaced that with one that had all the features that were in the second one. Plus disc brakes, plus many others, because nothing else fulfilled the checklist. The price of my bike more than doubled in two years. No, you can't get that insurance anymore.
rchaud 4y ago
1984: A bicycle for the mind 2010: Post-PC age. cURL? Why not curl up on a couch with your favourite movie instead?

lolinder 4y ago

> Jobs never lost his vision that Apple should sell appliances, and people who wanted to "wrench their own devices" should buy PCs. And honestly, I don't think information appliances are a bad thing to have in the world. It's not the kind of device I would choose for myself, but there's a class of users for whom a general computing device isn't just overkill, it's downright dangerous. Android is fine for my use case, and while there are specific policies I wish Apple would change, I don't begrudge them the philosophy.

adql 4y ago
But it's worse than appliance. Appliance doesn't actively block you from using it for something not listed in instruction manual
- lolinder 4y ago
  An appliance is engineered to serve a narrow set of purposes, which can also be said for iOS. The only way in which an iPhone is worse is that it is an information appliance built on hardware that could be general purpose if run with different software. But if you consider the appliance to be both hardware and software, it is no more restrictive than any other appliance.
  - fsflover 4y ago
    The difference is that iPhone is intentionally restricted by Apple to not allow you to use it in unintended ways, which "incidentally" brings a lot of additional profit to the company.
- a4isms 4y ago
  If you feel around the margins, you can find exceptions for everything. e.g. You can cook a fish in a dishwasher. But while anyone can modify a toaster to do wild things, they aren't designed to facilitate that and it isn't a mainstream thing to hack your toaster. PCs are hackable by design. It's a perfectly mainstream thing to build your own PC from parts. Hacking toasters, on the other hand, is not mainstream. Best Buy sells toasters, but not parts for toasters. I personally wouldnt draw the line between information appliances and computers at whether the manufacturer actively blocks you (as Apple and John Deere do), but rather at some combination of what the intended purpose is, and whether hacking and customization is considered mainstream or fringe. Hacking toasters and dishwashers and microwaves and refrigerators is possible, but fringe. Hacking cars and houses is mainstream.

cma 4y ago

At NeXT it seemed like Jobs did the opposite, making workstations for professionals.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago
Always felt that was because there were a few things he wanted in the machine, power, high storage, high resolution, multitasking, networking, voice recording and the only way to achieve those was a price tag that could only be sold as a workstation.
- a4isms 4y ago
  I am not in a position to say why the original NeXT was so different in philosophical underpinnings than the Mac, but there are a few differences one can observe from the outside that may (and I only say may) have contributed to the final outcome: 1. When Jobs left Apple, he was barred from competing with them in the general computing/appliance market. NeXT when it launched was advertised as a product for higher education. 2. Jobs had to bootstrap a company from scratch into what was by then a much more sophisticated industry than existed when the Apple // or mac were launched. Building on top of Unix and Mach was way lower risk than trying to invent an entire operating system from the ground up when your interest was really in the user experience.
rchaud 4y ago
That's because there wasn't any Linux back then. Apple has basically given up on enterprise offerings.

poulsbohemian 4y ago

>But Jobs never lost his vision that Apple should sell appliances, and people who wanted to "wrench their own devices" should buy PCs. You present an excellent historical case of how Apple got here, but here's where I see a dichotomy: Back in the day, tools like RezEdit, Hypercard, AppleScript came included. There were countless "apps" to reconfigure how the Mac looked and felt to create a personalized experience. Average users had developer-like tools that enabled them to become producers. Even today, things like Swift Playground send a message that Apple wants a technically-enabled user base. Perhaps this is really an issue like centralized vs decentralized computing, states vs. federal, IE: there will always be a fundamental fight where some people within Apple want a black box appliance, and others want a fully customizable hackable device.

a4isms 4y ago
Speaking of HyperCard: Inspired by a mind-expanding LSD journey in 1985, I designed the HyperCard authoring system that enabled non-programmers to make their own interactive media. HyperCard used a metaphor of stacks of cards containing graphics, text, buttons, and links that could take you to another card. The HyperTalk scripting language implemented by Dan Winkler was a gentle introduction to event-based programming. Steve Jobs wanted me to leave Apple and join him at Next, but I chose to stay with Apple to finish HyperCard. Apple published HyperCard in 1987, six years before Mosaic, the first web browser. —Bill Atkinson https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Joining_Apple_Computer https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor... My recollection of HyperCard is that it was a grassroots success, Apple did not invest in it, Apple never made a compiler to turn stacks into Mac apps, &c. I personally did two professional HyperCard stacks. One was an internal tool used by a consulting client. The other was a configuration tool for a very successful (at the time) Java development suite. I wrote it in a weekend to meet a deadline, which is why it was written in HyperCard and compiled to run on all our supported operating systems using a third-party compiler. My employer was aghast at this, our mantra was that if we’re selling Java tools, wherever possible we would write them in Java. I thought I was a decent programmer at the time, but no way I could bang out a robust customer-facing tool in a weekend using Swing or AWT or whatever. It was eventually rewritten in Java by a co-op student, it took their entire work term. So eventually, everyone was happy. But HyperCard got the job done when shipping fast mattered.

actually_a_dog 4y ago

> The UX he designed was text-centric and used high-speed incremental search as its navigation paradigm. That sounds exactly like emacs with company-mode or ido-mode.