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Except for the Apple Watch I had all these products. They were some of the best of their time and even hold up today in terms of design and usability. Your def

by Jakob 3y ago

Except for the Apple Watch I had all these products. They were some of the best of their time and even hold up today in terms of design and usability. Your definition of success seems extraordinarily high, if these products were failures. Maybe measured by items sold. But then each of them stands in nearly every single design museum like MoMA, history books, and were clear stepping stones to the Mac mini (cube, sunflower without display), and ipod/phone (newton). So bottom line they were a clear success to Apple’s enormous brand value.

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago
The NeXT Cube was considered a failure. ... except ... when I write iOS software (for the most successful product of all time), I am frequently using types that have "NS" prefixes. I wonder where they came from?
- l33tman 3y ago
  IIRC Jobs purchased NeXT when he took the Apple CEO job, to get a new OS base. As NeXT was his company, I'm pretty sure it was a decision based on bias and urgency and not because NextStep was the best there was. But yeah it's an interesting legacy for sure :)
  - hencq 3y ago
    You recall that incorrectly :) The NeXT purchase came first, Jobs as CEO came after that. But yeah, it was a bit of a reverse takeover in a way.
    - pflats 3y ago
      More specifically, Steve Jobs founded NeXT after Apple pushed him out in the late 80s. A decade or so later, Apple was on the tail end of a long, slow, downward slide. The team wasn't happy with the current state of their Mac operating system, and bought out NeXT to use their software as the basis of its replacement (Mac OS X). Jobs, as CEO of NeXT, came back to Apple as a consultant, but was CEO again in a matter of years.
  - throw74775 3y ago
    NextStep was easily the best there was. Nothing else was remotely suitable. The only contender people like to fantasize about is BeOS, which was nice (I used it as a daily driver for a year), but a toy compared to NextStep and OSX.
  - masklinn 3y ago
    > IIRC Jobs purchased NeXT when he took the Apple CEO job No, Apple bought NeXT after the failure of Copland to birth a replacement for the creaky and leaky MacOS (BeOS was the big alternative, but Apple thought they were asking for too much). And NeXT proceeded to take over: Apple bought NeXT in February 1997 keeping Jobs back as an advisor, Jobs staged a boardroom coup to remove Amelio in July, and was then named interim CEO. Following that he started cutting into the existing product lines and placing NeXT people (Tevanian , Forstall), promoting people he was interested in (Ive), or hiring them from outside (Cook). Basically reshaping the company.
pavlov 3y ago
Yes, sales failures is what I'm talking about. It's already clear the Vision Pro is a milestone for VR and Apple. I'm not sure if that can translate to market success for several years at least.

by Jakob 3y ago

ChrisMarshallNY 3y ago

The NeXT Cube was considered a failure. ... except ... when I write iOS software (for the most successful product of all time), I am frequently using types that have "NS" prefixes. I wonder where they came from?

l33tman 3y ago
IIRC Jobs purchased NeXT when he took the Apple CEO job, to get a new OS base. As NeXT was his company, I'm pretty sure it was a decision based on bias and urgency and not because NextStep was the best there was. But yeah it's an interesting legacy for sure :)
- hencq 3y ago
  You recall that incorrectly :) The NeXT purchase came first, Jobs as CEO came after that. But yeah, it was a bit of a reverse takeover in a way.
  - pflats 3y ago
    More specifically, Steve Jobs founded NeXT after Apple pushed him out in the late 80s. A decade or so later, Apple was on the tail end of a long, slow, downward slide. The team wasn't happy with the current state of their Mac operating system, and bought out NeXT to use their software as the basis of its replacement (Mac OS X). Jobs, as CEO of NeXT, came back to Apple as a consultant, but was CEO again in a matter of years.
- throw74775 3y ago
  NextStep was easily the best there was. Nothing else was remotely suitable. The only contender people like to fantasize about is BeOS, which was nice (I used it as a daily driver for a year), but a toy compared to NextStep and OSX.
- masklinn 3y ago
  > IIRC Jobs purchased NeXT when he took the Apple CEO job No, Apple bought NeXT after the failure of Copland to birth a replacement for the creaky and leaky MacOS (BeOS was the big alternative, but Apple thought they were asking for too much). And NeXT proceeded to take over: Apple bought NeXT in February 1997 keeping Jobs back as an advisor, Jobs staged a boardroom coup to remove Amelio in July, and was then named interim CEO. Following that he started cutting into the existing product lines and placing NeXT people (Tevanian , Forstall), promoting people he was interested in (Ive), or hiring them from outside (Cook). Basically reshaping the company.

pavlov 3y ago

Yes, sales failures is what I'm talking about. It's already clear the Vision Pro is a milestone for VR and Apple. I'm not sure if that can translate to market success for several years at least.