7 ms·

What If Steve Jobs Hadn’t Returned To Apple In 1997?

69 points by hn 17y ago

Tichy 17y ago
I must admit that this article rather made me realize that most of what Apple did is just to create some fancy looking PCs. The iPhone was revolutionary indeed, but overall the achievements seem overblown. I still think that Steve Jobs is cool, though.
- tfh 17y ago
  > just to create some fancy looking PCs that's not true..
  - Tichy 17y ago
    How is it not true?
    - jstevens85 17y ago
      Conduct a controlled experiment. Spilt the world into two parallel universes. In one, give your Mum or technologically illiterate sister a Macbook, and in the other, a Dell Inspiron. You will most likely find a more positive experience with the MacBook. Computers aren't just for socially autistic engineering nerds. This probably doesn't need repeating, but there are a lot of hackers out there who appreciate a UNIX OS that works out of the box, runs commercial software not available on Linux, and can easily sync with your iPhone.
      - Tichy 17y ago
        As a matter of fact a Mac is the worst of the three options I could imagine to give to my mum. I keep saying to Mac fans, first try to explain it to your mum. Have you tried it? It's all the small unintuitive things, like "x" doesn't close the application. There are no hints for accomplishing basic tasks like renaming a file or moving a file (Finder doesn't do cut, only copy). And so on... I consider myself experienced with computers, but on OS X I have to google how to accomplish the most basic tasks. Really, please try it. You know, explain it to the kind of person who has to write down every step on paper. (Not that my mum is that bad - actually I have her on Ubuntu and she is doing fine). So that person has to write down "don't close the application with x, use cmd+q" - it's ridiculous. Gestures look great in presentations - but how do you learn them? There are no hints in OS X as to what to use (OK, I can remember pinching and scrolling - but I don't resize pictures much, so guess what, it is not THAT helpful after all). It's fine if people love their OS X (for whatever reason), but the claim that OS X is simpler is definitely not true.
        philwelch 17y ago
        My mum is dead now, but she happily owned a succession of iMacs for about ten years prior to that. My elderly father does just fine with the iMac too, though I actually had to turn off the right click to keep him from getting confused. By the way, the "unintuitive" things you mention aren't unintuitive, just different from Windows. It's no less "unintuitive" than whether or not you set your parking brake with a pedal or a hand lever (so better not get your mum a Toyota if she has a Ford). By the way, OS X is good enough at multitasking and memory allocation you don't have to actually quit your applications. It's sufficient to just close the window. That way it starts up faster when you want to use it again.
        Tichy 17y ago
        Maybe it only works for some people - fair enough. It doesn't work for me. I had to google for renaming a file. On other OS I just have to remember one rule: try the right mouse button. Instant expert. As for not closing apps, I find that hard to believe. Maybe if you only ever use 3 apps it is OK. Otherwise, why even have a mechanism for starting and stopping apps? Could just start them all upon booting. (Actually this will probably be the future, but not yet). Also it is very confusing if you have closed all windows of an app, but not the app itself. Because then if you click the app icon, nothing happens (it is already started, after all).
        GeneralMaximus 17y ago
        A running app takes up a certain amount of memory it needs for performing basic startup tasks and loading menus/bundles. After that, each document takes a tiny amount of extra memory. For example, Safari with no windows takes about 25megs of memory. This shoots up to about 100megs on opening one window after which it only takes about 10megs of memory per tab (this depends on the size of pages you're loading, of course).
        philwelch 17y ago
        There's just as much arbitrary difference you have to look up if you're used to a Mac and using Windows. Why the hell does "Display" (which you think would change monitor settings) control your desktop background image (and why is it called a "wallpaper"?) What's the GUI to figure out your IP address? (wait, there is none...) If you close all the windows of an app, clicking the app icon in the Dock usually opens a new window. It does for Safari at least. Anyway, the main difference is that Windows doesn't consistently differentiate between windows and applications, and Mac does. On the Mac side, a window is just something that's opened up by an application as an interface, whereas on Windows, the window is the application, which is why if you need to open more than one browser window you have multiple instances of Microsoft Internet Explorer running, but it's really okay because secretly they're all running off the same DLL's. Or something like that.
  - pan69 17y ago
    They are fancy looking PC's. What'd you mean "that's not true"?
    - tfh 17y ago
      i meant it's not just making fancy looking PCs that got apple into what it's become today.
- bumblebird 17y ago
  The % of people who use macs because they're "fancy looking" is pretty small. Most use them for a variety of other reasons - build quality, unixy, os+hardware from single vendor=less issues etc As well as all the cool gadgety stuff multitouch/mag power connector, mag lids etc
  - Tichy 17y ago
    Yeah, they are still just PCs - maybe pretty good PCs (if you like the style), but still just PCs. Sorry.
    - invisible 17y ago
      That's like saying a house is just a house, a car is just a car, or a job is just a job. When the details are left out, there is no comparative analysis and it pretty much fails at making a point.
      - Tichy 17y ago
        I don't think it is. There are only a few categories for PCs (server, desktop, notebook, netbook), stuff like that. I think if you say Apple most people have an idea in which categories to compare. It's not like comparing a Hummer to a Porsche. More like comparing a VW to a Toyota or something. You make it sound as if Apple PCs are beyond comparison, a class of their own. Which they aren't. I am not saying they are not good (another discussion), but I don't see the supposed revolutionary part.
        bumblebird 17y ago
        It's more like comparing a Porsche to a Lada. The amount of time people have to waste on PCs waiting for the OS, doing anti virus stuff, staring at blue screens of death, rebooting because it's got confused, etc etc But this isn't an OS war thread :) Suffice to say, "It's still just a PC" is completely missing the point. A top class restaurant still 'just' serves food, but you can't really compare it to Macdonalds. And to many people, Apple are in a class of their own. If I didn't currently use a macbook, I'm not really sure what else I would use. Some of the Asus laptops look ok enough (At least like cheap copies of Apple design), and maybe Ubuntu is getting mature enough on the desktop to be useful, but there's not an obvious alternative. Regarding "I don't see the revolutionary part", you don't have to be revolutionary to be better than everything else. People use Apple stuff because it works and is well thought out. It stays out of their way and lets them achieve what they want to. It's designed to make everything as seamless and useful for the user as is possible. Some people just want a car to get them from A to B. So they buy a standard boring crappy Ford or something that looks like a dog. As long as it gets them from A to B, they're ok. Others actually love the 'driving' bit, and enjoy it, as well as having a thing of beauty. So they buy a better car. Same is true with computers (And most other things).
- parenthesis 17y ago
  To an extent, making `fancy looking PCs' was Apple's initial strategy upon the return of Jobs, to try to obscure the creaky old OS 8 / OS 9 which they were stuck with until the very time-consuming task of turning the Next OS into a version of OS X ready for the big time was complete. Quickly make a bold, attention-grabbing statement with the iMac casing, and milk that as long as possible until the real big attraction (OS X) is ready.
sleepingbot 17y ago
NeXT could have ended in the perfect Linux distro, open sourced, leading the Linux kernel development, making the distros environment even richer (Mac Linux for mac users, Ubuntu-Debian & similars for those who don't buy Apple hardware, Chrome OS for netbookers; and minoritary distros for the ones who tweak their own flavor.) The world would be a better place. The hardware? Some has been good. Some really advanced to their time. Some G4Cube-ish. I have to admit the guy is brilliant.
- wtallis 17y ago
  NeXTSTEP wasn't based off the Linux kernel, and I think even if it had been GPL'd, it probably wouldn't have ended up that the Linux port was the preferred way to run it. Consider that OPENSTEP/Mach was contemporaneous with Red Hat Linux 4 and kernel 2.0. Everybody in the market for a desktop Linux distribution at the time would have jumped ship. If anything, the Mach 2.5 microkernel would have been stripped out in favor of a pure FreeBSD system, which would probably have resulted in Linux having the same also-ran status that the BSDs have now.
- protomyth 17y ago
  One of the biggest problems with NEXTSTEP that was addressed in the transition to OS X was the replacement of Display Postscript. The license and practice around that was horrible. I don't think the money was there to do that work without going to Apple.
10ren 17y ago
So Arrington was a lawyer, and a hot shot one at that. That may help explain why he rubs some people the wrong way - speaking as an LLB myself. I love Steve Jobs, but I think this article is disingenuous on a couple of counts. One, these disruptive industries that Jobs "created" were coming anyway. He's riding the wave, not creating it. Two, the iPod was in development at Apple before he returned (IIRC). Steve's talent (IMHO) is to get the best out of creative people, to charm people with his reality distortion field, and to tweak things slightly to make them much better. That third point reminds me of what John Cleese said of Graham Chapman: [he] contributed comparatively little in the way of direct writing. Rather, the Pythons have said that his biggest contribution in the writing room was an intuition as to what was funny. John Cleese said in an interview that one of Chapman's great attributes was "his weird takes on things." In writing sessions Chapman "would lob in an idea or a line from out in left field into the engine room, but he could never be the engine", Cleese said. In the Dead Parrot sketch, written mostly by Cleese, the frustrated customer was initially trying to return a faulty toaster to a shop. Chapman would ask "How can we make this madder?", and then came up with the idea that returning a dead Norwegian Blue parrot to a pet shop might make a more interesting subject than a toaster. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Chapman#Monty_Python http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Chapman#Monty_Python
- swombat 17y ago
  Steve's talent (IMHO) is to get the best out of creative people, to charm people with his reality distortion field, and to tweak things slightly to make them much better Doing this is at least an order of magnitude harder than any purely technical or directly productive work. People are fickle, ever-changing, unpredictable, complex, etc. Brilliant people are even more difficult to manage. The art of surrounding yourself with great people and getting them all working together is underrated. Even if Steve Jobs contributed nothing to the ideas that were developed (which is unlikely, based on what I've heard), he still deserves the praise for being the human gravitational well that pulled all those people to work together and create awesome products.
  - kjhgftgyui 17y ago
    And do it consistently - a lot of CEOs talk about this stuff. But then when it comes near the end of the financial quarter or a big customer asks for something, or there is a rumor of a competitor the plan all changes.
haydenchambers 17y ago
I'm a fan of apple (no, not a 'fanboi') but that 'article' was the fappiest piece of fap I've read in ages
notaddicted 17y ago
Apple is a data point in one of the eternal HN debates: Ideas vs. Execution. The functional design of the iPhone was a surprise to no one, everyone wanted it, Apple delivered. There are many operating system, but OSX is still an asset to Apple. It may be the case that Apple has great ideas, but they certainly have great execution.
- InclinedPlane 17y ago
  Apple not only has great technical execution, they have great design execution. There are many industries with lots of excellent companies capable of this combination (automobiles, musical instruments, film, firearms, fashion) but in software this combination is rare as hen's teeth. Thus Apple's dominance in certain markets and customer devotion.
dnsworks 17y ago
Maybe we should be asking, "What if Jobs didn't beg Bill on huge screen television for $100m".
- yardie 17y ago
  To a company that still had $4 billion in cash reserves it's the equivalent of one wallstreet banker asking another for hotdog money

69 points by hn 17y ago

Tichy 17y ago

I must admit that this article rather made me realize that most of what Apple did is just to create some fancy looking PCs. The iPhone was revolutionary indeed, but overall the achievements seem overblown. I still think that Steve Jobs is cool, though.

tfh 17y ago
> just to create some fancy looking PCs that's not true..
- Tichy 17y ago
  How is it not true?
  - jstevens85 17y ago
    Conduct a controlled experiment. Spilt the world into two parallel universes. In one, give your Mum or technologically illiterate sister a Macbook, and in the other, a Dell Inspiron. You will most likely find a more positive experience with the MacBook. Computers aren't just for socially autistic engineering nerds. This probably doesn't need repeating, but there are a lot of hackers out there who appreciate a UNIX OS that works out of the box, runs commercial software not available on Linux, and can easily sync with your iPhone.
    - Tichy 17y ago
      As a matter of fact a Mac is the worst of the three options I could imagine to give to my mum. I keep saying to Mac fans, first try to explain it to your mum. Have you tried it? It's all the small unintuitive things, like "x" doesn't close the application. There are no hints for accomplishing basic tasks like renaming a file or moving a file (Finder doesn't do cut, only copy). And so on... I consider myself experienced with computers, but on OS X I have to google how to accomplish the most basic tasks. Really, please try it. You know, explain it to the kind of person who has to write down every step on paper. (Not that my mum is that bad - actually I have her on Ubuntu and she is doing fine). So that person has to write down "don't close the application with x, use cmd+q" - it's ridiculous. Gestures look great in presentations - but how do you learn them? There are no hints in OS X as to what to use (OK, I can remember pinching and scrolling - but I don't resize pictures much, so guess what, it is not THAT helpful after all). It's fine if people love their OS X (for whatever reason), but the claim that OS X is simpler is definitely not true.
      - philwelch 17y ago
        My mum is dead now, but she happily owned a succession of iMacs for about ten years prior to that. My elderly father does just fine with the iMac too, though I actually had to turn off the right click to keep him from getting confused. By the way, the "unintuitive" things you mention aren't unintuitive, just different from Windows. It's no less "unintuitive" than whether or not you set your parking brake with a pedal or a hand lever (so better not get your mum a Toyota if she has a Ford). By the way, OS X is good enough at multitasking and memory allocation you don't have to actually quit your applications. It's sufficient to just close the window. That way it starts up faster when you want to use it again.
        Tichy 17y ago
        Maybe it only works for some people - fair enough. It doesn't work for me. I had to google for renaming a file. On other OS I just have to remember one rule: try the right mouse button. Instant expert. As for not closing apps, I find that hard to believe. Maybe if you only ever use 3 apps it is OK. Otherwise, why even have a mechanism for starting and stopping apps? Could just start them all upon booting. (Actually this will probably be the future, but not yet). Also it is very confusing if you have closed all windows of an app, but not the app itself. Because then if you click the app icon, nothing happens (it is already started, after all).
        GeneralMaximus 17y ago
        A running app takes up a certain amount of memory it needs for performing basic startup tasks and loading menus/bundles. After that, each document takes a tiny amount of extra memory. For example, Safari with no windows takes about 25megs of memory. This shoots up to about 100megs on opening one window after which it only takes about 10megs of memory per tab (this depends on the size of pages you're loading, of course).
        philwelch 17y ago
        There's just as much arbitrary difference you have to look up if you're used to a Mac and using Windows. Why the hell does "Display" (which you think would change monitor settings) control your desktop background image (and why is it called a "wallpaper"?) What's the GUI to figure out your IP address? (wait, there is none...) If you close all the windows of an app, clicking the app icon in the Dock usually opens a new window. It does for Safari at least. Anyway, the main difference is that Windows doesn't consistently differentiate between windows and applications, and Mac does. On the Mac side, a window is just something that's opened up by an application as an interface, whereas on Windows, the window is the application, which is why if you need to open more than one browser window you have multiple instances of Microsoft Internet Explorer running, but it's really okay because secretly they're all running off the same DLL's. Or something like that.
- pan69 17y ago
  They are fancy looking PC's. What'd you mean "that's not true"?
  - tfh 17y ago
    i meant it's not just making fancy looking PCs that got apple into what it's become today.
bumblebird 17y ago
The % of people who use macs because they're "fancy looking" is pretty small. Most use them for a variety of other reasons - build quality, unixy, os+hardware from single vendor=less issues etc As well as all the cool gadgety stuff multitouch/mag power connector, mag lids etc
- Tichy 17y ago
  Yeah, they are still just PCs - maybe pretty good PCs (if you like the style), but still just PCs. Sorry.
  - invisible 17y ago
    That's like saying a house is just a house, a car is just a car, or a job is just a job. When the details are left out, there is no comparative analysis and it pretty much fails at making a point.
    - Tichy 17y ago
      I don't think it is. There are only a few categories for PCs (server, desktop, notebook, netbook), stuff like that. I think if you say Apple most people have an idea in which categories to compare. It's not like comparing a Hummer to a Porsche. More like comparing a VW to a Toyota or something. You make it sound as if Apple PCs are beyond comparison, a class of their own. Which they aren't. I am not saying they are not good (another discussion), but I don't see the supposed revolutionary part.
      - bumblebird 17y ago
        It's more like comparing a Porsche to a Lada. The amount of time people have to waste on PCs waiting for the OS, doing anti virus stuff, staring at blue screens of death, rebooting because it's got confused, etc etc But this isn't an OS war thread :) Suffice to say, "It's still just a PC" is completely missing the point. A top class restaurant still 'just' serves food, but you can't really compare it to Macdonalds. And to many people, Apple are in a class of their own. If I didn't currently use a macbook, I'm not really sure what else I would use. Some of the Asus laptops look ok enough (At least like cheap copies of Apple design), and maybe Ubuntu is getting mature enough on the desktop to be useful, but there's not an obvious alternative. Regarding "I don't see the revolutionary part", you don't have to be revolutionary to be better than everything else. People use Apple stuff because it works and is well thought out. It stays out of their way and lets them achieve what they want to. It's designed to make everything as seamless and useful for the user as is possible. Some people just want a car to get them from A to B. So they buy a standard boring crappy Ford or something that looks like a dog. As long as it gets them from A to B, they're ok. Others actually love the 'driving' bit, and enjoy it, as well as having a thing of beauty. So they buy a better car. Same is true with computers (And most other things).
parenthesis 17y ago
To an extent, making `fancy looking PCs' was Apple's initial strategy upon the return of Jobs, to try to obscure the creaky old OS 8 / OS 9 which they were stuck with until the very time-consuming task of turning the Next OS into a version of OS X ready for the big time was complete. Quickly make a bold, attention-grabbing statement with the iMac casing, and milk that as long as possible until the real big attraction (OS X) is ready.

sleepingbot 17y ago

NeXT could have ended in the perfect Linux distro, open sourced, leading the Linux kernel development, making the distros environment even richer (Mac Linux for mac users, Ubuntu-Debian & similars for those who don't buy Apple hardware, Chrome OS for netbookers; and minoritary distros for the ones who tweak their own flavor.) The world would be a better place. The hardware? Some has been good. Some really advanced to their time. Some G4Cube-ish. I have to admit the guy is brilliant.

wtallis 17y ago
NeXTSTEP wasn't based off the Linux kernel, and I think even if it had been GPL'd, it probably wouldn't have ended up that the Linux port was the preferred way to run it. Consider that OPENSTEP/Mach was contemporaneous with Red Hat Linux 4 and kernel 2.0. Everybody in the market for a desktop Linux distribution at the time would have jumped ship. If anything, the Mach 2.5 microkernel would have been stripped out in favor of a pure FreeBSD system, which would probably have resulted in Linux having the same also-ran status that the BSDs have now.
protomyth 17y ago
One of the biggest problems with NEXTSTEP that was addressed in the transition to OS X was the replacement of Display Postscript. The license and practice around that was horrible. I don't think the money was there to do that work without going to Apple.

10ren 17y ago

So Arrington was a lawyer, and a hot shot one at that. That may help explain why he rubs some people the wrong way - speaking as an LLB myself. I love Steve Jobs, but I think this article is disingenuous on a couple of counts. One, these disruptive industries that Jobs "created" were coming anyway. He's riding the wave, not creating it. Two, the iPod was in development at Apple before he returned (IIRC). Steve's talent (IMHO) is to get the best out of creative people, to charm people with his reality distortion field, and to tweak things slightly to make them much better. That third point reminds me of what John Cleese said of Graham Chapman: [he] contributed comparatively little in the way of direct writing. Rather, the Pythons have said that his biggest contribution in the writing room was an intuition as to what was funny. John Cleese said in an interview that one of Chapman's great attributes was "his weird takes on things." In writing sessions Chapman "would lob in an idea or a line from out in left field into the engine room, but he could never be the engine", Cleese said. In the Dead Parrot sketch, written mostly by Cleese, the frustrated customer was initially trying to return a faulty toaster to a shop. Chapman would ask "How can we make this madder?", and then came up with the idea that returning a dead Norwegian Blue parrot to a pet shop might make a more interesting subject than a toaster. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Chapman#Monty_Python http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graham_Chapman#Monty_Python

swombat 17y ago
Steve's talent (IMHO) is to get the best out of creative people, to charm people with his reality distortion field, and to tweak things slightly to make them much better Doing this is at least an order of magnitude harder than any purely technical or directly productive work. People are fickle, ever-changing, unpredictable, complex, etc. Brilliant people are even more difficult to manage. The art of surrounding yourself with great people and getting them all working together is underrated. Even if Steve Jobs contributed nothing to the ideas that were developed (which is unlikely, based on what I've heard), he still deserves the praise for being the human gravitational well that pulled all those people to work together and create awesome products.
- kjhgftgyui 17y ago
  And do it consistently - a lot of CEOs talk about this stuff. But then when it comes near the end of the financial quarter or a big customer asks for something, or there is a rumor of a competitor the plan all changes.

haydenchambers 17y ago

I'm a fan of apple (no, not a 'fanboi') but that 'article' was the fappiest piece of fap I've read in ages

notaddicted 17y ago

Apple is a data point in one of the eternal HN debates: Ideas vs. Execution. The functional design of the iPhone was a surprise to no one, everyone wanted it, Apple delivered. There are many operating system, but OSX is still an asset to Apple. It may be the case that Apple has great ideas, but they certainly have great execution.

InclinedPlane 17y ago
Apple not only has great technical execution, they have great design execution. There are many industries with lots of excellent companies capable of this combination (automobiles, musical instruments, film, firearms, fashion) but in software this combination is rare as hen's teeth. Thus Apple's dominance in certain markets and customer devotion.

dnsworks 17y ago

Maybe we should be asking, "What if Jobs didn't beg Bill on huge screen television for $100m".

yardie 17y ago
To a company that still had $4 billion in cash reserves it's the equivalent of one wallstreet banker asking another for hotdog money