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Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

spectrum.ieee.org

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Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#221

Post by flomo »

bobanrocky wrote: post #128
flomo wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what point exactly you are making. But the Wall Street Journal had a bunch of stuff about Apple engaging what was later known as 'Enron-style accounting'. They were a big company, and they did have a serious cashflow problem. So they needed a bailout from someone. (which happened to be Microsoft rather than wall street) Also disagree with GP's point - Apple is definitely not Next. Next was an enterprise soft…

What? Next an enterprise software company is one of the weirdest takes i’ve ever heard in my 3 decades in the industry. They were a workstation manufacturer with impressively cute UIs and an interesting software stack over MachOS

Three decades ago, they would relentlessly snailmail spam us with these weekly industry tabloids like 'ComputerWorld' and 'PCWeek'. These were always fun to read at lunch, even if they were all obvious advertisements, but certainly better info than vaguely remembering something from your stoner phase and then sticking your junk out.

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#222

Post by flomo »

pjmlp wrote: post #220
flomo wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I chose Rails just an example, could be PHP, could be Elixir, could be this dumbass bun shit, whatever is cool man and get you that VC. I cannot recall any 'Show HNs' based on J2EE, not that it doesn't work.

Usually enterprise apps don't do Show HNs.

I concede you like to talk to yourself.

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#223

Post by mentos »

andrekandre wrote: post #213
mentos wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I appreciate what you're saying but is the problem with fast food that people have always been hungry?

probably the problem with fastfood is that its preying on our human bias for fats and salts and doesn't provide much beyond that we probably arent super disagreeing anyways, all im saying is its kind of like blaming uber eats for delivering lots of junk food to everyone when the problem is the junk food in other words, probably we should think about why we allow these social media companies to prey on our human biase…

Probably.

Pandora’s box didn’t just have social media in it.

https://www.overyondr.com

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#224

Post by Geezus_42 »

klez wrote: post #187
Geezus_42 wrote: post #24

Is it really forgotten considering it gets mentioned almost everytime he is?

I'm afraid that's just our bubble. If I asked my Mac- and iPad- using parents who Steve Jobs was they'd know it was the Apple guy, but if I asked if they've ever heard of NeXT they wouldn't have the foggiest idea.

Sure, but they probably didn't know what NeXT was when it existed either. Can't forget something you never knew. Nerds like us remember it, and that's who I would expect to.

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#225

Post by F7F7F7 »

pjmlp wrote: post #197
malshe wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple detractors also live in a bubble. Apple was always after profit share not market share. They have 20% market share for mobile devices globally, which is still the highest among all the brands. But their profit share is an estimated 80%. How’s that not crushing it? Btw they don’t have to be in every product market under the sun. It’s a bizarre observation. Getting out of the businesses where they don’t have marg…

20% of the market doesn't last forever, eventually those people are gone from planet Earth. Ferrari isn't crushing it, regardless how you sell their profits over the car industry. Apple wants to be the Ferrari from computers, which cuts their growth opportunities.

Last time someone cared to measure they owned 98% of the $1,000+ PC market. If that number ever slips you should offer your services to them.

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#226

Post by whywhywhywhy »

Nevermark wrote: post #126

> I think they’re still going to make great [software]. It’s just not going to be the cutting-edge anymore. This is what I see. The biggest test was the Vision Pro. Amazing hardware but only "another iOS" software vision for it, which is a tremendous dropped ball. Another toy-app/media kiosk with its service subscription lanyard. To me, the Vision Pro screams out that it wants to have a richer interface than a Mac, w…

> Amazing hardware

It was amazing at a silicon, screen, camera level but I'd argue the rest of the product was actually insanely poor hardware design.

I understand it was originally meant to be lightweight see through glasses and in the end they went down a slippery slope and made a VR headset but what they shipped showed a fundamental misunderstanding about head mounted computing.

If someone is expected to wear something on their head you have to be maximizing for lightness and comfort, deciding to make it out of metal and glass and defaulting without a top strap is actually baffling. Heavy things on your head really tire you out while using them, the more tiring it is the more effort it feels to go back into it, ultimately engagement rapidly falls off.

Think it really demonstrates a lack of management of the design team vs the actual product vision. The design team were getting their kicks playing with curved glass for what didn't end up even being a viewport out to the world just a weird virtual eye screen adding all that glass weight in the worst possible place essentially for vanity purposes once it became a VR headset not an AR headset. Really seems the design team didn't actually use the product that much during development or someone would have corrected this, but I know that product designers get a kick out of adding something like curved glass.

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#227

Post by keeganpoppen »

robomartin wrote: post #149
keeganpoppen wrote: post #121

cannot wait for this book. it is insane that steve jobs has somehow become underrated because the lesson has become “sometimes assholes are geniuses”… that is such a painfully reductive narrative it beggars belief. there is a reason he is in/on the pantheon, and to talk yourself out of it is to do yourself a disservice. it’s just that a lot of his skills are not transferable because you have to cultivate the kind of…

> the lesson has become “sometimes assholes are geniuses" In my experience, the asshole label, when faced with competence comes from people who are incompetent, insecure or, very often, both. I've seen this in action more than once. When someone who is --to generalize-- one standard deviation more competent than a group comes into that group, they tend to be attacked like white blood cells attack foreign matter. Offi…

i… lowkey agree with this, by the way. unpopular opinion though it may be/seem.

Re: Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer

#228

Post by robomartin »

keeganpoppen wrote: post #227
robomartin wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the lesson has become “sometimes assholes are geniuses" In my experience, the asshole label, when faced with competence comes from people who are incompetent, insecure or, very often, both. I've seen this in action more than once. When someone who is --to generalize-- one standard deviation more competent than a group comes into that group, they tend to be attacked like white blood cells attack foreign matter. Offi…

i… lowkey agree with this, by the way. unpopular opinion though it may be/seem.

I might be unpopular, but that does not make it not real. I have witnessed this kind of thing multiple times in different organizations and at different levels over my 40+ year career.

I think of it as what happens in the show Survivor, where people sometimes team-up and vote out the strongest players because they perceive them as a threat, rather than taking advantage of them to help the team advance in the game. In other words, it's human nature.

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