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20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

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Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#231
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Steve have an email that was in your mailbox by default when you got a new account on a NeXT machine? It had some embedded images and an audio file of him talking. Anyway, I sent whoever it was, pretty sure Steve, an email with read receipt enabled and he bitched me out for invading his privacy. This was ~93 or so.

Honestly I find read receipt requests to be in very poor taste, if not a sign of outright hostility, and no, having them by default is not an acceptable excuse, no more than forgetting capslock on would.

Those things annoy me too, but thankfully it's been years since anyone sent me one (unless my mail clients have been silently reporting back to people other than the NSA, of course). I assume the read receipt request button has been made harder to find in newer versions of Outlook or something.

I reckon the correct way to handle these receipt requests is to configure the mail client to send a modified receipt email which also has a read receipt request, and keep replying in kind until your correspondent gets the message (or the mail servers break down due to two bots telling each other that they read the notification that they just read each other's mail telling them they read their mail, of course).

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#232

I was applying for jobs back in 1997, and during that time they had a huge career fair called the Brass Ring fair. Employers from around Silicon Valley would have booths and hire people on the spot. I distinctly remember Apple's booth being completely barren, they were practically dead to most engineers. How the tables have turned since then. The big question is, Apple's path appears to be following the path after St…

It will. No company remains dominant forever.

Exactly. Some people never imagined Apple being more successful than MS.

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first Microsoft apps were Excel and Word for the Mac. Nice quote otherwise, but this bit is not actually true. Microsoft got into apps via Word and Multiplan on DOS. Excel and Word for the Mac were its first graphical applications.

I believe the context is 'apps on Mac'.

"The first Microsoft apps for the Mac were Excel and Word" would, of course, be correct.

Microsoft was the Mac's biggest supporter, and Bill Gates appeared on stage at the Mac launch. For which he has been richly rewarded with decades of Apple fanboy bile ;-)

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#234
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't Steve have an email that was in your mailbox by default when you got a new account on a NeXT machine? It had some embedded images and an audio file of him talking. Anyway, I sent whoever it was, pretty sure Steve, an email with read receipt enabled and he bitched me out for invading his privacy. This was ~93 or so.

Looks like it was Steve https://www.flickr.com/photos/allardjm/480786084

Apple must have had lots of emails over the years with people wanting to return a 'Next' shirt or asking if they are going to restock such-and-such jeans again.

There must be someone at Next clothing (next.co.uk) dreaming that Apple sell that domain name to them one day.

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly I find read receipt requests to be in very poor taste, if not a sign of outright hostility, and no, having them by default is not an acceptable excuse, no more than forgetting capslock on would.

Those things annoy me too, but thankfully it's been years since anyone sent me one (unless my mail clients have been silently reporting back to people other than the NSA, of course). I assume the read receipt request button has been made harder to find in newer versions of Outlook or something. I reckon the correct way to handle these receipt requests is to configure the mail client to send a modified receipt email w…

It has been a while but with Outlook there was an option to ignore all read receipt requests. Maybe you turned that on?

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disney is mostly ESPN, based on profits.

Disney is about 30% ESPN, 30% Parks & Resorts, and then everything else. The animation/film unit is actually only less than 10% of their revenue iirc. Disney is in big trouble as cordcutters proliferate.

TO be fair, you could consider the animation/film unit to be the marketing wing of Parks & Resorts for the purposes of this discussion. Why would anyone go to the parks without Mickey, Leia, and Iron Man?

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. And at least they got a working OS out of the deal instead of futzing with Copland or Taligent for who knows how long. Imagine if our iPhones ran BeOS.

I love BeOS and had NeXTSTEP 3.3 (& later OpenStep) and BeOS running in my office. There was no real comparison, NeXTSTEP was better in every way except doing video demos. It was easier to program and had a decent UNIX. NeXTSTEP was multi-user. BeOS was superior to quite a lot of the other OSes at the time though. We will really never know, but I suspect there were some serious problems when Palm bought the code and…

Palm bought the talent not the OS.

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#238
post #6

>> What came out of this deal not only saved Apple and the Mac, but made the iPhone, iPad and more possible as well. What prevents Apple from making the iPhone and iPad? They could have bought Palm, QNX, did something based on Linux... What was the key? BSD? Objective-C? I don't see those being that important. The one thing NeXT did enable them to do was the PowerPC to Intel switch.

Steve Jobs, the team he assembled, and a willingness to cut. Apple at the time was running the Newton which, although I loved programming it, was a totally wrong direction. It just wasn't connected as Mr. Jobs explained in his Q&A[1]. He built a much better OS than the Mac at that time. Palm couldn't build the iPhone with Palm and had to build WebOS. QNX is amazing, but its UI and client developer library wasn't ther…

  > the whole GNU thing at NeXT.
Don't forget the 1988-1995 FSF boycott of all things Apple, in which they refused to accept patches targeting MacOS, thus driving hobby developers to DOS/Windows and helping cement Microsoft's dominance.

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#239
post #191
post #137

Your comment is not relevant or appreciated. Not only are you not adding to the discussion, this comment is simply a personal opinion coupled with an undependable generalizations about "many people" without even addressing the topic of discussion. Isaacson's book is not generally accepted as the de facto Steve Jobs biography. That is all.

This comment breaks the HN guidelines. Please (re)-read them and post civilly and substantively, or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13226087 and marked it off-topic.

I'm sorry but I cannot find any reference in the provided links that substantiate that claim.

Furthermore, the comment is indeed on-topic.

Could you please provide more specific information on how this breaks the HN guidelines linked to?

Re: 20 years ago, Apple bought NeXT

#240
post #239
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment breaks the HN guidelines. Please (re)-read them and post civilly and substantively, or not at all. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13226087 and marked it off-topic.

I'm sorry but I cannot find any reference in the provided links that substantiate that claim. Furthermore, the comment is indeed on-topic. Could you please provide more specific information on how this breaks the HN guidelines linked to?

It's uncivil because of the personally abrasive stuff like "Your comment is not relevant or appreciated. Not only are you not adding to the discussion" and (below) "You are a troll." Please edit that kind of thing out when posting here.
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