There are eight functions the iPad Home button performs. As far as replacing it with a touch-sensitive area on the bezel, that’s just impractical. The main problem is orientation. Where is it? Since there’s no “wrong” way to hold an iPad, the Home button could be at the top, bottom, left or right at any time. I often find it by feel, a tactic that a touch area would eliminate.
Agreed.
My mini-series on NeXT Computer:
Installment 1: On the Creation of NeXT
Installment 2: NeXT: The Hardware
Installment 3: NeXT: The Software
Installment 4: NeXT: The Apple Purchase
Installment 5: Why Did NeXT Fail?
I don’t think the importance of NeXT being purchased by Apple can be overstated.
With a single purchase, Apple gained a stable, mature OS, lots of underpinning technology and Steven P. Jobs.
After launching System 7 — and handing it out to clone makers — Apple looked forward to a new Mac OS.
(It ended up being named Mac OS 8 to break the contracts with clone makers.)
Apple’s OS was in trouble. The writing on the wall was in the form of Windows 95. It brought tons of features to the market that Apple could only dream about.
To try to meet Microsoft, Apple launched the Copland project. Now, Copland is worthy of its own lengthy post, but I won’t get too far in to it here. In short, it was a project to bring things like protected memory and preemptive multitasking to the Mac OS. By 1996, it was clear things weren’t working out very well.
However, while Mac OS 8 did get out the door, it wasn’t the technical platform Apple needed to survive, so Apple started to shop around for an OS before it was ever released. Apple looked at several options, including BeOS:[1]
Apple CEO Gil Amelio started negotiations to buy Be Inc., but negotiations stalled when Be CEO Jean-Louis Gassée wanted $200 million; Apple was unwilling to offer any more than $125 million.
So Apple turned to NeXT.
On Dec. 20, 1996, Apple announced that it had purchased NeXT Computer:
Apple Computer, Inc. today announced its intention to purchase NeXT Software Inc., in a friendly acquisition for $400 million. Pending regulatory approvals, all NeXT products, services, and technology research will become part of Apple Computer, Inc. As part of the agreement, Steve Jobs, Chairman and CEO of NeXT Software, will return to Apple–the company he co-founded in 1976–reporting to Dr. Gilbert F. Amelio, Apple’s Chairman and CEO.
The acquisition will bring together Apple’s and NeXT’s innovative and complementary technology portfolios and significantly strengthens Apple’s position as a company advancing industry standards. Apple’s leadership in ease-of-use and multimedia solutions will be married to NeXT’s strengths in development software and operating environments for both the enterprise and Internet markets. NeXT’s object oriented software development products will contribute to Apple’s goal of creating a differentiated and profitable software business, with a wide range of products for enterprise, business, education, and home markets.
(You can download the entire statement as PDF here.)
Gil Amelio wrote this in his letter concerning the NeXT purchase:
A little background as to why we chose NeXT: As we looked at various partners for our operating system development, we discovered that Apple and NeXT had surprisingly complementary products, technologies, and services. In fact, the more we looked at the two companies, the more we realized that we each were strong where the other faced challenges, and in many ways we filled in the blanks in each other’s strategies. For example, Apple needed a truly modern operating system and NeXT had an exceptional operating system with modern services and API’s. At the same time, NeXT needed a high-volume installed base and Apple — one of the world’s largest personal computer manufacturers — has sold more than 26 million Macintosh systems.
As an Apple customer, this move is extremely important because it acts as an emblem of the new types of products, technologies, and development philosophy I’m bringing to Apple. In this new approach, the “Not Invented Here” syndrome has been banished far beyond the horizons of our vision. Apple will be open to new technologies, and where they’re developed doesn’t matter. In this new era, we will not be an island in the industry; but rather build a bridge to the center of an open standards world based on industry alliances.
Not everyone was thrilled with the acquisition. The Sun/Solaris community was concerned, as were BeOS fans.
Their fears were well-founded, as it turns out.
CNET had a great article sharing the thoughts of several industry members and pundits.
The purchase gave Apple lots of things. Most importantly, however, it gave it an operating system:
Apple’s exhaustive research in operating system design, led the company to conclude that NeXTStep maturity, networking, customer and developer acceptance, multi- tasking, protected memory, and scalability from portable to server-level products make it the clear choice for integration into the next major revision of Mac OS. Apple believes that the integration of NeXTStep technology in future versions of Mac OS will result in a robust, next generation OS that provides customers and developers with a multimedia-rich and Internet-savvy platform.
In March 1999, Apple released Mac OS X Server 1.0, it was based on OpenStep, but had the Platinum interface from Mac OS. This OS was based on the Rhapsody project, the project inside Apple to merge the old Mac OS with NeXT’s technology.
Mac OS X Server 1.0 included the ability to run Mac OS 8.5.1 in emulation, to support “classic” apps. This technology would re-appear in Mac OS X.
The rest of the story is well known. In 2001, Apple announced Mac OS X, which included lots of NeXT technology. To this day, OS X runs on the foundations built at NeXT two decades ago.
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The previous little “Saved!” frame had a great run, but its time has passed. Readers are now saving more pages than ever on tablets and phones, and the old bookmarklet wasn’t visible enough there. Instapaper’s customers would often complain that they didn’t even see the old bookmarklet working.
So the bookmarklet now sports a completely new design that’s highly visible at every screen size, and works in more browsers, too.
The new bookmarklet now also supports automatic saving of every page in multi-page articles.
My hack to get the multi-page thing to work is now moot.
I was thrilled when Thomas Brand and I got asked to talk on the Bro Show about our time as Mac Geniuses. Check it out here, just in case you haven’t heard enough of my voice this week.
My bud Thomas Brand has a new site, and it’s awesome.
I have a promo code for the Mac app ProjectDesktops, which makes it easy to organize and efficiently use your Mac’s desktop.
One lucky reader will get the $19.99 app for free. Here’s what you need to do:
I’ll pick a winner tomorrow afternoon sometime, and DM the winner the App Store promo code.
A lot of nerds have been talking about their growing distrust of Google — myself included. But complaining about Google and moving away from their services are two different things. Personally, I leave Safari logged out of my account, and really only use search and Reader. (For the latter, I use Reeder, but it’s still powered by Google’s backend.)
However, Google Analytics has remained a central part of my workflow, especially when it comes to the site. While it might not be the best-designed analytics solution in the market, is the most popular, and the one most people rely on for things like advertising contracts.
But earlier today, I turned off Google Analytics on this domain. If you think Google is creepy, why give the company inside-access to your site’s traffic information? Crawling for search is one thing, but knowing all my stats is another.
Now, I’m using Gaug.es to track hits and referrals for 512 Pixels.
The site offers live traffic information, easy-to-read graphs of traffic trends, a referral list and more. It has all of the basic features of Google’s product, without all the extra junk for ads in there.
There’s a WordPress plugin that makes adding the tracking info very simple — no need to dig around in header.php for WordPress users.
I do wish that the service had an RSS feed for referrals like Mint does.
The free iPhone app has all of the key features built-in. There isn’t an iPad app, but the site works just fine in Safari. (Speaking of the site, it’s great. It is easy to read and easy to use.)
Starting at just $6/month, Gaug.es is a great alternative to Google Analytics for the picky nerd.
Episode 2 of the 512 Podcast is out. On it, Myke and I talk about the iPad 3 and rumors, Mobile World Congress and silly Android phones, and Myke’s love of ridiculous hardware.
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