When Steve Jobs left Apple in the eighties, he started NeXT with the plan to create the software innovations Apple did not want to do. Then he found out no computer was available to support those innovations, so NeXT also created stunning and innovative hardware. NeXT was a technological marvel, but not a commercial success for several reasons. But when Apple bought NeXT in 1996 and the NeXT innovators took over parts of Apple from the inside, the result was Mac OS X and all that made that possible, including today’s iPhone, iPod and iPad.
The Electronic AppWrapper was a valuable source of products and services for NEXTSTEP users. This electronic catalog offered software, hardware, fonts, clip art, technical books, recreational books and more.
One could order products via e-mail, fax, or phone. A corporate purchasing program was available.
I wasn’t aware of this until Jesse Tayler, who worked as an engineer on the project dropped me an email. In it, he wrote:
I got to demo to Steve Jobs personally, he said only three words: “I like it.” I guess he did.
Thanks to the unbelievable generosity of Mr. Matt Alexander, I will be flying out to Macworld | iWorld next week, as long as FedEx doesn’t goof up my package between now and Monday.
I’m looking forward to meeting fellow online writers, Apple nerds and readers. If you want to meet up, get in touch.
I don’t expect to be posting much during the trip, but I am going to try to post audio updates as I go.
NeXTStep 1 is the operating system built by NeXT to power the company’s line of computer hardware. It is widely regarded to have been ahead of its time, and boasted these features:
The Mach microkernel
Display PostScript and a windowing engine
The Objective-C language and runtime
An object-oriented application layer, complete with robust development tools
Compared to Mac OS, NeXTStep looked like the future. It had full-color icons2 and modern typography and included technologies like protected memory and multitasking.
NeXTStep’s Dock functioned pretty much the way it does now — it stored shortcuts to often-used applications.
The interface allowed applications to be hidden (but kept running), included smooth scrolling (even with images) and drag and drop functionality. NeXTStep also offered full audio support, including recording audio and saving it as a file, which could then be added to emails, or sent to a network share easily.
Applications
NeXTStep offered applications that had shared core components, like a font manager and a Services menu. This functioned much like Services does now, offering system-wide tools like a Dictionary, text tools and more.
What was magical about this was that every app got these extras, built-in.
This was thanks to the object-orientated nature of NeXT’s tools. Instead of each developer having to build custom controls and resources, they could rely on the tools that came with the OS itself.
Thanks to this, apps running on a NeXT system could do all sorts of new tricks.
Object-linking allowed users to paste one file (such as a graph) in to another (such as a report) in a way that the pasted version would auto-update any time the source file was updated. The user didn’t even have to save the original — it could be live-updated, even across a network.
Networking
NeXTStep users each had a “Home Directory,” thanks to OS’ Unix underpinnings. If on a network, a user could easily navigate to another user’s folder to copy files. Users could even create custom buttons in the file manager to quickly get back to a remote location. Users could connect to file servers running on a PC or Mac just as easily. NeXT worked with Novell to get Netware systems integrated, but, as Steve says in the video below, the company “wrote their own” support for AppleShare.
While it seems dated now, NeXTSep included built-in fax support. Users could send and receive faxes over a networked modem, which would send digital copies of the fax to the correct user, saving paper and time.
With NeXTStep, NeXT gave developers an all-new way to build applications. Interface Builder included tons of pre-built, standard software controls, all usable with drag-n-drop actions. Apps built with Interface Builder didn’t have to be compiled, as there was no code in play.
(Interface Builder and its counterpart Project Builder lasted until OS X Jaguar, when Xcode was released. Interface Builder has since been absorbed in to Xcode completely.)
The Database Kit gave developers the tools needed to manipulate data in databases from within their apps, easily and quickly.
DOS programs could be run on NeXTStep, thanks to SoftPC. NeXT was quite happy to have the app available, as it meant that the DOS-based enterprise could migrate to NeXT with a minimal amount of pain.
On the graphics end of things, NeXTStep was simply phenomenal. Thanks to Pixar, the NeXT OS shipped with Renderman, giving powerful tools to every user. With NeXT’s powerful hardware, 3D graphics ran smoothly.
So What the Heck is OpenStep?
OpenStep was born out of a partnership between NeXT and Sun Microsystems.4 In short, it was a project to build a full API that would bring NeXT’s object model to a system without NeXTStep running as its base OS. In short, it was an extension of the development tools NeXT created for NeXTStep, just on other vendors’ operating systems.
By 1993, OpenStep was successfully running on top of Sun’s Solaris operating system, as long as it was on SPARC-based hardware. The system included NeXT’s PostScript and Objective-C tools, but no NeXT interface.
In 1994, the company announced OPENSTEP,5 a newer version that brought updated tools to not only NeXT and Sun systems, but to others as well, including Windows NT. First started here, the prefix NS is still present in Cocoa object and classes.
OPENSTEP (for lack of a better word) absorbed NeXTStep, as the company focused on it (after ceasing to produce hardware) until 1996, when it was bought by Apple. That said, some original support documents can still be found on Apple’s site.
For extra credit, be sure to check out this video, in which OPENSTEP is demoed.
GNUStep
GNUStep is “a free, object-oriented, cross-platform development environment that strives for simplicity and elegance.” The project strives to compatible with the Cocoa frameworks, but be available cross-platform.
The project’s website is very clear that GNUStep is not a clone of NeXTStep. It ships with a few pre-built apps, but no window manager or set theme.
These projects, however, do aim to re-create the NeXT experience on the desktop, using the work of the GNUStep team members:
p id=“yui_3_10_1_1_1391817482338_13153”>Here’s Steve Jobs showing off NeXTStep Release 3:
Don’t miss the jabs at Apple.
For more extra credit, there are still some NeXTStep and OPENSTEP files floating around on Apple’s servers you can download. I haven’t played with them much, but they’re now archived safe and sound on my external RAID.
I’ll be using the less common “NeXTStep” in this article, since the mostly-caps version makes my eyes bleed. ↩︎
I know very little about programming, so I apologize for the brevity of this section. I know it’s probably the single most important thing about NeXTStep, in hindsight. If you know what you’re talking about, and what to write something up, I’d love to share it here. ↩︎
Ironically, Sun sold to Oracle in January 2010. Oracle was co-founded in 1977 by Larry Ellison, who was one of Steve Jobs’ closest friends. ↩︎
Yes, it was done in all caps. Why couldn’t have someone just come up with a different name? ↩︎
The ACOT2 program gives great insight into how Apple views education in the 21st century. The company has been studying education since 1985, and has discovered lots of areas where the field could be improved.
There’s a lot of information on these web pages, but it is all worth reading and thinking about.
I get handed tons of business cards in my professional life. I meet with vendors, contractors, sub-contractors, corporate representatives and more in a normal work week. They all have cards, and they all seem to want to give me as many as possible.
That’s where WorldCard Mobile comes in. I can take a photo of a business card, and the app will work some OCR magic to put the data into a new contact. Thankfully, it allows editing the data before saving it, in case the app didn’t get everything just right. Once edited, the card is “exported” to the iPhone and — in my case — is sent to iCloud within seconds
In the few weeks I’ve had it, I have not needed to correct the app’s OCR-ified text a single time. It’s that good.
The company had no announcements to make (and that sentiment didn’t change when I pressed reps for comment), but it will be an interesting question to see answered in the coming months. If Apple wants school districts to buy an iPad for every student, it’s going to take more than just a great presentation. When we spoke to Phil Schiller, he told us that he thinks the numbers work out favorably for school districts if you weigh the costs of textbooks and classroom computers against iBooks content and iPads. “It’s affordable for schools,” was the message.
Apple’s leasing plan will go a long way. Again, Topolsky:
The company did tell us that it works with districts to lease iPads on a four-year schedule — so that will potentially ease the strain on budgets.
This is a big issue, but there are several factors at play not mentioned by Topolsky:
iPads are several hundred dollars less than laptops, and many schools already have a MacBook 1–1 program. 1–1 machine are usually leased, so costs may come down for some schools.
Apple doesn’t publicly discuss education pricing. While I don’t have any insight here, I’m positive schools aren’t paying retail for iPads if they buy them outright. 1
Often, schools can use grant money for technology upgrades.
I hope that schools can easily get iPads in to the classrooms, but I know it will take time. Obviously, it will occur in more affluent school districts first, which is how these things normally go.2
I am interesting at looking at what point the cost of an iPad (plus a few $15 books) meets the cost of textbooks. But I’ll leave that to someone smarter than me.
Several readers have emailed telling me this is not the case. If Apple keeps the iPad 2 around after the 3 is released, maybe pricing will come down. I do know that educational discounts on MacBooks can be pretty decent, depending on volume. ↩︎
It’s a damn shame, too. The poorest schools are often where things like this can make the biggest impact. ↩︎
I wasn’t aware Apple’s support pages for the app were still up until yesterday. It’s especially fun to look at this today, as Apple re-engages the education sector, albiet in a very new way.
The updated iTunes U includes a new universal iOS app, integration with iCloud and iBooks, and new tools to build courses and assign content to students. Apple’s expanded availability to include K–12.
