Geoffrey Cain’s forthcoming book argues NeXT Computer (1985-1997) was the crucible that transformed Jobs from an undisciplined founder into the builder who made Apple’s renaissance possible.
Key Takeaways
NeXT’s core software stack, built on object-oriented programming, became the direct foundation for all modern Apple operating systems; every Apple device today runs NeXT DNA.
The first app store appeared on a NeXT machine in 1988, a decade before the concept entered mainstream product thinking.
Jobs’s NeXT hardware division failed and was shut down; the same pattern repeated at Pixar before both pivoted to software and creative focus.
At Pixar, Jobs was explicitly barred from creative meetings by Ed Catmull and John Lasseter; respecting that constraint let Toy Story succeed and made Jobs a billionaire.
Cain argues John Ternus inherits a maintenance role, not an invention mandate, and that Apple’s AI future will be ambient and hardware-led rather than frontier-model competitive.
Hacker News Comment Review
Commenters broadly agree that modern macOS is essentially NeXTSTEP; the “forgotten” framing in the title drew skepticism since NeXT is routinely cited in Apple history discussions.
The prior book on NeXT, Stross’s “Steve Jobs and the Next Big Thing,” was flagged as heavily biased against Jobs, raising hope that Cain’s account will be more balanced.
Debate surfaced over how close Apple actually was to collapse in 1997: one thread pushed back on “days from bankruptcy,” framing it instead as a supply-chain and inventory crisis that was severe but not imminent insolvency.
Notable Comments
@WillAdams: Flags the engineers who built NeXT’s foundations, including Avie Tevanian (Mach microkernel), Susan Kare (UI design), and Brad Cox (object-oriented programming author), noting the book should credit them.
@felixding: Points to nextspace, an active project porting NeXTSTEP look and feel to Linux, as evidence the platform still has living descendants beyond Apple.
