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Eddy Cue Worked to Convince Steve Jobs of Need for 7-Inch iPad in Early 2011

drblank said:
I'm going to be honest with you. When the Mac first came out, I didn't like the original design. I would have done it TOTALLY differently for an all in one model when CRT was the only type of screen. I wanted what actually ended up being the first generation iMac.

Now, what would have happened if Apple came out with a product back in the beginning that resembled a first generation iMac instead?

I thought they should have made the original Mac OS Unix, used a 13inch COLOR screen, a decent sized hard drive, a decent amount of RAM, built-in ethernet instead of AppleTalk and a parallel printer port and serial port. That was more of MY idea that I had. But since I'm not Steve Jobs or work at Apple doesn't mean my idea wasn't better than his. I just never worked for a computer company making decisions on a product.

Steve was not always right either.

Not too many people always come up with the best ideas. Many times people come up with a decent idea and many times their wrong. Well, BFD.
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I had an original Mac 128 purchased within a few weeks of availability. What you were asking for wasn't possible at that time for the consumer market; the Mac 128 was $2495.00, and that was a steep price in the consumer market. You were asking way too much of a computer for that era.

Cost was everything, and Unix wasn't close to being ready for consumers at that time.
 
TMay said:
Cost was everything, and Unix wasn't close to being ready for consumers at that time.
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When has UNIX been close to being ready for consumers ? It's the implementor that makes the operating system "consumer" or "enterprise" or "business". The UNIX System III and prior releases were actually tailored for academic use (think computer science and research).

Anyway, the problem was one of hardware. Apple did end up shipping a UNIX operating system in 1988, called A/UX. It ran on the then current Macintosh II which had a Motorola 68020 processor that allowed for a PMMU unit. The 68030 integrated the PMMU into the CPU. They even had a Finder port :

Apple_Unix_with_Netscape.jpg


UNIX was designed on a PDP-11 and required a memory management unit to run (see RFC 681 about using UNIX systems as ARPA network hosts), probably due to the original AT&T (then Bell labs) kernel design. The first Macs lacked this, so even if Apple had secured a commercial license to UNIX in 1982, they wouldn't have been able to integrate the system for their hardware, probably not in a workable fashion anyhow. It was much easier to write their own OS at the time (back when OSes were simple).

This was the reason Microsoft's own Xenix offering (yes, Microsoft did do a UNIX operating system in the early 80s) ran first on the Zilog Z8000 series CPU and then on the x86 16 bit architecture processors (286). This is the product that eventually became known as SCO UNIX or SCO OpenServer (the real SCO which are known nowadays as Tarantella if they are still in business, not the fake "Linux ripped off our IP!" SCO, which is the Caldera corporation that bought the UNIX business from the Santa Cruz Operation and renamed their failing company to SCO).
 
KnightWRX said:
This is the product that eventually became known as SCO UNIX or SCO OpenServer (the real SCO which are known nowadays as Tarantella if they are still in business, not the fake "Linux ripped off our IP!" SCO, which is the Caldera corporation that bought the UNIX business from the Santa Cruz Operation and renamed their failing company to SCO).
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Thanks, that's a nice summary of SCO, I didn't know how everything eventually played out (who wound up where and as what :D ). Did some SCO work in the 80s for a couple of vertical apps, one was a veterinary clinic management system :)
 
Peacocks

dru` said:
Actually it was Oracle's CEO Larry Ellison who told that story at All Things D in a retrospective on Steve. He was the neighbor and it's how he met Steve; he's been along described as Steve's best friend. According to his telling, the peacock was a gift from Steve's girlfriend at the time. That remarkable thing about the clip is when he relates the story you can "see" or "hear" Steve.
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As a former Californian, I recall that owning peacocks and other exotics like cougers were a status symbol there. In that same interview on All Things D, Larry Ellison also related that Steve said "Oh, you don't like it either?"
 
AdonisSMU said:
You are right in parts of your observation of some Apple fans. I am challenging your view that it's damning that Apple takes a follower's approach as it relates to Samsung. On that point I can't co-sign. There are many of Apple users me included who would prefer to have a 7" tablet as opposed to a 10 inch tablet from Apple. To date Apple doesn't have a product out yet for the 7" iPad category. That is a FACT. If they release a 7" tablet then you can say that Samsung maybe inspired Apple to make a 7" tablet. The size of a tablet doesn't qualify as infringement of a patent. You can't patent a size. You can only an overall design. Apple markets their design and the quality of their hardware and software together as original. It is original. What did smart phones look like before Apple got into the market? What did tablets look like before Apple got into the market?

I am challenging what you stated in your previous post much of which simply doesn't align with the facts. I'm certainly going to respond when what you are saying isn't true.

So what if Apple looked at Sony's product. Does the iPhone look like Sony's product? Does it behave like Sony's product? I'm sure Apple looked at Blackberry's and any other phone that was out on the market at the time of the original iPhone development.

Again one only has to see what tablets & phones looked like before Apple's entrance into the tablets & phone market and after? I think you are more in denial of the facts here.

Apple should be suing Samsung for making and selling blatant copies of Ipad and Iphone designs unlawfully. Everyone here knows that Apple products are chalked full of Samsung products. No one denies that Apple innovates on top of what Samsung does. Samsung is free to innovate on top of what Apple has done. That's how we got to a 7" tablet market in the first place.
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Um....I must be the only person in the world that owned a palm.



156719-palm-treo-680.jpg



^^^Note the grid.

I'm sorry, but the Palm series had 'apps'. Freeware apps to be exact. I remember being able to download apps and install them.


In fact, go to this website.

^^^This was published in 2006.

What Apple did was make smartphones avaible the general consumer so it was no longer 'smart'.


The fact is that Apple was a success and the industry isn't just let the eat all the profits. Capitalism. Copying is one thing, inspiration is another.



And let's not forget the Prada's software was shown before the iPhone (not arguing form factor here).

070116_lg_iphone.jpg
 
AppleScruff1 said:
And 8" is close to 9", which is close to 10", so the mini iPad will basically be the same size as the current iPad, hence no need for Apple to produce it.
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I've never been in favor of the 7" pad, I think it will garner some early interest before people realize that 10" is the optimal size for a tablet device.
 
stfwayne said:
So if we are splitting hairs on price why doesnt Apple once and for all price the damn iPad mini at $199 effectively ending any chance for Android tablet makers to compete. Apple is ordering massive amounts of tablet parts and screens and can easily pull a deal off like this. The Nexus was a marvel due to its price at $249 (many articles stressed the amount of deals that needed to be made to deliver the tablet at this price). If Apple were to match or beat that magical $249 price tag customers would flock to the perceived higher quality device instead of a cheap plastic tablet.

Yes they would lose money short term (easily make it back on iOS purchases) but after a few years it would be stupid on a customers part to buy a shoddy Android tablet when they can have a high quality aluminum Apple iPad mini for the same price or cheaper.

What do you guys think??
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I clipped your question. I submit the following...

On the one hand...
Video game console makers operate in this mentality. As an industry they sell hardware at a loss, and make money back on the software/games. As I understand it, that is the strategy you are advocating here.

Do the basic numbers support it? Yup. Apple makes enough on software that they conceivably could go straight to asinine. Make the iPod nano $50, iPod touch $100, iPod mini $150. Yes, Apple could afford to do this. However, there is a problem...

Imagine what would happen to demand. Apple wouldn't be able to keep up. Scalping (black marketeering) would become a rampant problem. People would buy up huge amounts of stock, and sell that stock at a higher margin. If you wanted a nano, you'd have to be willing to pay, oh, I don't know... $150 or $200 for it? Apple can afford to set prices that low, but they can't manufacture to meet the demand for prices that are that low. You HAVE to consider the demand curve against supply.

This would create a huge mess that would look INCREDIBLY unattractive to stock holders (Apple needlessly throwing away profit for unneeded and unsustainable market penetration). Stock value would fall, company valuation would fall.

On the other hand...
Since Apple would be doing something that isn't an "industry standard" by selling below cost, I bet they would get the $h1t sued out of them for non-competitive practices. Conceivably Apple would be able to keep the whole mess tied up in litigation and ultimately settle, but that doesn't look good to stock holders.

So, no matter which way your idea is analyzed, we stupid idiots think it would be a bad idea. Since you're so smart, maybe you shouldn't ask for an idiots opinion?
 
CapnJackGig said:
Haha, and now all the Apple fanboys that decided 7 inch tablets were bad because Steve told them to think that have to change their minds too. Hilarious.
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Why? Even the rumored "iPad mini" is said to have a 7.85" screen, not 7". That's about 40% bigger.
 
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