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Why did Steve Jobs have to return to Apple? Why didn't he make the iPhone at NeXT?

R

Retina MacBook

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 19, 2012
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Why was it so necessary to go back to a nearly bankrupt company? Why didn't he just Make the revolutionary products at NeXT?

Apple was a great company, with poor management. Steve Jobs could have left it alone. He could have made the iMac, the iPod, the iTunes Music Store, the iPhone and the iPad at NeXT. But why didn't he? Why do with Apple?
 
Retina MacBook said:
Why was it so necessary to go back to a nearly bankrupt company? Why didn't he just Make the revolutionary products at NeXT?

Apple was a great company, with poor management. Steve Jobs could have left it alone. He could have made the iMac, the iPod, the iTunes Music Store, the iPhone and the iPad at NeXT. But why didn't he? Why do with Apple?
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NeXT wasent exactly doing well either, so its not like NeXT would of been a better option.
 
Zaft said:
NeXT wasent exactly doing well either, so its not like NeXT would of been a better option.
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Yes, but his ideas could have lived with NeXT. He could have lifted NeXT from near bankruptcy just like what he did with Apple.

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basesloaded190 said:
Not sure if you remember or not, but NeXT was bleeding money as well and wasn't too far from going under.
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And so was Apple.
 
Having the resources of a publicly traded company is much easier to do things that you envision.

The reason Apple was doing so bad was because they had too many products in way too many different areas. NeXT just didn't have a product that people were willing to pay for.
 
Retina MacBook said:
Why was it so necessary to go back to a nearly bankrupt company? Why didn't he just Make the revolutionary products at NeXT?

Apple was a great company, with poor management. Steve Jobs could have left it alone. He could have made the iMac, the iPod, the iTunes Music Store, the iPhone and the iPad at NeXT. But why didn't he? Why do with Apple?
Click to expand...

NeXT wasn't that great of a company for several reasons; after agreeing with Apple not to sell consumer-grade machines they were left with selling $30k boxes to universities. Beyond that, it just wasn't the same company as Jobs had created with Apple. sure, Apple had lost their way, but they had more resources and ability to move into different spaces than NeXT did. And at the end of the day, Jobs couldn't leave Apple alone, could you have done so to something you built from the ground up and then was ripped away from you? Apple and Jobs were like root beer and ice cream, NeXT was just a flirtation with pie along the way.
 
It's not like Steve had all these products designed and just needed someone to build them. The talent already at Apple had a lot to do with their success.

It was over a decade later that the iPhone came out, after all. A decade where Apple clawed its way up from the bottom on a mountain of iMacs, iBooks, and iPods. It was a slow, methodical journey where they not only gained the consumer's trust, but gained experience in making portable consumer products.

Do you really think Steve could have made that climb on top of NEXTBooks and NEXTPods? At least people knew what a Mac was, even if they weren't super popular. Do you think an iMac without Apple's original fan base could have succeeded?

I'm just not seeing it.
 
Retina MacBook said:
Why was it so necessary to go back to a nearly bankrupt company? Why didn't he just Make the revolutionary products at NeXT?

Apple was a great company, with poor management. Steve Jobs could have left it alone. He could have made the iMac, the iPod, the iTunes Music Store, the iPhone and the iPad at NeXT. But why didn't he? Why do with Apple?
Click to expand...

He couldn't have made the iMac at Next, because he didn't have MacOS 9, and without MacOS 9 the iMac would have been dead from the start, he didn't have the designer of the iMac, which worked at Apple, he didn't have the connections to build a million iMacs, he didn't have the sales channel, he didn't have the right to use the name Mac and so on and so on and so on. That's about where your great idea makes a bellyflop.
 
Retina MacBook said:
Why was it so necessary to go back to a nearly bankrupt company? Why didn't he just Make the revolutionary products at NeXT?

Apple was a great company, with poor management. Steve Jobs could have left it alone. He could have made the iMac, the iPod, the iTunes Music Store, the iPhone and the iPad at NeXT. But why didn't he? Why do with Apple?
Click to expand...

Despite the fact that NeXT was the superior platform, Apple had a larger customer base and better third party developer support. Sentimental value might have had something to do with it as well. Anyhow, Jobs brought NeXT to Apple. OS X and iOS are its offspring.
 
gnasher729 said:
He couldn't have made the iMac at Next, because he didn't have MacOS 9, and without MacOS 9 the iMac would have been dead from the start, he didn't have the designer of the iMac, which worked at Apple, he didn't have the connections to build a million iMacs, he didn't have the sales channel, he didn't have the right to use the name Mac and so on and so on and so on. That's about where your great idea makes a bellyflop.
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chambone said:
Despite the fact that NeXT was the superior platform, Apple had a larger customer base and better third party developer support. Sentimental value might have had something to do with it as well. Anyhow, Jobs brought NeXT to Apple. OS X and iOS are its offspring.
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both. logistics played a major role.
 
Retina MacBook said:
Yes, but his ideas could have lived with NeXT. He could have lifted NeXT from near bankruptcy just like what he did with Apple.

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And so was Apple.
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Apple was still HIS company. NeXT was just a temporary thing. And oh, at the time he sure as hell wasn't thinking of the iPhone. A music player, maybe, but a phone, no.
 
Cute that people think Steve Jobs single handily designed, built and manufactured everything that came out of Apple since his return.

Very immature thinking, but cute.
 
SandboxGeneral said:
Haha... I know. I had thought about that when I posted earlier and figured I'd leave that one alone! ;)
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Hahaha, I actually find him pretty amazing (and being abandoned at birth can empathize with what he and Lisa went through) and while he may not have not had the greatest personality, most people that change the world don't.
 
Sedrick said:
Cute that people think Steve Jobs single handily designed, built and manufactured everything that came out of Apple since his return.

Very immature thinking, but cute.
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Of course not all designed and build by himself but glue (keep) a team together and challenge them to deliver something better is quite some work ...
 
Well one is NEXT lack the public appeal of Apple and NEXT would of also had to survived until 2007. The technology just was not there until then.
 
Small White Car said:
Do you really think Steve could have made that climb on top of NEXTBooks and NEXTPods? At least people knew what a Mac was, even if they weren't super popular. Do you think an iMac without Apple's original fan base could have succeeded?

I'm just not seeing it.
Click to expand...

I think many Mac 128/512/Plus etc ex users rediscovered Apple with the iMac G3. I did with a 400Mhz DV (it had a DVD player) running OS 9 that cost over $3000.
 
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