So Steve Jobs is rocking the world again with the introduction of the iPad, a device that takes another step closer to Jobs' long-held dream of creating “a bicycle for the mind." Will the iPad succeed? Who knows. Apple is at top of its game, the richest and most innovative company in Silicon Valley, and Jobs himself, despite his recent bout with cancer, is as inspired as ever. But Jobs is not infallible. Everyone knows about the Mac, the iPod, and the iPhone but who remembers the Lisa, the Cube, and those tangerine-colored iBooks that looked like toilet seats?
These days Jobs rarely speaks to reporters, except in short, carefully managed bursts and Apple-boosting soundbytes. This wasn't always the case. Sixteen years ago, I sat down with him for a few hours in the sparse offices of NeXT Computer, the company he started after getting booted out of Apple in 1985. It was a different world then. The personal computer revolution seemed played out, the Internet was still just a playground for academics and computer geeks, and Jobs himself was struggling to regain his creative balance. The NeXT computer, a high-end workstation that was beautifully engineered but ridiculously expensive, failed to find a market. Nonetheless, this interview is fascinating because it provides a rare public glimpse of Jobs' mind in action here he is at one of the lowest points in his career, but still still displaying as much confidence as ever in his vision of the limitless potential of personal computing. Jeff Goodell, 2010
Like other Phenomena of the '80s, Steve Jobs was supposed to be long gone by now. After the spectacular rise of Apple, which went from a garage start-up to a $1.4 billion company in just eight years, the Entrepreneur of the Decade (as one magazine anointed him in 1989) tried to do it all again with a new company called NeXT. He was going to build the next generation of the personal computer, a machine so beautiful, so powerful, so insanely great, it would put Apple to shame. It didn't happen. After eight long years of struggle and after running through some $250 million, NeXT closed down its hardware division last year and laid off more than 200 employees. It seemed only a matter of time until the whole thing collapsed and Jobs disappeared into hyperspace.
But it turns out that Jobs isn't as far gone as some techno-pundits thought. There are big changes coming in software development and Jobs, of all people, is trying to lead the way. This time the Holy Grail is object-oriented programming; some have compared the effect it will have on the production of software to the effect the industrial revolution had on manufactured goods. “In my 20 years in this industry, I have never seen a revolution as profound as this," says Jobs, with characteristic understatement. “You can build software literally five to 10 times faster, and that software is much more reliable, much easier to maintain and much more powerful."
Of course, this being Silicon Valley, there is always a new revolution to hype. And to hear it coming from Jobs Mr. Revolution himself is bound to raise some eyebrows. “Steve is a little like the boy who cried wolf," says Robert Cringely, a columnist at Info World, a PC industry newsweekly. “He has cried revolution one too many times. People still listen to him, but now they're more skeptical." And even if object-oriented software does take off, Jobs may very well end up a minor figure rather than the flag-waving leader of the pack he clearly sees himself as.
Whatever role Jobs ends up playing, there is no question evolutionary forces will soon reshape the software industry. Since the Macintosh changed the world 10 years ago with its brilliant point-and-click interface, all the big leaps in computer evolution have been on the hardware side. Machines have gotten smaller, faster and cheaper. Software, by contrast, has gotten bigger, more complicated and much more expensive to produce. Writing a new spreadsheet or word-processing program these days is a tedious process, like building a skyscraper out of toothpicks. Object-oriented programming will change that. To put it simply, it will allow gigantic, complex programs to be assembled like Tinkertoys. Instead of starting from the ground up every time, layering in one line of code after another, programmers will be able to use preassembled chunks to build 80 percent of a program, thus saving an enormous amount of time and money. Because these objects will work with a wide range of interfaces and applications, they will also eliminate many of the compatibility problems that plague traditional software.
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