[lkijuhygtfd]

Technologies in their spring?

A BSD kernel, a gui from Next and a object orientated version of C from before C++ !

Technology-wise Apple basically takes a steam train, wraps a Bang+Olufson case around it and makes it emit the scent of roses!

Nice toys, very well made, but cutting edge technology doesn't underpin Apple's success.

[gvb]

Exactly! Jobs picked BSD (1977), the NeXT GUI (1985/1988), and an object oriented version of C (1986) that came before C++ (1983)! (OK, BSD had been around a little while by that time, and C++ predated Objective C.) They are mature technologies now, but were all picked relatively early in their life.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Software_Distribution

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXT

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C%2B%2B

[aseem]

You certainly note some fair examples for your point. However, I was referring to Apple's choosing of HTML5 instead of Flash. The easy choice that probably benefits mostly in the short-term is to play nice with Flash. Ultimately, Jobs and his team felt the best customer experience was to ditch Flash much to the malign of developers. Would Microsoft made such a decision? And who at Microsoft makes those decisions? Where does the buck stop?

[patrickgzill]

I would like you to explain a little more how C++ is more "cutting edge" than Obj-C, etc.

BSD is still used in Free/Open/Net/BSD; and Next's GUI was based on Display Postscript, which was easily tuned for PDF (PS and PDF are very similar languages)

What you will notice is that all of these choices were designed by very small teams, sometimes just 1 person was involved in the original design:

BSD - Bill Joy and a few others made the major design decisions

Next GUI - Keith Ohlfs, on top of DPS licensed from Adobe

Objective C - designed mainly by Brad Cox

You missed the Mach kernel, originally a small research project from CMU, Avie Tevanian worked on porting Mach to a multi-processor system in the early to mid 1980s.

[slantyyz]

Can't fault you on your points -- they're all solid, but I would say there's a glaring omission. Cutting edge user experience (and that includes usability) does underpin Apple's success.

[lkijuhygtfd]

Precisely - it's the user experience that puts Apple out ahead not cutting edge technology.

In fact their technology is and always has been (when did Mac-0S get real multi-tasking?) rather conservative.

[rimantas]

  Precisely - it's the user experience that puts Apple out
  ahead not cutting edge technology.

Would iPhone user experience be the same with resistive touchscreen? Were there any capacitive touchscreen phones before iPhone?

[jonhendry]

"(when did Mac-0S get real multi-tasking?)"

As soon as possible after Jobs' return.

[jonhendry]

They (and the MACH kernel) were new-ish when Jobs picked them in the 80s.

He kept them because they work well.

[rimantas]

Yep. Capacitive touchscreens, unibodies and state of the art battery tech don't count.