HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

Here's what Steve Job's verbal answer to this is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEXae1j6EY#t=07m33s till 9:20

⬐ queensnake

'just buy more stock'? Doesn't have much to say on the topic of keeping only the highest-quality products.

⬐ hboon

It's the part where you ignore the negative feedback from Wall Street and newspapers. This type of change takes time and during the process, outsiders and even insiders will be unlikely to agree with you. Let the results do the talking. Part of good leadership.

The 'just buy more stock' was probably part joke and part personal gain. If you truly believe this is going to be good for the company, then you would believe the stock price will rise in the long term. Why not show your confidence to the insiders and make a buck out of it.

⬐ danmaz74

Interestingly, this is something that Rockefeller did often with Standard Oil, as I read in a biography. And also interestingly, it looks like some people (partners) really resented when Rockefeller bought their stock when they lost confidence in his bold choices, which ended up earning him billions is today's currency - and them lose that opportunity.

⬐ hboon

Do you remember why if it described why they felt that way, other than being poor losers?

⬐ danmaz74

I guess they might have rationalized that were somehow cheated by Rockefeller; according to the biographer though the course he decided to follow was a very risky bet and nobody could have know for sure how it would have turned out.

⬐ 6ren

BTW: In his answer 2 questions later, he presages iCloud ("NFS") and Apple Stores ("distribution") http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEXae1j6EY&t=13m10s (13:10-21:00)

(And also demonstrates his reality distortion field, which his questioner heroically overcomes.)

⬐ hboon

You'd need to append #t=13m10s instead of ?t=13m10s (I have no idea why they did it this way).

So this is the URL you want: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEXae1j6EY#t=13m10s. It doesn't work with the HTML5 version of YouTube though. Is it technically not possible?

⬐ None

None

⬐ 6ren

Did you try my URL? Both forms work for most browsers, but only my variant (with "?...&") works for some - including my browser.

Yeah, they're misusing the spec. If they wanted to be clever, and use "#" to index the video instead of the page, they should have omitted the "t=", to look like "#13m10s". At least that would make sense. But oh no, they had to bastardize it into some hideous hybrid chimera of crossed specs.</grump>

BTW: it was a real question - did my variant work for your browser?

⬐ hboon

Yes, I tried yours and thought it didn't work in Chrome. I just tried again and yes it works :) So yours is definitely better for me.

Both didn't work in Safari if it doesn't have Flash. I think it used to when I had Flash installed, so it's probably only the HTML 5 version that wouldn't work?

Which browser are you using?

⬐ 6ren

Thanks! HN, where correcting someone can be educational ;-)

Yeah, sounds like a HTML5 bug; they'll probably fix it soon. Flash is a well-established platform, so I'd be surprised if it didn't work in it. Does youtube's HTML5 version work in Chrome?

FF2 in linux (long story for why I can't upgrade this machine)

⬐ hboon

Didn't work for me on Chrome. Switched successfully to HTML5 though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEXae1j6EY&t=13m10s&...

After reading http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35079, I always expect to be educated on HN :)

⬐ 6ren

I'm surprised. Oh well.

BTW: Awesome thread.

Exactly. For Steve Jobs it's closer to two decades, even.

As described in Steve Jobs' closing keynote of WWDC 1997, where he outlines his setup from eight years earlier (1989).

http://youtu.be/3LEXae1j6EY?t=14m25s

This idea didn't come to Apple via Google, it predates Google's existence, by a decade.

The technical solution was different then, but Steve's focus is on the user experience, and that is quite similar.

⬐ saturdaysaint

Funny when he corrected himself after saying "Apple controls the marketing and distribution... I mean the marketing" - perhaps Apple stores were on his mind back then?

⬐ tylerrooney

There's also one choice moment before this point where a developer is asking what Apple can do about getting beat up in the press and the stockmarket.

For emphasis, in December of 1997 AAPL hit an 11-year low of $3.53 (split adjusted). Today, mainstream media eats out of Steve Jobs' hand and their stock price is, as I type this, $332.

⬐ forgottenpaswrd

Yeah, he says something like:

"You should buy stock... it is what I have done"

⬐ otterley

This was Sun Microsystems' vision of computing in 1982, 15 years earlier.

⬐ Hoff

And prior to that, Digital Equipment was using "the network is the system" back the late 70s.

But then ideas and slogans are rather cheap, and neither DEC nor Sun are around any more.

Apple is still around, and Apple is still executing on their ideas.

⬐ 6ren

He was even using NFS http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_File_System_(protocol)

Your dreams may still be here tomorrow, but you may not.

⬐ Apocryphon

I would love to watch a video of Bill Joy or whomever giving a talk about that.

⬐ namastasyai

Bill Joy spoke of this at the Institute for Advanced Study, circa 1999. I don't know if anyone took a video of his talk, but he did it (and I was there.)

⬐ None

None

⬐ dmix

"It's not so new but to the average person its new" - Steve Jobs in the linked video.

⬐ va_coder

A coworker of mine worked with Eric Schmidt when he was at Novell. He was talking about the cloud back then. Now his vision is coming alive with Chrome OS.

⬐ mikecane

What's especially interesting in this video is when he's insulted by someone during the Q&A. How differently he handled that than what stars, politicians, and many business people would do and do!

Amelio was also still in charge of Apple, yet it seems Jobs already had his plans worked out for what he would do with Apple if he was in charge.

⬐ siglesias

More like when he was in charge.

⬐ jonursenbach

Where in the video is this?

⬐ mikecane

Sorry, I watched it several days ago and didn't note the time. I'm thinking of watching it again to extract that bit.

⬐ farlington

It's at around 50:20.

⬐ jessedhillon

At around 50:10, someone asks him sarcastically to use his cloud to make sure than when TV commercials are made, they're good ones. Steve Jobs smiles, nods and thanks him.

⬐ jakelear

I think he says clout, as in influence.

⬐ jessedhillon

Yeah, that's what I heard. I just had cloud on the mind, and made that typo.

⬐ rsl7

Oh that wasn't it. Some angry dude ranted about OpenDoc versus Java and said to Jobs: you don't know what you're talking about.

Steve was quiet for a bit, mentioned some of the time you can't please some people, then talked about how Apple needed to get back to starting from the product, the user experience, and the customers instead of how do we market this cool tech.

⬐ lukifer

Spooky to hear Jobs speak so well of Rubenstein ("I trust him with my life"), knowing that Palm will hire him away for WebOS a decade later.

⬐ padmanabhan01

afaik palm didn't hire him away. He quit and after few months of break in mexico, he decided to join palm.

⬐ Steko

It seems like he didn't really quit either but was let go gracefully. As head of iPod division it seemed as though he was more protective of the iPod's role as Apple's superstar product then of the big picture Jobs wanted to push. Rumor was he wanted to use the iPod OS for the phone and then he gave an interview about how converged devices were lame and 3 weeks later they announced his "reduced role" as a consultant and shortly after that he was out.

Granted that's mostly based on rumors but it gives an interesting contrast to Microsoft's failure in tablets because of things like the Office division's execs refusing to make it touch friendly.

⬐ ugh

Exactly, a decade. Something like that is not really spooky. A decade is a long time.

⬐ snikch

The experience he's talking about is the same experience domain based Microsoft networks have had available for a long time, and it was an awful experience as it relied on network connectivity for your files. It was nothing revolutionary.

What's happened in the last decade+ is the infrastructure to support all these devices, and their network connectivity, has increased so we can finally have a good user experience doing it.

Without the infrastructure to support it, the product would end up instilling a sense of hate in people who use it. And we all know Apple is about creating the most seamless and easy to use experience for the user.

⬐ jchrisa

The key is they design for offline mode first. Then add connectivity.

⬐ philwelch

At the time, Larry Ellison was on Apple's board, and Oracle was pushing the "Network Computer" concept: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Computer

⬐ ufuk

Great find... If you continue listening to Steve ramble on about the what we now call "the Cloud", you can hear him mention hardware-thin/software-thick clients, eg. the iPhone and the iPad.

I wonder what held him back from achieving that vision is the first place. AFAICS, Apple is now playing catch-up to Google and Amazon in the cloud computing space.

⬐ smackfu

What held them back? Probably two things:

1. They only had the Mac platform (and non-connected iPods). Can you change the world with a 5% market share?

2. They wanted to charge for it.

Now, they could have done this a couple of years ago after they conquered #1, but they were still hung up on point #2, and just tried to make a better pay service.

⬐ YooLi

1. In 1997, technology held him back, not market share. The iPhone changed the world with no market share. The iPad changed the world with no market share. Etc.

2. Who gives their service away for free? Apple still charges for it. It's included in the devices you buy, etc.

⬐ smackfu

On (2), you're right, but Apple always wanted above that, charging $100 a year.

⬐ dualboot

Doing it themselves and doing it right is my guess.

Just look at Sony for an example of rushing into doing something yourself (PSN.)

⬐ cmgarcia

Exactly this, I think most would agree that Apple attempts to either do it right or not at all.

⬐ adambyrtek

I disagree. They tried exactly that with .Mac and MobileMe and failed. The problem is that the proprietary approach that worked so well in case of hardware and software isn't compatible with the web.

I don't know much about iCloud, but I really hope they had learned the lesson and made it more open by providing APIs, allowing data migration, and supporting tools for other platforms. However, this might be just my wishful thinking.

⬐ dualboot

When they launched MobileMe there were no iPads or iPad Touches.

It's a different ballgame now I think.

⬐ sfgfdhgfdshdhhd

The same thing that has held everyone else back until now.

1. Bandwidth started to become conveniently fast and widespread around year 2000, people are just starting to be familiar with that. He's talking about gigabit ethernet in the video, even today most people don't even have 1/1000 of that.

2. Computers in general have just started to become widespread among the general population until now.

3. Trust, 10 years ago privacy had a much higher price than now. Especially considering the people who used computers then were the tinfoil hacker kind as opposed to every random person today.

4. User interfaces was horrible 10 years ago. Just imagine setting up a network connection with settings like baudrate and hundreds of other funny things that nobody except the programmer of the application cares about.

5. Money and effort. Hard drives are cheap, big enough, and last long enough to not scare people away from them. People don't want to complicate things more than necessary.

And to be fair, most big companies has had the kind of thin-client setup he's talking about for quite long. You just need a VPN-tunnel and you can access it from everywhere in the world. (again, back to user friendlyness).

⬐ ry0ohki

In 1997, the lack of widely available high speed Internet was probably the biggest thing preventing this.

⬐ TechNewb

Steve Jobs describes the iPhone experience at WWDC 1997 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEXae1j6EY&feature=youtu...

⬐ biot

This could be a description of the iPhone: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEXae1j6EY&feature=youtu...

⬐ edge17

Fundamentally, the idea is the same to the end user, but this is true about a lot of ideas that started on the desktop, then were recreated in the web, and are now being recreated in mobile.

Like anything, ideas are a dime a dozen and execution is everything. Building network storage for tethered devices on reliable connections and building network storage for untethered devices on unreliable connections are two different problems.

The way this post is titled gives him credit for the idea, which is a silly thing. If iCloud works as advertised, kudos for the execution.

But I have no doubt in my mind that the architecture under the hood would be very different if it were 1997 and Apple was building cloud storage in the pc era.

⬐ jpadvo

It sound more like he is describing Chrome OS, actually.

⬐ paramaggarwal

A true visionary.

⬐ peterquest

wow, remember when keynote addresses contained technical information? When's the last time you heard Jobsy mention NFS at a conference?

⬐ sambeau

Jobsy?

⬐ pathik

El Jobso.

⬐ JackWebbHeller

Fascinating to see how much more technical vocabulary he uses when speaking in '97. I don't remember any recent keynotes where he used so much tech jargon onstage.

I guess this is because now, every word he says is analysed and reported by mainstream media. He has to communicate to the entire world because of Apple's popularity, and not just a room full of WWDC developers.

⬐ powertower

It's more of early adapters (1997) vs. mainstream (2012).

The first is much more techy. And the latter is much greater in numbers.

Apple wasn't even a blimp on the radar screen back in 1997. Now they are a continent.

⬐ JackWebbHeller

I actually remember when he was announcing FaceTime, he had a list of all the FaceTime protocols and technologies onscreen - H264, AAC, SIP, IMTC, STUN, TURN, ICE, etc.

I remember him pausing, then saying something along the lines of "... whatever the hell those are", or some quip like that.

Many of the Mac sites have been running retrospectives on past Stevenotes leading up to this one. I ended up re-watching a number of them, and in particular a Q&A session Steve did when he returned to Apple (when Gil was still CEO, and the Clone Saga was ongoing) was extremely interesting. He basically blasted the Newton's usability and described the problems the iPhone solves, and that was just about 5% of the total talk.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LEXae1j6EY