Steve Jobs in Exile – New book on his years at NeXT Computer
A new book, 'Steve Jobs in Exile,' delves into the years Jobs spent at NeXT Computer after his ouster from Apple in 1985. The book, reviewed in IEEE Spectrum, covers NeXT's development of the NeXT Computer workstation, launched in 1988 at $6,500. Despite limited commercial success—only about 50,000 units sold—NeXT's technology had a profound impact. The NeXTSTEP operating system, based on the Mach kernel and BSD Unix, introduced object-oriented programming frameworks and a graphical interface that later became the core of macOS and iOS. Tim Berners-Lee used a NeXT machine to create the first web browser and server. Apple acquired NeXT in 1997 for $429 million, bringing Jobs back and laying the groundwork for Apple's resurgence.
NeXT's technology directly led to macOS and iOS, shaping modern software development.