Former Apple designer recounts teasing Steve Jobs over NeXT vs OS X

Imran Chaudhri, co-designer of the iPhone, says he bought a NeXT Cube specifically to stop Steve Jobs saying how much better it was than the Mac.

During the week marking OS X's 20th anniversary, ex-Apple designer Imran Chaudhri has recounted a story from its development. Later to become a major part of the iPhone design, Chaudhri was an Apple intern during OS X's earliest development.

this happened so often that it got to the point where if he walked in and saw the cube in the room, he'd just let it go

still the best $150 i've spent

happy 20 years mac os x!
— Imran (@imranchaudhri) March 25, 2021

Under Scott Forstall, Chaudri worked on the design of OS X's Aqua interface. He ultimately became the director of design at Apple's Human Interface team.

It was while designing the iPad that Chaudri met Bethany Bongiorno, Apple's director of software engineering at the time. The two left Apple in 2017 to form Humane.

Stylized as "hu.ma.ne," the company is described as "the next shift between humans and computing," and even "the best human experience, ever." The company has yet to reveal what "innovative technology" it is creating.

14 Comments

CantRememberUsername 37 comments · 8 Years

About 3 years ago

The quoted tweet is the second of 2. The first is:

in 1995, while interning at apple, i bought a NeXT cube for $150 at stanford surplus while designing mac os X with steve, he liked to tell us how the NeXT was better so i started bringing in my cube to win arguments by showing him that things weren't as good as he remembered

Now the article actually makes sense.

sirdir 193 comments · 18 Years

How would he have bought the NeXT 'specifically' for that in 1995? Steve wasn't back at Apple and OS X wasn't in the work.
He had the NeXT fo years and brought it in to proof Steve wrong.

lkrupp 10521 comments · 19 Years

More Steve Jobs wannabes. Money quote from AppleInsider: "The company has yet to reveal what "innovative technology" it is creating."

Xed 2871 comments · 4 Years

sirdir said:

How would he have bought the NeXT 'specifically' for that in 1995? Steve wasn't back at Apple and OS X wasn't in the work.
He had the NeXT fo years and brought it in to proof Steve wrong.

I'm not 100% sure what you're trying to say, but my best guess is that you're confusing the stated year of 1995 when they were working on the port with the official announcement of Apple agreeing to buy NexT (because the port was clearly going to work) and getting Jobs to be the interim-CEO (iCEO) which happened on 16 September 1997.

lkrupp said:

More Steve Jobs wannabes. Money quote from AppleInsider: "The company has yet to reveal what "innovative technology" it is creating."

In terms of wanting to want to change the tech world why is that a bad goal? Should people simply give up if they they won't be the next Steve Jobs?