🚀 go-pugleaf

The 2.1 Icon App was an impressive tool that I used extensively to  
demonstrate what tremendous applications came bundled on the NeXT.  It  
helped sell the machines in our office.  On the basis of the bundled  
software, we purchased 25 systems(printers, etc) from NeXT.  When I got  
3.0 and tried to run the 2.1 Icon.app it was a big disappointment to see  
it fail.  I tried calling a couple of guys at NeXT that I knew, and one  
guy said that it was working fine for him under 3.0 PR 5 or something like  
that.  When I asked him to try the GOLD version, he said that it failed  
for him too.  I began to wonder why it worked under his version of 3.0 and  
not under the released version...so I sent a nasty E-Mail to Steve Jobs,  
and he replied that I was wrong to surmise that NeXT would try to screw  
with their customers by trying to help 3rd party developers by taking out  
functionality that was previously in the system.  (I wrongly assumed that  
just because NeXT sold the code to Icon to another company(who was making  
an image manipulation tool for the NeXT), NeXT was somehow protecting that  
companies interests under a legal contract and along the way selling out  
NeXT customers.  Steve informed me that I had it all wrong and that he  
would try to get me Keith Ohlfs email address so that I could write him to  
see if he would consider making it run under 3.0.  He also informed me  
that the company that they sold the code to did not even end up using any  
of the code in the Icon.app in their application.  

I do not know what is going to happen to the NeXT.  I guess that you  
always have to lose something to gain something.  I like DBKit, but at  
NWExpo, I saw demonstrations of DBKit that had inspectors for adding  
conditionals to DBQuerys.  In the 3.0 version it is lacking, and appears  
to require coding.  I guess that that had to get dropped off the plate to  
make schedule, or leave something for 3rd Party Developers to do. (Why  
didn't they drop the AppleTalk which is useless, slow and doesn't work  
most of the time....if they wanted to make room for something better.)

Steve Jobs is a bold personality that likes to lead and not follow.  I  
just hope that NeXT continues to lead by raising the standard without  
losing it at the same time.  The thing that struck me when I looked at  
NeXT for the first time was how superior the software was.  The bundled  
functionality was what made it an incredible deal for us.  I am all for  
buying great apps from 3rd party developers, but only if they are raising  
the standard, not proliferating it, and I hate like hell having to go back  
to pay for what was already there.