NeXT was never about UNIX, rather about all the other UI/UX.
They only based it on UNIX, because they were going after Sun, and just like Microsoftm, UNIX compatibility was a way to bring software into their world, not to out of it.
Now Apple does not need to use that path any more for their survival nor do they care about servers, what matters are Objective-C and Swift OS APIs, not C ones and very latest version of POSIX CLI utilities.
This is exactly why my MBP has been reduced to a $2700 VNC terminal / web browser / mail client. They screwed up keyboard handling in the built-in VNC client a few releases ago, so it’s failing at the most important of those three use cases.
When it eventually dies, I’ll need a replacement with a decent screen, keyboard and trackpad. Apple used to make those, but not any more.
I’ll probably end up running linux on some well-regarded windows laptop.
What broke about keyboard handling? I use the build-in vnc client often (every other vnc client seems to suck). I have trouble with copy/paste...but that's very common with remote login tools.
I have a newer Mac. I didn't like the keyboard at first and still hear about reliability/repair issues, but going back to the mushy keyboards on an older Mac is weird. What's wrong with Apple's trackpads and screens? Trackpads got larger (and get a lot of rogue input when using Linux/Windows), but work great as ever in macOS.
They only based it on UNIX, because they were going after Sun, and just like Microsoftm, UNIX compatibility was a way to bring software into their world, not to out of it.
Now Apple does not need to use that path any more for their survival nor do they care about servers, what matters are Objective-C and Swift OS APIs, not C ones and very latest version of POSIX CLI utilities.