in as little as 8 Mbytes of video memory. It was a very tall order.
While introducing OS X at Macworld, Jobs also announced that he was becoming Apple’s permanent CEO, which drew huge applause from the keynote crowd. Several Apple employees have noted that Jobs didn’t become the company’s permanent CEO until after OS X shipped in March 2001. By this point, Jobs had been at Apple’s helm for two and a half years, and had replaced almost all the directors and senior staff, fixed marketing and advertising, reinvigorated hardware with the iMac, and reorganized sales. Ratzlaff noted that with OS X, Jobs had overhauled the company and all of Apple’s major products. “He was waiting for the last big parts of the company to be running to his standards before he took on the role of Apple CEO,” said Ratzlaff.
Jobs’s Design Process
For many years, Apple encouraged strict adherence to its Human Interface Guidelines, a standards bible designed to ensure a consistent user experience across software applications. The HIG told designers where to put menus, what kind of commands they should contain, and how to design dialog boxes. The idea was that all Mac software would behave alike, no matter which company it came from.
The guidelines were first drafted in the 1980s, when computers were used primarily to produce things, such as creating and printing out documents. But in the Internet age, computers are used for communication and media consumption as much as they are for printing documents and editing video. Software for playing movies or videoconferencing with friends can be much simpler than applications like Photoshop or Excel. Often, only a few functions are required, and all the dropdown menus and dialog boxes can be jettisoned in favor of a few simple buttons. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was a steady shift toward single-purpose mini-applications in both Mac (Widgets) and Windows (Gadgets).
Apple’s QuickTime player was an early example of software that benefited from an interface rethink. Used to play multimedia files, mostly music and video, the player needed only a few controls for starting and pausing movies and adjusting the sound. It was decided that the QuickTime player should be one of the first pieces of Apple’s software to get a simple appliance-like interface.
The player’s interface was designed by Tim Wasko, a soft-spoken Canadian who later went on to design the iPod interface. Wasko came to Apple from NeXT, where he’d worked with Jobs. Wasko is known at Apple as a design god. “He’s a total fiend at Photoshop,” said Hoddie. “You’d say, ‘What about this idea?’ and it’d be: click click, click”—Hoddie mimicked the sound of fingers flying across a keyboard—“and it was rendered already.”
The QuickTime player design team was made up of half a dozen designers and programmers, including Hoddie and Wasko. They met with Jobs once or twice a week over six months. Each week, the team would present a dozen or more new designs, often playing around with different textures and looks. Early ideas included a yellow plastic motif inspired by Sony’s Sport Walkman, and various wood or metal textures. Anything was game. “Steve is not a design radical, but he is willing to try new things,” said Hoddie.
At first, the designs were presented on a computer, but the team found that flashing them on and off screen was a laborious process, so they switched to printing out the designs on large glossy sheets of paper. The printouts were spread over a large conference table and could be quickly sorted through. Jobs and the designers found it easy to pick out the designs they liked from the pile, saying this texture should go with that shape. The method proved to be so effective that most of Apple’s designers have since adopted it.
After the meetings, Jobs would sometimes take away a handful of printouts and show them to other people. “He has great design sense, but he’s also
While introducing OS X at Macworld, Jobs also announced that he was becoming Apple’s permanent CEO, which drew huge applause from the keynote crowd. Several Apple employees have noted that Jobs didn’t become the company’s permanent CEO until after OS X shipped in March 2001. By this point, Jobs had been at Apple’s helm for two and a half years, and had replaced almost all the directors and senior staff, fixed marketing and advertising, reinvigorated hardware with the iMac, and reorganized sales. Ratzlaff noted that with OS X, Jobs had overhauled the company and all of Apple’s major products. “He was waiting for the last big parts of the company to be running to his standards before he took on the role of Apple CEO,” said Ratzlaff.
Jobs’s Design Process
For many years, Apple encouraged strict adherence to its Human Interface Guidelines, a standards bible designed to ensure a consistent user experience across software applications. The HIG told designers where to put menus, what kind of commands they should contain, and how to design dialog boxes. The idea was that all Mac software would behave alike, no matter which company it came from.
The guidelines were first drafted in the 1980s, when computers were used primarily to produce things, such as creating and printing out documents. But in the Internet age, computers are used for communication and media consumption as much as they are for printing documents and editing video. Software for playing movies or videoconferencing with friends can be much simpler than applications like Photoshop or Excel. Often, only a few functions are required, and all the dropdown menus and dialog boxes can be jettisoned in favor of a few simple buttons. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, there was a steady shift toward single-purpose mini-applications in both Mac (Widgets) and Windows (Gadgets).
Apple’s QuickTime player was an early example of software that benefited from an interface rethink. Used to play multimedia files, mostly music and video, the player needed only a few controls for starting and pausing movies and adjusting the sound. It was decided that the QuickTime player should be one of the first pieces of Apple’s software to get a simple appliance-like interface.
The player’s interface was designed by Tim Wasko, a soft-spoken Canadian who later went on to design the iPod interface. Wasko came to Apple from NeXT, where he’d worked with Jobs. Wasko is known at Apple as a design god. “He’s a total fiend at Photoshop,” said Hoddie. “You’d say, ‘What about this idea?’ and it’d be: click click, click”—Hoddie mimicked the sound of fingers flying across a keyboard—“and it was rendered already.”
The QuickTime player design team was made up of half a dozen designers and programmers, including Hoddie and Wasko. They met with Jobs once or twice a week over six months. Each week, the team would present a dozen or more new designs, often playing around with different textures and looks. Early ideas included a yellow plastic motif inspired by Sony’s Sport Walkman, and various wood or metal textures. Anything was game. “Steve is not a design radical, but he is willing to try new things,” said Hoddie.
At first, the designs were presented on a computer, but the team found that flashing them on and off screen was a laborious process, so they switched to printing out the designs on large glossy sheets of paper. The printouts were spread over a large conference table and could be quickly sorted through. Jobs and the designers found it easy to pick out the designs they liked from the pile, saying this texture should go with that shape. The method proved to be so effective that most of Apple’s designers have since adopted it.
After the meetings, Jobs would sometimes take away a handful of printouts and show them to other people. “He has great design sense, but he’s also
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