After reading the article linked below, I am impressed at how much Steve Jobs was involved in UI design. It makes sense that Apple initially had some big application development problems after he passed away. I was glad to see when they regained their footing, at least most of the time. But the attention to detail he gave from his position was impressive. Looking at the software from a user’s perspective is the most vital thing in any development project. Who are you making the software for, if it is not the user?
Apple still had some user interface problems when Steve was around. But I think you could tell when his attention was on a product. He let things go that did not work, and then created something new. After Steve left us, Apple fell on its face a few times, and continues to do so with extremely buggy products like iCloud drive. When they switched up the iOS interface away from real world design, they lost a lot of older users at first, who had originally been so drawn to the iOS platform. But where where they going to go? iOS was still easier for the non-techy than the competition. Apple today is hit and miss with its UI design. They still have not regained elegance of of ’09 version of pages and keynote. But the new programs are at least useable, you just have to click about 5 times as much as you used to.
Written by Tim Bobo
Don Melton’s UI Story About Steve Jobs
Don Melton has a long history with Steve Jobs and Apple, working at NeXT and then moving to Apple where he is known for his work on Safari and WebKit. Melton recounted his memorable encounters with Jobs in a post he published on his blog, which was originally written in the summer of 2013.
(MacRumors 4.11.14)
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