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The Original Macintosh: Calculator Construction Set
- coob 12y agoXcode 6's additions to Interface Builder allow for similar tools to be built now. Here's a great NSHipster article that details a modern take on the Calculator Construction Set: http://nshipster.com/ibinspectable-ibdesignable/ http://nshipster.com/ibinspectable-ibdesignable/
- Zelphyr 12y agoI'm surprised it has taken them this long to get something like that into Xcode.
- normloman 12y agoSounds like Steve Jobs was a terrible micromanager. At least in the realm of UI design. Now maybe he had to be, if there was not enough UI experts on his team. But in any other situation, I can imagine Jobs' antics getting tiresome (and inefficient.)
- zerohp 12y agoNobody was a UI expert at the time.
- normloman 12y agoWrong. Jef Raskin wrote the book on interface design. And he was on the original Mac team.
- agumonkey 12y agoLove it or not, but this masochistic attention to details is what sets up Apple from the rest in the public eye.
- normloman 12y agoAttention to details and micromanagement are not the same thing. You can have one without the other (Just hire devoted UI designers and hold them to a high standard). And before we forget, the first macs failed to take the tech world by storm, and it wasn't until the iPod that Apple became silicon valley's golden boy.
- agumonkey 12y agoAre you sure about your last point ? I was a kid so I can't be too certain, but the graphical (photo, movies, a bit of architecture, not 3d though) industry was heavy on Macs quite early on. Even music studio used Mac workstations (with additional audio hardware).
- Zelphyr 12y agoApple was big in the 80's, no doubt about it, but they were small potatoes compared to the behemoth they are now.
- agumonkey 12y agoAs their market.
- normloman 12y agoMacs had success in the education markets and among artists / filmmakers / musicians. That's a small market. Despite their advanced hardware and mature interface, early macs lost to PCs because PCs were cheaper and more open (software could run on any IBM compatible machine rather than just macs).
- chuck8088 12y agoFirst point I would like to make is that if they had UI standards in place, then this guy wouldn't have had to waste so much time getting it to look right. My manager does this all the time. He gives me very incomplete specs, if any at all, and always has a bunch of things he wants changed on the first draft. I usually feel that his changes ruin some of the aesthetics I was going for, adds in more complexity, and runs slower. I'm a minimalist, and lets just say he loves buttons everywhere ala Photoshop style. I barely fight for my designs anymore because this collaboration style gives him more power and because he will get most of the blame if it fails.