A day that all tech analysts knew was coming sooner rather than later
still managed to catch the blogosphere off guard. That day of course is
the resignation of Apple impresario Steve Jobs. His 1997 return to
Apple as CEO after being unceremoniously expelled in the mid-80s has
been nothing short of spectacular. His legacy in terms of hardware is
secured through the Apple II, Macintosh, NeXT (used by Tim Berners-Lee
to create the world wide web), the iMac, the iPod, the iPhone, the
MacBook Air, and the iPad. These aforementioned products have always
been praised for their product design but their legacy is heavily felt
in terms of user interface design. A lot of this is also due Steve Job's
assertive perfectionism, having no qualms to send user interface design teams back to the drawing board at whatever point in the development cycle.
User Interface Design on the Macintosh
The Macintosh was the first commercially successful personal computer
to use a Graphical User Interface rather than a Command Line Interface
design such as on the Apple II. The film Pirates of Silicon Valley
mercilessly shows Bill Gates fuming with envy and copying the
Macintosh's graphical user interface design for Windows. The basic user
interface design of the original Macintosh OS is still very much alive
today on OS X, Windows and Linux. Using icons of real life objects as
user interface design metaphors has not only lasted till today but will
continue to evolve as the trend in skeuomorphic user interface design
continues.
User Interface Design on the NeXT
The NeXTSTEP operating system built upen the user interface design of
the Mac OS to introduce Graphical user Interface concepts such as
system wide drag-and-drop, real-time scrolling and window modification
notifications. The OS also introduced the idea of the Dock and large
full-color icons to the user interface design. Since the very first HTML
codes were created on NeXTSTEP one can even see Steve Job's hand in the
user interface design of the internet.
User Interface Design on the iMac
Having released the iconic iMac Steve Jobs would oversee the release
of a new Unix-based operating system built on the foundations of NeXT.
Its user interface design introduced the Aqua theme that very much
mimicked the rounded, translucent look of the very first iMac. The new
user interface design was not without controversy as the founder of the
Apple Human Interface Group chastised it for taking a step backwards in
terms of usability. Despite this the look and feel of the Aqua user
interface design would be copied by others incurring threats of
litigation.
User Interface Design on the iPod & the iPhone
The iPod quickly became the gold standard in portable MP3 players.
This was due in no small part to the simplicity of using. The user
interface design was uncluttered and minimalist, which really came to
the fore with the click wheel. The iPhone continued the trend of Apple
producing the gold-standard of a product's category. Despite a very
steep price iOS' user interface design based on direct multi-touch
gestures disrupted an entire industry. Today there is not one major
mobile maker in the world that does not have a touchscreen smartphone in
its product catalog.
User Interface Design on the iPad
The iPad would build upon iOS from the iPhone and iPod Touch to
create a new category of consumer electronic: the tablet. The influence
of the iPad on user interface design has even led to the latest version
of Mac OS X mimicking iOS. Early screenshots of Windows 8 also suggest a
similar merging of user interface design to fit both the larger desktops and the smaller mobile devices.
Should Steve Jobs decide to kick back and no longer contribute to
stamping his authority on the product (highly unlikely) and user
interface design of future Apple products we will continue to feel his
legacy across the board.
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