Aesthetics matter. Form matters. Form matters even more when it enables function. In this respect Apple and Steve Jobs really did help create modern computing. Nevertheless, as Kevin Drum explains here there were very good reasons why PCs trounced Apple in the computer business (I write this as someone who loves my Mac). In time, however, we’ll probably look back on the development of personal computing as a messy, collaborative affair in which many companies played important roles. They all helped “change the world”.
As Tim Berners Lee puts it, Jobs’ most important insight was:
[T]o insist that computers could be usable rather than totally infuriating!
Steve was a champion of usable technology – even sexy technology. Intuitive on the outside and extensible and cool engineering on the inside.
All true. But the most surprising part of Tim Berners Lee’s post is surely this:The geeks among us need to be at the same time deeply insistent technically on beautiful, clean, extensible design inside, and utterly impatient as naive end users about the outside.
Emphasis added. Granted, TBL is a quiet fellow, but still! Tim Berners Lee never met Steve Jobs! Steve Jobs never met Tim Berners Lee! For some reason I find this quite extraordinary and (almost) as amazing as anything either man has achieved.We almost met once. There was a get-together of NeXT developers in France, and we set up demos at tables around the room. Robert Cailliau and I set up the WorldWideWeb.app on one table. Steve arrived, and started making his way around the tables chatting with each project. He didn’t get to us before he had to leave.
[Hat-tip: Jack Shafer]
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