2 days ago
This 1999 email from a tech pioneer helped me think about Apple's WWDC
Back in 1999, faced with cramming the prehistory of the Mac into a tiny write-up, I quoted Raskin's point about Jobs's PARC visit warming him to the potential of the embryonic Mac project, and didn't get into his harsh assessment of current interfaces. But even that didn't see print. Like most things that get published in dead-tree magazines, my Mac origin blurb was trimmed by an editor to fit the layout. I must have noticed that Raskin's quote didn't make the final cut, and regret its excision today.
At least I've been able to belatedly share his entire email here—something that wouldn't have even occurred to me was possible in the space-constrained days of computer magazines. In it, he posed a question about computer usability: 'Are we anywhere near where we should be?' The answer, he said, was no. I don't presume to know how he might feel today. But the question remains a good starting point for judging new products. It always will be. And holding them to high standards, as Raskin did, is the best way to answer it.
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