The desktop metaphor was invented because one, you were a stand-alone device, and two, you had to manage your own storage. That's a very big thing in a desktop world. And that may go away. You may not have to manage your own storage. You may not store much before too long.
Believe it or not, I'm a bit clumsy with technology. It's probably why I'm so excited about the touchscreen - even an idiot can use it!
Most people have no concept of how an automatic transmission works, yet they know how to drive a car. You don't have to study physics to understand the laws of motion to drive a car. You don't have to understand any of this stuff to use Macintosh.
DOS is ugly and interferes with users' experience.
Pointing is a metaphor we all know. We've done a lot of studies and tests on that, and it's much faster to do all kinds of functions, such as cutting and pasting, with a mouse, so it's not only easier to use but more efficient.
All this stuff was done via FTP but the web has put a really nice user interface on it.
All through the 1980s, Apple kept its prices high. There were many reasons Microsoft's much bigger user base managed to resist moving to the GUI - but price was high among them.
When Steve Jobs toured Xerox PARC and saw computers running the first operating system that used Windows and a mouse, he assumed he was looking at a new way to work a personal computer. He brought the concept back to Cupertino and created the Mac, then Bill Gates followed suit, and the rest is history.
What was so special about the Mac, we all know, was the graphical computer interface.
I have discovered that there are two types of command interfaces in the world of computing: good interfaces and user interfaces.
The computer industry began with home-brew boxes that everyone had to program for themselves, but that was a huge hassle. The computer revolution didn't explode until the first Macintosh arrived, with its point-and-click simplicity.
Computers have become more friendly, understandable, and lots of years and thought have been put into developing software to convince people that they want and need a computer.
I've tried it a couple of times over the years, mainly because the thing Ubuntu did so well was make Debian usable. I always felt that Debian was a pointless exercise because to me, the point of a distribution is to make everything easy. Easy to install, to be pretty and to be friendly and Ubuntu did that to Debian.
I think the Macintosh proves that everyone can have a bitmapped display.
You could summarize everything I did at Apple was making tools to empower creative people. 'QuickDraw' empowered all these other programmers to now be able to sling stuff on the screen. The 'Window Manager,' 'Event Manager,' and 'Menu Manager.' Those are things that I worked on that were empowering other people.
In computers, we do all kinds of manual manipulations. We grab and drag icons. We click on and open windows. We pull down a screen. We stretch a screen. We scroll up and down.
Most developer tools try to shield you from actually writing code in constructing the GUI bits or the database bits. Yet when you do write code you usually get glass teletypes where high tech is keyword coloring.
