24 June 2013

What's The Word? - Part 1

Famous or Infamous?

"60 Minutes" re-ran a piece on one David Kelly, design guru to, and friend of, Steve Jobs (among many). In the course of the intro material, Charlie Rose voiced-over some of Kelly's brilliance: the Apple III and Lisa. Umm. Not what I'd put on my resume, had I the choice. Then, later in the piece, Rose and Kelly are discussing the one-button Apple mouse. Again, in voice-over, Rose praises Kelly for this one-button mouse innovation.

Well, not so much. Just like most of Apple, the mouse was bought in, from Xerox/PARC/SRI. Moreover, that square chunk of plastic was far inferior to the vastly more ergonomic MicroSoft version (and the Logitech versions) which followed. The mouse, per se, was the invention of neither Apple nor Kelly, and the later ergonomic designs, which have yet to be bettered, came from others.

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