Comment by linguae | Hacker News Reader

Comment by linguae | Hacker News Reader

I was just eating lunch across the street from Apple's headquarters in Cupertino when I read the news.

The John Sculley era of Apple has received a lot of criticism. With that being said, one of the aspects of this era that I'm most impressed with is the work that came out of Apple's Advanced Technology Group. During this time period Apple was serious about advancing the state of research in the areas of programming languages, systems software, and human-computer interaction. There were many great people that were part of this group, including Larry Tesler and Don Norman. I completely understand why Steve Jobs shut down this group in 1997; times were rough for Apple, and the company couldn't afford to do research when its core business was in dire straits. But I wish Apple revived this group when its fortunes changed, and I also wish Apple still had the focus on usability and improving the personal computing experience that it had in the 1980s and 1990s.

Larry was influential in the development and the missions of both ATG and the Human Interface Group, both of which are now gone now. He believed in conducting practical experiments with users and collecting objective measurements of how well UI worked. He wanted to find general principles that could be used to make all software better for everyone.

Steve Jobs killed both ATG and HIG. I think your point about times being rough and money being tight are valid, but three years earlier Steve Jobs sat in my office at NeXT and told me that if it was up to him, Apple would kill ATG and HIG--not because they were expensive, but because, in his words, they had too much influence.

Sure enough, when he took over Apple again, he wasted no time in killing them and replacing them with himself.

You're probably right that cutting those expenses was important to Apple's recovery. I think your other point is right, too, though: we'd be better off if Apple--or somebody--reconstituted something like HIG to show the industry what's possible if you take user experience and human-computer interaction seriously.

Unfortunately, Larry can't help us with it this time.

"he wasted no time in killing them and replacing them with himself."

ooh ouch that's a sharp, and understated, line!

Was Dylan created by the ATG?

Dylan was indeed created by a group at ATG Cambridge run by Ike Nassi

Bagel Street Cafe?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com