Apple CEO Tim Prepare dinner has shared a public tribute following the passing of Apple Fellow Invoice Atkinson, some of the legendary figures in Apple’s historical past.
Atkinson died on June 5 on the age of 74, after a battle with pancreatic most cancers. Final evening, Tim Prepare dinner took to X to honor his legacy:
‘The very best pc programmer who ever lived’
Atkinson was greater than a superb programmer. He was a inventive pressure behind a few of Apple’s most iconic improvements. A core member of the unique Macintosh crew, he created MacPaint, wrote the QuickDraw graphics library, and later pioneered HyperCard. When you’ve ever achieved as a lot as click on on a hyperlink or admire the magnificence of a rounded rectangle in a UI, you’ve been touched by Atkinson’s legacy.
He joined Apple in 1978 as worker #51, and rapidly turned one in all Steve Jobs’ most trusted lieutenants.
As Wired’s Steven Levy wrote in his stunning remembrance, when Jobs wanted QuickDraw to help rounded rectangles (one thing Atkinson initially noticed as pointless), Jobs famously walked him across the block till he seen how ubiquitous they have been in the true world.
That focus to element, and insistence that computer systems replicate the world round us, outlined the Mac’s design philosophy. And Atkinson helped translate that imaginative and prescient into working code.
As John Gruber wrote yesterday:
“I say this with no hyperbole: Invoice Atkinson might effectively have been the most effective pc programmer who ever lived. With out query, he’s on the brief checklist. What a person, what a thoughts, what presents to the world he left us.”
Atkinson wasn’t simply a part of Apple’s story. He actually helped write it, and for that, all of us owe him an incredible debt of gratitude. In case you are unfamiliar with Atkinson and this a part of Apple’s historical past, it feels well timed to take a while in the present day and dive a bit into that, forward of tomorrow’s WWDC keynote.
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