Creative Selection: Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs

by Ken Kocienda

Every day at Apple was like going to school, a design-focused, high-tech, product-creation university, an immersion program where the next exam was always around the corner.

He might say to me “I just heard Steve reported a bad bug.” The actual message he’d received had been more like: “the f***ing caps lock button doesn’t work in today’s build! don’t you people test this f***ing keyboard?!”

This push for simplicity had a purpose. Even though he was a high-tech CEO, Steve could put himself in the shoes of customers, people who cared nothing for the ins and outs of the software industry. He never wanted Apple software to overload people, especially when they might already be stretched by the bustle of their everyday lives.

“When a task cannot be partitioned because of sequential constraints, the application of more effort has no effect on the schedule. The bearing of a child takes nine months, no matter how many women are assigned.”10

Hard work is hard. Inspiration does not pay off without diligence.

Taste is developing a refined sense of judgment and finding the balance that produces a pleasing and integrated whole.