Mac would be nothing without him. The iconic “Dock” turns 25 years old
One of the most characteristic elements of the Mac desktop
The macOS desktop has changed a lot in the last few years. New screensavers, dynamic wallpapers, dark mode… and even the latest software updates now include widgets that disappear into the background to avoid distractions. But one of its most iconic elements remains unchanged. Before long, he became indifferent. And now he is 25 years old. We’re talking about the dock.
Dock for Mac users Add your most used apps to get shortcuts from your desktop. An accessibility element that is slowly spreading to more operating systems in the Apple ecosystem and is now also available on iOS, iPadOS… and tvOS!
It seems incredible, but it’s been 25 years since the Dock for Mac was created. We’ll count it to celebrate. The story behind the birth of the iconic macOS Dock.
The story of how Mac Dock was born
“I thought if anyone was going to kill DragThing, it would probably be me.” He spoke like this James ThomsonIn 2000, a member of Apple’s development team described how he transformed the DragThing tool into the macOS Dock we know today.
James Thomson is one of the creators of the Apple Dock for Mac. However, the first version was very different from the current one.. It was a simple bar that separated apps into different colored squares.
The original Dock was not as aesthetically pleasing as it is today
It was my job to take these prototypes created in Macromind Director and turn them into working code.
At that time, all projects were secrets held with great suspicion at Apple. Dock project named internally “Uberbar” (bottom bar) and was inspired by an app called DragThing that James Thomson worked on before joining Apple’s ranks.
DragThing tool inspired the arrival of the Dock
The original version of Dock came to Turkey for the first time macOS. However, the project started on Mac OS 9 before the new operating system was ready for general availability. There weren’t many leaks at Apple in the 2000s, and developers were afraid to talk about their projects because there were rumors that any screenshots would include the MAC address of every employee.
Steve Jobs prepares for his speech at the Macworld Expo conference, where he will announce a major deal with Bill Gates
Mac Dock was introduced to the world that day January 5, 2000 By Steve Jobs at the Macworld Expo conference. You can see the Apple co-founder’s masterful presentation in the video below:
Unfortunately, James Thomson had to quit his job at Apple because he didn’t want to move to Cupertino, and his beloved Dock was rewritten by another engineer before the official release of Mac OS X.
The macOS Dock is an outstanding tool that practically instant access to any application; There’s even a very useful trick to place Launchpad in the Dock and have all the apps installed on your Mac within a stone’s throw.
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Source: i Padizate
