Glenn Reid was fortunate enough to work alongside Steve Jobs during his tenure at Apple in the development of iMovie and describes his overall experience in an article on his personal website that offers an interesting look into the way and environment of the former founder and CEO of Apple.
Reid emphasizes that iteration is key in design. “You just keep improving it until you have to release it.” There were four people on the team, with no marketing or other infrastructure, and complete secrecy. For example, cardboard was placed over the interior windows so that other employees couldn’t see what was going on in the room. “There were, like, five to 10 people in the entire company who knew what we were doing.”.
When the final product was released in November 1998, it began a revolution: personal digital files. Until then, very few people had photos, music or videos on their computers, and this slowly changed over the next few years, first with iMovie and then with iTunes and iPhoto that followed.
Reid describes Steve Jobs as someone who loved building products. “It’s a process that requires understanding the parameters, the goals, and the trade-offs.” Not only did Steve know and love building products, it was all he wanted to do. “He once told me that one of the reasons he wanted to be CEO was so that no one would tell him he couldn’t be involved in product design. He was there. As a team member, not as CEO.”
You can read Reid's really interesting article in its entirety here.
Dimitrios Georgoulas @ GreekAppleNews
