The computer industry would be much different if it wasn’t for Alan Kay. Not only did the computer pioneer’s work creating graphical user interfaces at Xerox PARC lead to future
Apple (
AAPL) products such as the Lisa and the Mac, but his approach to computer design also inspired Steve Jobs, especially his belief that software developers should build their own hardware instead of relying on third-party OEMs. Despite his inspiration on Apple, however, Kay recently expressed his deep disappointment with the company
in an interview with Time. He pointed out that with the
iPad and
iPhone users are locked into Apple’s ecosystem and said that this “could not be farther from the original intentions of the entire ARPA-IPTO/PARC community in the ’60s and ’70s.”
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