Conrad: Temporary product design shortcuts often become permanent features for decades
Tom Conrad · Billion dollar failures, and billion dollar success | Tom Conrad (Quibi, Pandora, Pets.com, Zero) · Nov 26, 2023 · at 9:52
Tom Conrad, early Apple engineer and tech executive, discusses building the spring-loaded folders feature on the Mac Finder and how temporary hacks persist across OS generations.
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“I think we all do this as designers and product people. We take these shortcuts that we think that we'll go back later and clean up. And sometimes, I mean, it's literally been 30 years, you know, that little design detail like lingers. You know, three implementations later, and now it's just a part of the way that these Apple products work.”
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