About Bill Fernandez
Bill Fernandez is known in the Apple world as Apple Employee number 1 and a big part of what Apple has become today. As one of the people who has been instrumental in their growth and development, his insights into what Apple is provides a good basis for those of us who were on the outside looking in.
Today Bill is both an amateur photographer as well as a 2nd degree black belt in Aikido. He has spent time living in Japan studying as well as traveling to other parts of the world
A.P.P.L.E.: Thank you for taking the time for this interview. Please tell us a bit about how you got interested in computing?
Bill: I became an electronics hobbyist in junior high school (7th grade). During high school (9th to 12th grade) the integrated circuit revolution was getting up to speed, surplus computer assemblies were trickling onto the surplus market and even the high school electronics shop had some surplus magnetic core memories. Computers were a “new” and interesting kind of electronics; beyond radios and such. Several of us high school electronics hobbyists started talking about wanting to build our own computers.
A.P.P.L.E.: Whom you were most influenced by in your early years?
Bill: Influenced in what way? As far as electronics in general two neighborhood dads who were engineers at Lockheed tutored me: Ed Giles (the father of my brother’s best friend) and Jerry
Wozniak (Woz’ dad). As far as digital electronics design: Steve Wozniak.
A.P.P.L.E.: You have been known as the man who introduced Steve Jobs to Wozniak. Can you tell us a bit about the relationship?
Bill: Woz and Jobs were both electronics buddies. I grew up across the street from Woz, and started doing electronics projects in my garage with him when I was in high school (his last year of high school was the year before I entered). I met Jobs in junior high school (8th grade) and we’d go to each other’s garages to do electronics projects.
Next door to Woz lived a man (Alfred Taylor) who was a retired electronic engineer from Lockheed. He’d also owned an electronics surplus store and had apparently moved much of his old inventory into his garage when he closed the business. I used to do gardening for him then trade the hours I spent gardening for parts for my electronics projects.
One day Jobs was over at my house. I wanted to get some parts from Mr. Taylor so I took Jobs across the street to his house. Next door Woz was washing his car, and I thought since they were both interested in electronics that I’d introduce them to each other.
Subsequently they started doing projects together, which eventually led to them forming Apple.
A.P.P.L.E.: As Apple employee number one, what brought you to joining the two Steves in their pursuit of the personal computer?
Bill: This is kind of like the last question. At the time I introduced them it was just as two electronics
buddies, not as computer entrepreneurs. It’s true that around that time Woz and I built a computer in my garage, but that was OUR project and had nothing to do with Jobs.
Later, when Woz and I were both working in the calculator division of Hewlett Packard, Woz developed a computer based on the 6502 microprocessor. To make a long story short, Jobs convinced him to make a printed circuit board for it and to sell it as a kit to hobbyists. This led to them forming Apple Computer.
After their incorporation they needed employees and decided to hire an electronic technician. In their words the best they knew was I, so they hired me as Apple’s first employee (Woz, Jobs and Markkula were the first three “employers”), and I quit Hewlett Packard and went to work in Job’s garage.
A.P.P.L.E.: Can you tell us a bit about the decision to end the Apple 1 support and production?
Bill: As the Apple II took shape it was obviously a far superior computer, and both Woz and Jobs worked aggressively to make it into an approachable, plug-and-play product. At the same time, a personal computer market was taking shape with competing products such as the Sol from Processor Technology and the Commodore PET.
The Apple I had been made in two batch runs. Jobs would order 50 printed circuit boards and enough parts to stuff them. With the coming Apple II and the new competitive environment there was no need to make a third batch of Apple I’s; it would be better just to make the next batch be a run of Apple II’s.
A.P.P.L.E.: Mike Markkula is known to have left Apple at a particularly strategic time in the evolution of the Apple. Can you tell us how his leaving changed how Apple did business and what areas were directly affected by this change?
Bill: No. I don’t have any first-hand knowledge of this.
A.P.P.L.E.: Why do you think the Apple II was so popular over the time span in which it was sold?
Bill: There were several reasons why the product was successful. a) It was plug and play: you could just plug it in and start computing. b) It was extensible: you could add circuit boards to add new features. c) It was attractive and approachable: it LOOKED simple, and to a large extent WAS simple. d) It had great marketing. e) It was produced by a “professional” company.
A.P.P.L.E.: Ron Wayne is known to have been the architect of the Apple II case. Can you tell us about your dealings with Ron and his influence on the Apple?
Bill: Ron Wayne was an industrial designer working at Atari (makers of Pong and other early video arcade games) at the time Woz and Jobs did some work for Atari. Ron had also designed cases for Heathkit, a popular electronic kit manufacturer. Heathkit’s cases were generally more professional and commercial looking than most hobbyists could produce.
Ron sketched out several case designs for the Apple II. I remember when we were reviewing three watercolor renderings of his case concepts. But in the end they all looked like Heathkits; good, but not good enough to satisfy Jobs. Jobs wanted the Apple II to look like a
high tech electronic typewriter: familiar and approachable, but sleek and high tech.
He eventually found an independent industrial designer, Jerry Manock of Manock Comprehensive Design, and it’s Jerry who designed the Apple II case we all know. Jobs eventually hired him and, among other things, he led the team that designed the original Macintosh.
A.P.P.L.E.: Jef Raskin has mentioned Steve Jobs’ selling prowess. Can you tell us what you think makes him the sales man he is?
Bill: It’s not so much that he’s a salesman (he can convince you to buy) as that he can convince you to join him in his vision of the future.
A.P.P.L.E.: Your name is on a number of software packages over the years. Which was your favorite and why?
Bill: Probably the Mac OS because it’s what makes the Mac what it is, and HyperCard because it made it possible for non-programmers to create their own software.
A.P.P.L.E.: Can you tell us a bit about your work with Ingres Corporate and the Tools Architecture Committee?
Bill: Ingres was one of the “big three” industrial strength database makers (along with Oracle and Sybase). I was the chief user interface architect in the division that made application development tools. Like HyperCard these made it as easy as possible for people to create their own programs. However these would be mission critical programs created by corporate IT departments to run business databases, and ran on Windows and Unix workstations.
I worked with all the project groups to define and design the overall user
experience for all our products. I also chaired the architecture committee, a group of key experts from across the division whose mission was to craft the long-term plan for how to develop and extend our technology into the future.
A.P.P.L.E.: Much of your work has to do with the User Interface. Can you elaborate on some of the problems you see with the current condition of user interfaces as well as where the current interfaces have improved?
Bill: It’s disappointing to see how large a percentage of software applications and web sites are hard to understand and use.
It’s also disappointing how static many of the current application types are. For example the layout engine in FileMaker is still oriented towards the printed page rather than online databased applications. Let’s say I wanted to have a database of photos, and I wanted a window with a scrolling list of names along the left, and a resizable panel on the right so I could display a single photo at a time. I’d want to be able to resize the overall window, and perhaps make the width of the list resizable. Clicking on a name in the list would display the photo on the right. This simple application is at present impossible to build and run in FileMaker (yes, I know you might be able do this with Web Companion but that has too many disadvantages to satisfy me).
On the other hand there have been many, many significant, evolutionary improvements over the years, for example: multi-tasking so you can copy and paste between applications, live scrolling, moving data via drag and drop, and the trend towards making everything look more realistic (and less abstract and cartoonish).
A.P.P.L.E.: What do you see as the biggest influence on the direction
the user interface has gone over the years?
Bill: Before the World Wide Web most user interfaces tended to follow fairly strict user interface guidelines and most “documents” were formatted for printout on fixed-size sheets of paper. But since the web has become a popular medium for the masses, documents have become truly electronic — formatted and organized for consumption directly from computer screens in resizable, scrolling windows. And user interface guidelines have been tossed out the window. We now see a wide and unpredictable range of user interfaces, drawing inspiration from computer games, newspaper and magazine design, book design, as well as the rampant creativity of graphic designers. Some of these UIs are really good, a lot are merely OK, and a lot are poor. The wish the percentage of really good ones was much higher.
A.P.P.L.E.: You currently are known for your photography. What brought about the change from software developer to photographer?
Bill: I have always had many hobbies; computers, music, theater, home automation, etc. Photography is just one of them. Recently I’ve been able to pursue my photography hobby with greater vigor. I bought a good film scanner and have started scanning my old slides. I’ve gone through the process of calibrating my monitor and profiling my printer, etc. so that I’m able to get very good correspondence between what I see on the screen and what it looks like when printed. It’s nice to be able to take a break from work or parenting and make a really beautiful print.
A.P.P.L.E.: What is you opinion of the direction Apple has taken with OS X and the Xserve?
Bill: XServe is interesting, but the rack mount server market is very
competitive and innovative new servers are introduced monthly. The XServer should fill a pent-up demand for MacOS servers, but it seems unlikely that it will eat into the market that currently buys tons of Linux and Unix servers
As far as OS X it’s a mixed bag. I think that Apple’s blend of hardware, software and marketing will continue to gain fans and redefine the marketplace. On the other hand I recently got a flat- screen iMac for the kids and the experience has been rocky: The Aqua graphics are beautiful and apps like iTunes are somewhat more intuitive and much more attractive than the previous generations on Mac and Windows, but I get a lot of kernel panics when running my kids’ favorite games and have terrible problems with user/group permissions. I find that there are a lot of confusing things about the user interface and dislike having to wade through folders filled with Unix-related folders that are unusable and hence irrelevant to me. How’s that for a start?
A.P.P.L.E.: How has OS X changed the way you work?
Bill: It hasn’t. The kids’ iMac runs OS X, but the Macs I run my business on are all running Mac OS 9.1 with a suite of applications and extensions that are highly tuned to my work style.
A.P.P.L.E.: What kind of changes do you think it will take for Apple will regain the kind of market share that they had in the 1980’s?
Bill: In the foreseeable future I don’t think it can. There are too many players serving too wide a range of consumer and corporate needs for Apple to play to all markets. I think what it’s doing will gradually increase it’s market share in certain areas, but not make any huge leaps. For example I can imagine the XServe first filling an existing pent up demand for Mac OS based,
rack-mounted servers, and I can see a small percentage of Unix/Linux based companies choosing the ease of administration of the XServer over the cheap purchase price of competing Unix/Linux servers. But I don’t see the XServer ever commanding a huge percentage of the rack mount server market. Thus Apple should be able to remain profitable but not take over the overall market.
A.P.P.L.E.: You have lived in Japan for a time. Can you tell us a bit about your life there, and how it influenced your outlook on other areas of you life?
Bill: Distilled to its essence, I think my experience showed me that on one hand the basic human motivations and desires are the same for all people and on the other hand that there are distinctly different yet equally legitimate ways to express them. I came away being more tolerant of people who have different views and methods than mine, and less complacent about whether my hard-won beliefs are the really the “best”, or merely a set of reasonably good ones that work for me.
A.P.P.L.E.: What is you favorite new technology and how do you see it being used?
Bill: I don’t have any single favorite, and most of what I see are trends that are gradually enabling significant improvements in the computing experience, so let me mention a few of these trends.
The trend towards plug and play expandability via busses such as USB and FireWire, and the eventual wireless equivalent is very promising. Rather than being tied to a fixed number of “slots” and having to take down the system you can reconfigure your hardware on the fly just by plugging and unplugging devices.
The trend towards larger, cheaper
displays, and especially towards flat-screen displays is very good. I use 22″ CRT displays and still find them cramped. I look forward to the day when displays will be like whiteboards: large, thin and light.
The trend towards wireless connectivity will someday, in conjunction with far better battery technology, free us from the rat’s nests of wires we all currently have to live with.
The trend towards far higher storage capacities being available at far lower price points is great, and it’s necessary for the vastly larger amounts of data (e.g. videos) that consumers are using.
The trend towards network-based services and storage. Science fiction writers have long been positing a future when all your data and applications are available anytime and anywhere through an omnipresent computing network. We’re seeing baby steps in this direction. For example all web content is stored on remote servers and accessed over the net. Network-based personal storage like iDisk is gradually becoming common. And initiatives such as Microsoft’s .Net show that companies are starting to think in terms of network-based software applications.
It’s great to see media creation migrating down to the consumer desktop through applications like iMovie, iTunes and iDVD. And of course the Internet, which makes so much of what we’ve dreamed of possible and is perhaps the greatest hotbed of new computer technology development.
A.P.P.L.E.: What new changes do you foresee for the user interface?
Bill: In a way that’s a trick question, because the answers that leap to mind are the changes I WANT to see whereas history demonstrates that
whatpeoplewantisdevelopedover decades, not years.
What I’d LIKE to see is for computer images to be directly projected onto the retina from something that looks like a boom microphone or a pair of glasses, and for the images to change as you turn your head. I’d like the computer to respond naturally to voice instructions and for it to sense the position of your hands. In this way you could turn your head to “see” something you’d “placed” off to the side, reach for it with your hands, “open” it (say, like a book) and manipulate it in thin air (imagine what it will look like when you go into a coffee shop and instead of everyone being on cell phones they’re waving their hands in the air while working with their headset computers), and talk to your computer as if it were a butler waiting to do your bidding. You could also have virtual conferences by having the participants’ images being projected in 3D in a ring around you. Similarly whiteboards, etc. can be projected when you turn your head in their direction. Therefore you could very naturally shift focus from one participant to another and to visual aids such as whiteboards, movies, etc.
What I’d LIKE to see is near-perfect speech recognition and natural language processing. This will enable a quantum leap in user- friendliness for certain applications.
What I’d LIKE to see is printers that can print envelopes, checks, letterheads, etc. without any fuss.
With the these last two technologies you could make, for example, a home accounting program where you open the bills you receive, read out loud the names and amounts, and tell the computer to print the checks. At the same time it could enter the amounts into your accounting database. If you needed to send money to someone new to
yourdatabase,sayabirthdaygiftto a friend, you could just speak the name, address, amount and a message, and tell the computer to print the check, a note card and an envelope.
What we’ll actually see is a confusing, disconnected and incompatible plethora of new web- based functionality of various kinds, including web-based applications, peer-to-peer connectivity, etc. We will continue to see a lot of grand experiments and failures in web and network-based technologies and applications. We will continue to see various attempts at making wireless technology practical and affordable, and after a lot of trial and error we’ll get there. We will continue to see Apple pushing the envelope to make beautiful and easy-to-use applications that inspire the industry. We’ll continue to see Unix and Linux be more suitable for techies than non- technical users. What does all this have to do with “user interface”? To me everything that affects the user experience, from making a purchase decision, to installation, to daily usage, to repair and maintenance is part of the user interface.
A.P.P.L.E.: Where do you see the computing world going from here and what section of it do you see as being the biggest influence on the population?
Bill: Although I can’t see the result, I predict a shakeout in the entertainment sector that will lead to different methods of delivery, consumption and payment for digital media, whether it is music, movies, books or whatever.
I also envision the world continuing to grow together into a global community. We see this now in the way information crosses national boundaries with increasing freedom; business to business and business to consumer connections are increasingly international; ever
smaller businesses are becoming multinational; national economies are becoming increasingly interdependent; world culture is becoming increasingly homogeneous through the widespread distribution of entertainment media; and the natural environment is becoming increasingly recognized as a globally connected system. These points just scratch the surface of how computer-based technology is enabling, indeed forcing, the world to become a global community.
Or were you asking a more mundane question like “who will win; Windows, Linux or Mac OS”? I think you can look to the automobile industry for good analogies. There will continue to be lots of choices with no clear winner. There will continue to be
slow maturation and extension of contemporary computing paradigms. As hardware technologies for storage, processor speed, I/O, etc. become marketable companies will introduce new products that gradually change the computing landscape. As powerful technologies become cheap, low power and small we’ll see more miniature devices cluttering our lifestyles.
A.P.P.L.E.: What technology would you like to see developed in the next 10 years?
Bill: In addition to head-mounted displays and speech recognition that actually works: I’d like to see everything be wireless and battery operated. I’d like to see devices such as cell phones, PDAs and
computers interact with each other seamlessly to update address books, leverage off each other’s functionality, and “just work” together. I’d like to see home automation with integrated control of lights, security, landscape watering, home entertainment, etc. In short, I want as much as possible in my life to be easy, responsive
and (to the extent possible) automatic. I’d like to see big steps forward in software technology, so that applications become more useful and less troublesome. I’d like a lot more of the administration that clutters my life to be computerized, automatic and paper free.
