Steve Jobs on The Mouse: Pointing Instead of Special Keys
What Jobs talks about
Jobs describes a new personal office system market and says Apple wants to grow it carefully, supporting early installations and expanding as supply increases.
The core of the demo is the mouse: instead of adding more special keyboard keys, users can move an arrow, point to words and pictures, select items, and move information between applications.
His larger point is that the mouse removes a huge amount of complexity from using a computer. That idea became central to the modern graphical user interface.
Jobs speaks throughout, with an interviewer prompting him about the mouse.
In his words
“This is a major new market”
“By simply using the mouse, the user can move an arrow around on the screen”
“Simply point to English words, and point to pictures, and move things around”
“We've done is eliminated a vast body of knowledge”
Key points
- A personal office system is a major new market.
- Apple wants to support early customers very well.
- Growth should follow supply and customer feedback.
- The mouse replaces many special-purpose keyboard keys.
- Users can point, select, and move objects directly on screen.
- The goal is to eliminate the knowledge required to use the computer.
Full transcript
This is a major new market that we think this technology is going to create, the market of the personal office system. And while the market is very, very large we feel, we want to go step by step and make sure those first installations are very well supported, we get the feedback from those customers, and gradually we'll broaden that distribution as demand for the product, or excuse me, as supply for the product continues to grow. Tell us about the mouse, what role does this play? Of special keys on the keyboard, and making the keyboard larger and larger and larger to put a special key for everything. By simply using the mouse, the user can move an arrow around on the screen and simply point to English words, and point to pictures, and move things around, select things, and exchange information between applications, all through this very simple device.
And so what we've done is eliminated a vast body of knowledge that one has to know in order to use this computer.
Transcribed from the audio with OpenAI Whisper. Timestamps link to the video above. Errors are possible.