The development of the Mac UI is documented at https://www.folklore.org/ (with polaroids!). It was influenced by Xerox — with Xerox’s permission — but “largely imitating” is completely false.
Author here: Would it not be fair to say that black and white WIMP with an emphasis on desktop publishing is an imitation of Xerox, especially when they were paying for the privilege?
"influenced by" is fair. "imitation" is pejorative; it implies no -- or substantially inferior -- original work, which is certainly not the case. Don't take my word for it; use an Alto simulator and a Mac 128k. Those are very different experiences!
Despite my strong apple tendencies - I really like the piece and critique of the period and what GEM had and what could have been. I thought GEM was going to bring something in the PC and Atari ST world but it never happened. Sigh. Instead we got a sea of bland and inspired windows PCs.
I am probably going to get myself in trouble as English is my second language. I would not want to put words speaking for someone else. Imitation suggests a copy of or substitute of the original that is not as good like. coffee mate vs cream or nutra sweet vs sugar. I had the same negative excitement as the Op.
Apple was definitely inspired by what they saw at Xerox. The essence was certainly there, but constraints made it a unique experience. It didn’t need a file server. It had a tiny ram footprint 128k vs 384k as the base model. And the single button mouse required a different approach to the UI/UX that the two button of the star didn’t even try to solve.
can we please stop with this canard
The development of the Mac UI is documented at https://www.folklore.org/ (with polaroids!). It was influenced by Xerox — with Xerox’s permission — but “largely imitating” is completely false.
Apple was definitely inspired by what they saw at Xerox. The essence was certainly there, but constraints made it a unique experience. It didn’t need a file server. It had a tiny ram footprint 128k vs 384k as the base model. And the single button mouse required a different approach to the UI/UX that the two button of the star didn’t even try to solve.
And yes. I bleed six colors …