Steve Jobs, Jef Raskin, and the first great war for your thumbs
21 hours ago
- #thumb-typing
- #tech-history
- #keyboard-design
- The Thumb Wars of the 2000s involved BlackBerry, iPhone, and Android, but an earlier battle over thumb typing involved Apple alumni.
- NeXT's 1990 keyboard was innovative, ditching function keys for elegant design, color-coded Command keys, and brightness/volume controls.
- NeXT's keyboard introduced a Command bar under the spacebar to utilize both thumbs for modifier functions, a novel approach at the time.
- Canon Cat, designed by Jef Raskin, featured a keyboard-centric design with unique Leap keys under the spacebar for fluid document navigation.
- Leap keys allowed quick text searches and navigation, integrating seamlessly into the typing process without needing a mouse.
- Both NeXT and Canon Cat failed commercially, but their keyboard innovations influenced future designs.
- Apple's PowerBook popularized the trackpad under the keyboard, making sub-spacebar keys impractical and ending thumb-key experiments.
- Japanese Fujitsu's Thumb Shift keyboard reimagined shifting mechanics, allowing simultaneous or delayed thumb shifts for character input.
- Other thumb-key experiments included Keyboardio Model 01, Maltron, and gaming keyboards, but none gained widespread adoption.
- Modern keyboards, dominated by trackpads, have largely abandoned thumb-key innovations, leaving early experiments as historical footnotes.