Creative Selection
Written by Ken Kocienda. Read in February 2024.
The expression in the title refers to culture of using demos to show progress and receive feedback.
At Apple Ken helped to start Safari/WebKit project and invented a virtual keyboard that shipped with the first iPhone.
Before Apple, Ken worked at Eazel, a company started by Apple veteran Andy Hertzfeld. Eazel was building Nautilus – an open source file browser for GNOME Linux and provided paid cloud storage options (similar to Dropbox).
As a result of the investment from Microsoft, Internet Explorer was the primary browser on Mac at that time. When Eazel went bankrupt, many employees, including Ken and Don Melton went to Apple. Don Melton convinced Scott Forstall that Apple needed to have its own browser. They initially tried to port Mozilla, but the codebase was too large. Richard Williamson was able to quickly port Konqueror.
First version of Safari was released in 2003.
When we left the store and got back in his car, Don handed me a copy of JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, 3rd Edition, notable for the beautifully detailed rhinoceros on its cover.
He said, "What do you think about making a web browser for Apple? Are you interested?"
– page 48
Computer History Museum has two great interviews with Ken and Richard: part 1 and part 2.