“Susan Kare never thought she’d be best known for designing icons for a living,” John Brownlee reports for Cult of Mac. “A high school friend of Andy Hertzfeld, who was leading up the Macintosh OS design team, Kare says the job was offered to her ‘serendipitously’ based on no more than her ability to draw some off-the-cuff icons on graph paper during her initial interview.”
“To say that Kare was good at drawing icons is an understatement. In fact, many of the icons she drew during her interview became mainstays of the Macintosh operating system,” Brownlee reports. “Perhaps one of the most interesting stories Kare tells in the video above is about why the Macintosh replaced the key with the Command key. Originally, all shortcuts in the Macintosh operating system were done with the key, but when Steve Jobs saw the dropdown menus, he screamed: ‘There are too many Apples! You’re using our logo in vain!'” Brownlee reports. “Looking for a replacement, Kare consulted a symbol dictionary and plucked a little known symbol used almost exclusively in Swedish campgrounds, the ⌘ symbol we all know and love today.”
Read more – and watch the video – in the full article here.
Apple didn’t suddenly switch the Apple symbol for the point of interest symbol. For many years, the standard Apple keyboard had both symbols engraved on the command key.
The Apple and Open Apple keys were introduced on the Apple III and then included on the IIe and IIc.
The Lisa had only the Open Apple key.
The ⌘ was exclusive to the Macintosh for the original Mac, 512, 512e, and Plus.
With the Mac SE and Apple IIgs came with the introduction of ADB and the IIgs was the first Apple II with a detachable keyboard. At that time the Open Apple and ⌘ were placed on the same key and the keyboards became interchangeable. The keyboard dropped the closed Apple key.
The Open Apple remained for historical reasons long after the II line was discontinued. It was removed in 2007 to provide a room for the name “command” to appear on the key. (“control” and “option” would also be spelled out at this time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_key
I think that there’s a bit of sloppy vocabulary here. There’s the key(s), and what’s printed on them, and then there’s what the keys are called, and then there’s how the keys are referred to in menus.
What Steve complained about was not to have an Apple key, but to referring to the Apple key with Apple logos in menus. Since you couldn’t write “Apple” or “Command” in the menus, there was need for a new symbol, and from the menus the symbol needed to jump onto the keyboards.
I always used to call the⌘ key they “dead spider” key.
I used to fool my kids into thinking that if you knew the secret, the key with the Apple and the pretzel symbol could be pressed in a special magical way to deliver you a snack.
Aren’t young kids great? One time when I was waiting in a parking lot with my kids, I convinced them that I could operate the windshield wipers by mental command (the wipers were in intermittent mode). It was just for fun and I let them in on it after my wife returned to the van.
It’s always fun to spend time with the kids without adult supervision.
Well we now have proof that Jobs was not always right. I still tell people to “Apple-P” to print something, for example. Much better than “Command”.
I thought the same at first, but elgarak raised a good point: the problem wasn’t that the Apple logo appeared on the key, it’s that they were appearing in all the menus. Open the File menu right now, and mentally replace all the cloverleaves with apples. This would then cause an inconsistency with the Apple menu itself: if apple+key did an action, why wouldn’t the apple key by itself drop down the Apple menu itself (much like the Windows key would pop open the Windows aka Start menu over a decade later).
After considering that, I do believe Jobs was right to replace the Apple logo in menus.
The problem – in later years – was that everyone said, just use “Apple = C” or “Apple – P” and people wouldn’t understand because third party keyboard makers were not allowed to use the copyrighted Apple symbol.
This also later made it easer for Windows people to use a Mac and to use Windows on a Mac.
I’ve always referred to that key as Command, long before the Apple was removed. But then again, I learned about the Mac by reading Apple’s excellent and comprehensive manuals back in the 90’s. The key was always referred to as Command in those manuals.
My Macbook Pro (late 2007, still in use, beefed up with SSD) has and ⌘ symbols still on the same key. 😀
Moof!
Ah, everyone’s favorite cow-dog.
I believe it’s Dogcow. Woof!
I believe it was “Moof!” 🙂
Of course. 100% I was focusing on the DOG part being first, but touché!
Clarus.
Oh I like it, the investigative journalist, the super sleuth on his way to a Pulitzer with the in depth insight that comes from saying that “Kare finally reveals why Apple switched from the Apple symbol to the Command key.”
Oooops…
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Swedish_Campground.txt
Did I say Pulitzer prize, more like Putzer Prize. This year’s prize will be in the shape of a Bowen knot.
The command symbol is also used in Finland for tourist attractions along roads and it was on the backside of small coins before € currency.
BTW
How do you access Apple and command symbol on iPad? 😟
Emoji has many exotic symbols but not the most essential! 😠
Copy these symbols:
⌘
Paste them in Notepad, and they’ll always be available for you to paste back. Alternatively you could just search for “Apple Command” and find a website to copy them. I do this with the interrobang (‽) all the time.
It’s kind of embarrassing solution to problem that should not exist…😘
Once again someone points out the difference between Apple and Mucrosoft. She said while MS had color in Win 3 while many Macs were still monochrome, Microsoft PICKED CRAPPY LOOKING COLORS.
enough said.
Mad Magazine had the bomb image every month on the letters-to-the-editor page.