Andrew Jay Hertzfeld (born April 6, 1953) is an American software engineer and innovator who was a member of the original Apple Macintosh development team during the 1980s.
After buying an Apple II in January 1978, he went to work for Apple Computer from August 1979 until March 1984, where he was a designer for the Macintosh system software.
Since leaving Apple, he has co-founded three companies: Radius in 1986, General Magic in 1990, and Eazel in 1999.
In 2002, he helped Mitch Kapor promote open source software with the Open Source Applications Foundation.
Hertzfeld worked at Google from 2005 to 2013, where in 2011, he was the key designer of the Circles user interface in Google+.
Career
Apple Computer (1979–1984)
After graduating from Brown University with a computer science degree in 1975, Hertzfeld attended graduate school at the University of California, Berkeley.
In 1978, he bought an Apple II computer and soon began developing software for it.
He went on to write for Call-A.P.P.L.E. and Dr. Dobb's Journal and soon came to the attention of Apple Computer.
He was hired by Apple Computer as a systems programmer in 1979 and developed the Apple Silentype printer firmware and wrote the firmwareM&R Enterprises, Sup'R'Terminal Manual, page 47, 1980.
for the Sup'R'Terminal, the first 80-column card for the Apple II.
In the early 1980s, he invited his high school friend, artist Susan Kare, to join Apple in order to help design what would become standard Macintosh icons.
With the first Macintosh, Hertzfeld wrote an icon editor and font editor so that Susan Kare could design the symbols used in the operating system.
Hertzfeld was a member of the Apple Macintosh design team.
After a shakeup in the Apple II team and at Hertzfeld's request, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs added him to the nearly two-year-old Macintosh team in February 1981.
Working for Bud Tribble alongside Bill Atkinson and Burrell Smith, Hertzfeld became a primary software architect of the Macintosh Operating System, which was considered revolutionary in its use of the graphical user interface (GUI) where Jef Raskin also made contributions.
Hertzfeld's business card at Apple listed his title as Software Wizard.
He wrote large portions of the Macintosh's original system software, including much of the ROM code, the User Interface Toolbox, and a number of innovative components now standard in many graphic user interfaces, like the Control Panel and Scrapbook.
Hertzfeld's book Revolution in the Valley: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made chronicles the development of the Macintosh and its launch.
After Apple (1984–present)
After leaving Apple in 1984, Hertzfeld co-founded three new companies – Radius (1986), General Magic (1990), and Eazel (1999).
At Eazel, he helped to create the Nautilus file manager for Linux's GNOME desktop.
He volunteered for the Open Source Applications Foundation in 2002 and 2003, writing early prototypes of Chandler, their information manager.
In 1996, Hertzfeld was interviewed by Robert Cringely on the television documentary Triumph of the Nerds, and was again interviewed by Cringely on NerdTV in 2005.
In early 2004, he started folklore.org, a Web site devoted to collective storytelling that contains dozens of anecdotes about the development of the original Macintosh.
The stories have been collected in an O'Reilly book, Revolution in the Valley, published in December 2004.
In August 2005, Hertzfeld joined Google.
On June 28, 2011, Google announced Google+, its latest attempt at social networking.
Hertzfeld was the key designer of the Google+ Circles component user interface, but not the entire project as has been mistakenly claimed.
He also worked on Picasa, and Gmail's profile image selector.
He retired from Google in July 2013.
As of October 2018, he is an investor of the startup Spatial.
Portrayals
Hertzfeld was portrayed by Elden Henson in the 2013 film Jobs.
He was later played by actor Michael Stuhlbarg in the 2015 film Steve Jobs.
Hertzfeld stated "almost nothing in it is how it really happened" about the Steve Jobs film, and that the film ultimately was not aiming for realism.
Personal life
Hertzfeld and his wife live in Palo Alto, California.
References
General references
Inline citations
External links
Differnet.com – Andy Hertzfeld's personal homepage; a collection of Web sites designed and/or hosted by him
Revolution in the Valley - Andy Hertzfeld's book about the development of the Macintosh.
Folklore.org – Macintosh Folklore, a web site that contains all of the stories in the book, and more
NerdTV interview (September 2005) with Hertzfeld by PBS's Robert X. Cringely, available in audio, video, and text transcript
ITConversations Dr. Moira Gunn speaks with Andy Hertzfeld
John Wants Answers Interview with Andy Hertzfeld along with Steve Wozniak and Daniel Kottke about the biopic Jobs. (Episode 041 (4.5) - September 30, 2013)
