Words by Marcin Wichary / Technology by Mihai Parparita at Infinite Mac 8 July 2025 / 8,800 words / 10 emulators Frame of preference A history of Mac settings, 1984–2004 As a designer, I’m meant to dislike settings. As a user, I love them. Every year I celebrate Settings Day: a day when I take a look at the options and toggles in all the apps I use. I do this out of curiosity – what was added since the last time I looked? – but also because I love this way of getting to know software: peeking under the hood, walking the back alleys, learning what has been tricky or important enough to be equipped with a checkbox. During the last Settings Day, I had a realization that the totemic 1984 Mac control panel, designed by Susan Kare, is still to this day perhaps the only settings screen ever brought up in casual conversation. I kept wondering about that screen, and about what happened since then. Turns out, the Mac settings have lived a far more fascinating life than I imagined, have been redesigned many times, and can tell us a lot about the early history and the troubled upbringing of this interesting machine. Join me on a journey through the first twenty years of Mac’s control panels. 1984 It’s rare when software matches hardware so well. Even already in 1979, the Macintosh was envisioned as a home appliance akin to a toaster or a TV. This was documented in one of my favorite memos of all time. Get the machine out of the box. Leave the screwdriver in the drawer. There is no step three. Once you do that, open the Apple menu, and then launch the Control Panel, and you will find a small appliance hiding inside the machine, too. A European appliance, even – outside of the title bar, there is absolutely no text present here. The Control Panel is a handsome and tight design, put together by Susan Kare as the last desk accessory, just weeks before the Mac’s announcement. It feels alive, depicting a perhaps surprising amount of movement sometimes via animation, sometimes via com...
First seen: 2025-07-09 01:32
Last seen: 2025-07-09 07:33