TextEdit and the relief of simple software

Summary

The so-called desktop first appeared on a home computer in 1981, with the release of the Xerox 8010 Star Information System. That device pioneered the graphical-user interface, or G.U.I., a convenient series of visual metaphors that allows us to interact more easily with our machines. The most basic computing interface is the command-line prompt, the empty box in which users write instructions in code directly to the machine; the Xerox Star replaced that forbidding vacuum with a friendly illustration of a tabletop surface, textured in patterned pixels, scattered with icons for folders, spreadsheets, and filing trays. A 1982 paper on the device described the then novel system: “Users are encouraged to think of the objects on the Desktop in physical terms. You can move the icons around to arrange your Desktop as you wish. (Messy Desktops are certainly possible, just as in real life.)” That mess derives from the files that we scatter on our desktops, agglomerations of data in formats that read as increasingly arcane and anachronistic: PDFs, JPGs, ZIPs, M4As. Similar to a physical desk drawer, the desktop is now something that we tend to stuff full and then forget about.Over the past decade of computing, the desktop has receded. Digital-file systems have gone the way of the IRL inbox tray. Instead, we use the search bar to call up any file that we might want to find or tap apps that provide self-contained, streamlined experiences for consuming or producing content. Our phone home screens are even less customizable and less idiosyncratic than our computer desktops; we rarely think of individual files existing on our phones. Apple recently launched an iPhone operating-system interface redesign called Liquid Glass that turns its icons translucent, further homogenizing their appearance. Even such icons may soon be a thing of the past. The promise of artificial intelligence is that the desktop will disappear entirely and users will only interact with a chatbot or a voice tha...