{"id":50510,"date":"2016-09-26T07:00:52","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T11:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.uncommongoods.com\/?p=50510"},"modified":"2016-09-06T17:03:33","modified_gmt":"2016-09-06T21:03:33","slug":"uncommon-knowledge-whose-wish-macs-command","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/2016\/uncommon-knowledge-whose-wish-macs-command\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncommon Knowledge: Whose Wish Was Mac\u2019s Command?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/product\/keyboard-waffle-iron?source=blog_uk_92616\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-50511 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/40216_View4_2.jpg\" alt=\"40216_View4_(2)\" width=\"650\" height=\"650\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Every Mac keyboard sports a propeller-like symbol on the command keys that flank the space bar [<strong>\u2318<\/strong>], and you might wonder what inspired it. An age-old international symbol for \u201ccommand?\u201d An overhead diagram of an interstate cloverleaf? No, it hails from a time that Steve Jobs decided they had too many apples. In 1983, Apple computers already had a special key to invoke menu commands. Aptly called the \u201capple key,\u201d it sported a little apple icon and the same cute fruit appeared next to drop-down menu items with a keyboard command. But when software with extensive menus (like MacDraw) started to look like an over-abundant orchard, Jobs wasn\u2019t happy. According to Apple lore, Jobs complained of too many apples on the screen, exclaiming \u201cwe\u2019re taking the Apple logo in vain!\u201d Tasked with finding a crisp, quick alternative, bitmap designer Susan Kare had to find a small, simple icon to stand for \u201ccommand.\u201d Flipping through her international symbol dictionary for inspiration, she found a flower-like icon used in Scandinavian wayfinding to indicate a nearby historic or cultural attraction. The original icon may have been inspired by St. Hanne\u2019s cross, a Celtic knot-like symbol associated with John the Baptist (sometimes called a shield knot). Over 30 years later, Kare\u2019s cross is still synonymous with \u201ccommand\u201d for Mac users. Now, if we could just get rid of that spinning rainbow beach ball of doom\u2026<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/product\/keyboard-waffle-iron?source=blog_uk_92616\" target=\"_blank\">Keyboard Waffle Iron<\/a> | $85<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every Mac keyboard sports a propeller-like symbol on the command keys that flank the space bar [\u2318], and you&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":50511,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1208],"tags":[813],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50510"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50510"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50977,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50510\/revisions\/50977"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/50511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uncommongoods.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}