Discover the Best Books Written by Andy Hertzfeld

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, wherein in 2011, he was the key designer of the Circles user interface in Google+. 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. He developed the Apple Silentype printer firmware and wrote the firmware 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 Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak's brief departure from the company due to a plane crash, co-founder Steve Jobs took control of the nearly two-year-old Macintosh team in February 1981. He added Hertzfeld to it at his request. 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), to which 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 graphical user interfaces, like the Control Panel and Scrapbook.