Overview

• Atkinson joined Apple in 1978 as employee number 51 and helped Steve Jobs turn Xerox PARC’s GUI concepts into the Lisa and Macintosh interfaces.
• He invented core UI elements including pull-down menus, the double-click gesture and the animated ‘marching ants’ selection tool.
• He created the QuickDraw graphics library and MacPaint, and developed HyperCard as an early hypermedia system that foreshadowed the World Wide Web.
• After leaving Apple in 1990, he co-founded General Magic to explore handheld communicator technology before dedicating himself to nature photography, publishing collections like Within the Stone.
• His family announced on June 5 that he died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Portola Valley and Apple CEO Tim Cook hailed him as a true visionary.