Former software engineer at Apple James Dempsey shared a picture showing Apple.com’s top navigation bar over the years. It’s interesting to look at how much the navigation bar has changed, and, at the same time, how much it has stayed the same.
Note the addition of the “Mac OS X” tab after January 2000. Also note the transition from “iTunes” to “iPod + iTunes” from September 2003 to October of that same year. Most recently, the omission of the “iPod” tab. Interestingly, Apple seems to have cleaned up the hierarchy of the individual items in the navigation bar list. Prior to the June 2015 portion of Dempsey’s picture, the navigation bar was arranged seemingly haphazardly. In September 2014, the order was, from left to right:
Store Mac iPhone Watch iPad iPod iTunes Support
And here’s the order for most recent snapshot for June 2015:
Store Mac iPad iPhone Watch Music Support
Prior to this month’s snapshot, the order was somewhat confused. The Mac, and then the iPhone, and then the Watch (and then iPad, etc.)? Was this because the Mac was the most important product? That can’t be it. iPhone is Apple’s cash cow. Maybe it was size, then? That couldn’t be it, because the Watch came before the iPad.
Now, however, it appears Apple is arranging them all by size, which, for OCD types like me, makes more sense.
(via John Gruber)