Jerry Manock

Jerrold Clifford Manock (born February 21, 1944) is an American industrial designer. He worked for Apple Computer from 1977 to 1984, contributing to housing designs for the Apple II, Apple III, and early compact Macintosh computers. Manock is widely regarded as the "father" of the Apple Industrial Design Group. Since 1976,

From 1968 to 1972, Manock worked as a product design engineer in the Microwave Division of Hewlett-Packard, Palo Alto, California. From 1972 to 1975 he was chief mechanical engineer at Telesensory Systems, Inc., of Palo Alto. He then worked as a freelance product design consultant; in 1977 he took on Apple Computer as a client and consulted on the product design and mechanical engineering of the Apple II personal computer. Manock also worked on the Disk II, Disk III, and Lisa office computer. According to Jason O'Grady in Apple Inc., Manock was "hand-picked" by Jef Raskin to work on the Macintosh design team. In a 1984 interview, Manock said that the initial design goal was for a computer housing with "portability", but that idea was replaced by the design goal of "minimal desk space". As a result, the design team created a keyboard smaller than the width of the computer. Manock contributed the idea of using icons on the outside of the machine rather than English words to make the Macintosh more international. This style is mirrored in the ROM, which uses icons instead of English-language directions, such as a frowning face when the computer needs to reboot and a smiling face indicating booting.

His work from this period is included in Pirouette: Turning Points in Design, an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art featuring "widely recognized design icons [...] highlighting pivotal moments in design history."

Patents Manock is the co-inventor of: Personal computer (U.S. Patent No. D268584), April 12, 1983 Dual disk drive (U.S. Patent No. D271102), October 25, 1983 Housing for moveable cursor control for a video display (U.S. Patent No. D284284), June 17, 1986 Computer housing (U.S. Patent No. D285687), September 16, 1986 Keypad (U.S. Patent No. D286047), October 7, 1986 Disk drive housing (U.S. Patent No. D286050), October 7, 1986 Disk drive case (U.S. Patent No. D290257), June 9, 1987 Equatorial sundial apparatus utilizing one or more concave cylindrical focusing mirrors (U.S. Patent No. 6301793), October 16, 2001

Teaching Manock is a part-time lecturer on product design at the University of Vermont.

Family Manock married Mary Ellen Tobey and they have two daughters, Abigail and Katherine.