By looking at the different designs, you can see that Apple has gone back and forth between more elaborate designs to very simple ones. You have the bold original button from 1984, which transitioned to a very simple button in 1986. That button stuck around for 11 years until Apple gave it a shade of gray in 1997. Then there were the glossy, gradient days of Mac OS X Aqua in the early and mid 2000s, before Apple shifted back to more simpler buttons again.
The timeline is a fun trip through a part of the Mac operating system that isn’t usually given much thought. The next time you click “OK,” know that there’s someone who has put a lot of thought into that button.
