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Apple Chromes Its Logo
Val42K writes "Personally, I like the original logo, but Apple has decided to changed their familiar logo in the latest release of the OS X operating system. It has the same shape but has a chrome finish, like the robots of Hajime Sorayama." Does it look anything like the image we're using for this story, the one on the outside of most Apple hardware and software boxes? What am I missing?
It looks like slashdot needs to update their Apple logo. And it wouldn't hurt to metal-ize the /. theme for apple.slashdot.org!
...frankly I was deeply saddened when they let go of the rainbow-colored Apple. It's been pretty much downhill since. ;)
A blog like any other.
It reminds me of that /. poll - its all coming true!
Is it just me, or does that sound vagely sexual, "Apple Chromes Its Logo"
Anonymous COWard
p.s. dear troll: please respond in kind with references to me being gay because I own an apple computer and apple at one time had a logo with a rainbow on it... a gay priest with an apple "laptop" walks into a bar...
Don't let those teeny bugs get in the way of anything. What you need is a new logo! Something shiny and capable of distracting users. Just think:
Frustrated Apple User: Dammit, my computer keeps crashing!
Apple: Um.. but look at this! Shiny!
FAU: WOW! THIS IS THE BEST LOGO EVAR!!
A: Te-he!
Remember, if you want marketing gloss, that's employee zero (Steve Jobs') number 1 job!
Thunk Different!
It looks like an Apple has been spited in two parts... a broken glass one
Please end this madness. It's fine the way it is. The chrome effect makes it look split and not wholesome.
And stop with the "Brushed Metal" craze.
I have a G4 powermac, a 1.42GHz machine which worked well and for the most part kept me occupied and did the tasks I needed doing. The noise however, was something that's been driving me, my wife and my pets crazy. The dog wouldn't come in the same room as she's scared of the thing. She also attacks the hairdryer in the bathroom, and I think that's a subtle hint that the thing was too loud and what it sounded like.
Looking deeper into the machine I found a couple of fans that when running at a certain speed reached a phenomenal noise level. With the computer in its cabinet they were bad enough but I felt like I was near a jet taking off if I had the Mac up on my desk. I pulled those fans out and they looked like they could be replaced by standard, quieter fans. I took one from the last PC I'd built (yes I'm multiplatform) and it fit well, so a quick trip into town I bought a pair and installed those.
The G4 was fantastic! The reduction in noise was something I could immediately appreciate, but my happiness didn't last too long. Within half an hour the machine was locking up and crashing. I opened it once more to see I hadn't been a moron and done anything stupid, when I noticed the apple supplied heatsink was BURNING hot. I mean really hot, I couldn't bear to touch it more than momentarily. I never trusted that heatsink, the sheer bulk of it looked like it was made to be produced easily and not cool properly. I ditched that heatsink (after letting the machine cool down for an hour!) and replaced it with a Zalman flower. I'd never seen cooling like it could do, so it was the logical choice. The heatsink for the G4 attached differently, but it was easy enough to adapt the zalman with insulated wire tied underneath the CPU board.
This worked a little better and the powermac booted, and stayed working far longer. For about three days, and from then on it wouldn't boot. No chime, just fans spinning and no video. Even the hard drive barely ticked a couple of times. By now I was furious, my previous macs had given me little trouble but this one was a pain. I phoned the apple center nearest me, and as it was only a few months old I was assured everything should be covered by warranty. It turns out because I had MODIFIED the computer that my warranty was void. wtf? I added a superior cooling system to the machine, quietened it, IMPROVED it in every way, and they deny my claim? I was livid at the store manager, but couldn't get past his denseness. Know what else? Apple keep on record what you've done. I replaced the original loud fan, the original heatsink and tried once more, and again my claim was refused on the basis I'd done the damage myself.
I'm still a Mac user, but a very annoyed one still waiting on repairs to my G4 that I have to pay for myself, and that I consider are Apple's warranty responsibility that they've gotten out of having to pay for by some stupid clause. Read the fine print guys.
This screenshot from the Wired article points to a disturbing problem with the 10.3 prereleases: move from 10.2.x to 10.3 and have your processor downgrade, your clock speed decrease by 600MHz, and your RAM decrease by 448 MB. Watch out!
I'm a Mac user. I like OS X. I like Apple, in general. And for what it's worth, I don't really think Apple making their logo shiny is really /. material.
eh?
"Does it look anything like the image we're using for this story, the one on the outside of most Apple hardware and software boxes? What am I missing?"
Yeah, it looks like this:
Picture
There are people in the public relations world who drool over the possibility of having the world sit around and chat about your logo redesign. This is news for nerds. Apple has had their ten minutes of fame, now it is time for open source to shine. Would a redesigned Debian logo get coverage on slashdot? It shouldn't. The avoidance of mass-commercialism led me to slashdot and now it is driving me away.
http://tinyurl.com/4ny52
It just goes to show Sunday is a slow news day. Is it a long weekend holiday in the US too?
Panther can run on a 400 MHz G3 with 192 MB RAM. I wonder how sluggish it is on such a machine. I also wonder who has a pre-release and decided to run it on such a machine.
Hmmmm......
Am I the only one that thinks that the line going through it looks like a giant crack in the logo?
It's a sign (better not be).
First there was the TiBook, and now the AlBook, then there was the brushed metal skinned software in OS X, then the sexy G5, now the logo.
With the rumours of Panther being brushed metal heaven, is this a new corporate image, moving away from the lickable aqua (at least the iMac, eMac, and iBook range remain lickable) to a smooth, sharp image?
The best way to check will be to see what Dell and Co will bring out in 12-18 months time, and look at the interface on MS Bonghorn when it comes out in 3 years time.
InfoSec that matters, when it counts.
I'm using Panther (7B68) right now, and can't find the change they are talking about. Not in the "About this mac" window, not in the startup, not anywhere. Any why the hell is this news anyway?
My
Looks like lots of new UPS trucks are deployed in Cupertino.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
This is only a rumor, not hard news last I know. There is no press release about it, there is not a single incarnation of the shiny logo on apples webpage (that I can find) the only indication of this is in the Boot and 'About This Mac' windows. Even the menu bar Apple is still the blue or grey one like /. uses.
0 24 2&mode=thread
People should clarify reality and rumors.
http://macslash.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/26/165
Apple has had their ten minutes of fame, now it is time for open source to shine.
That would be all well and good if the "community" (whatever that means) could do anything--ANYTHING--better than Apple. Anything at all. Pick any one thing that the "community" does, and I guarantee you Apple does it better.
Ten minutes of fame, my ass. They built the first home computer, built the first easy-to-use computer, built the first desktop UNIX operating system for users as opposed to programmers, and have been profitable for twenty out of their last twenty-two quarters. Name ONE THING that the "community" has done that even comes close.
I miss da CowboyNeal!!!!
The Apple logo has changed, and it looks like there ought to be large enough copies of the logo floating around for you to make a site icon. For that matter, shouldn't the picture for Desktops (Apple) be updated, too? The look of Apple's desktops has been revised twice (mirrored-front/wind-tunnel, and of course, the G5) since your icon was made...
Or is the Bling Bling fad being taken too far?
... never mind.
What next, chromed out computer cases with
I keep wondering:
Apple (well, Steve) hates leaks. He probably fumes over these rumor sites that get leaks from the developer releases of the OS. I've often wondered if Apple might trick the leakers in to giving away their identies.
AFAIK the developer releases are only available (officially) by logging in to your developer account and downloading the disk images. Perhaps Apple will ship them also, but I just don't know.
Isn't it possible for Apple to give a slightly different version of the OS to subsets of the developer base? The alterations don't need to be too big really: shifting the window operation buttons a few pixels, changing some text in a few common dialogs/windows, etc. After a few times of doing this and watching which "special" changes are leaked, Apple could terminate the contracts with the leakers.
Could it be that this small logo change is one of those inconsequential changes thay would be used for such identification?
Article X: The powers not delegated... by the Constitution...are reserved...to the people
I swears it's true.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
I confirmed this by moving my screen. Yes, there it is: A chrome Apple logo. I think people are just getting a bit too excited about something that has been in place for 1.5 years. Also, some Apple vendors use a mirrored logo as well.
Heute die Welt, morgen das Sonnensystem!
What is this desktop UNIX operating system you refer to?
Same shape, slightly distorted finish... ;-)
The chrome logo is not an indication of the future direction of Apple's hardware design.
It is an indication of the GUI changes we will be seeing in the final release of Panther. The watery "Aqua" interface is giving way to the new liquid metal or "Mercury" interface.
Well, splitting Apple's hardware and software businesses might be a not bad idea for end-users - we will see stores selling Macs with pre-installed Linux (and BeOS too?) as well as OSX working on x86 and everything else (Pocket OSX someday?).
If Apple demands the split of Microsoft OS, Internet and Office busineses, then why not try the same medicine on Apple?
Less is more !
Apple has been using different versions of its logo for as long as I can remember. Even back when they used the 7-color "rainbow" logo, they also used simpler, monochromatic versions on promotional literature, documentation, some business cards, t-shirts, etc.
It did seem significant to many of us when Apple dropped the rainbow logo in favor of a solid one. Apple was changing, and we were afraid that its spirit of playful innovation would be lost in the corporate shuffle. We were relieved to find over time that playful innovation remained despite the logo change, and that the new logo brought with it a number of products that the general public wanted to buy. I guess we'd forgotten that years before, when Apple dropped the Cupertino font in favor of Apple Garamond in its logo, the sky also hadn't fallen.
The fact that Apple decided to put a version of its logo rendered in chrome in the about box of a product that hasn't even been released yet doesn't feel like a significant change. After all, there's a version of the logo rendered in shiny blue in my menu bar right now, and the G4-based iMacs have always had a shiny metalic Apple logo. It's a minor change that may or may not stick around for a while.
The one thing you can bet on is that even if it sticks, this change is not permanent: Apple will change its logo anytime it feels it needs to freshen up its corporate image. All companies do this to some degree.
If you ask me, the company that has the most fun with its logo is Google.
OS X has been getting faster and faster with each version. The reasoning is that the entire system is built with GCC, which has been getting better PowerPC optimization since Apple began contributing. Panther is built with gcc-3.3 (right now), which includes improved support for the PowerPC line, and DFA support for defining pipelines (better optimization/register usage).
Also, the core of the OS was native to x86, so I'm sure they keep finding bits and pieces that are optimized for that architecture and rewriting them.
Not to mention that the libraries are all very 'young' and Apple is dealing with a LOT of uncharted territory (for Apple, at least) with prelinking and UNIX in general.
I'd expect the trend to continue for quite a while, GCC-3.4 should bring us even more optimization, and I'm sure Apple engineers have a LOT of stones left to turn over.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
~~~
And, "I don't really care much for OS X."
How does that qualify you to judge so harshly then?
Apple has innovated and Apple has refined. Apple has steered the market.
Apple released the iPod, and the iTunes Music Store. What is the value in that? How about the fact that Dell, in comparison, now sees that as something worth emulating with their newly announced music device? Or that MusicMatch just announced their own music download service with terms amazingly similar to the iTMS. Sure Apple wasn't *first*. Apple doesn't have to be first in *everything* to be a guiding market force.
Things Apple *is* first on, though, since Jobs came back:
Desktop video, literally. A DV camcorder, a Mac, and iMovie.
Desktop DVD. The above, plus a DVD-R. There were no affordable, easy, or reliable solutions to either, beforehand. The closest was Adobe Premiere, to iMovie, and that *sucked*. Now there are lots of workalikes and competitive software, but not 5 years ago!
Things Apple aren't fist, but still important:
Easy to use music device, the iPod. At the time the alternatives were huge and heavy (Creative Nomad) or hard to use (Nomad or Archos) or low quality and capacity (Rio). Now we have better Nomads, better Archos, better Rio Karmas, etc. Competition makes a better market for everyone!
Easy to use music service, iTMS. At the time there was eMusic, which offered little in the way of mainstream, and Rhapsody and Pressplay, which weren't very consumer friendly. Now that Apple has shown that music can be *profitable*, we have MusicMatch, PureTunes, and a bunch of other services revamping their business models because of Apple. Again, competition!
Everything else is just about fit and finish and making the customer 'happy'. iBooks, PowerBooks, PowerMacs, none of it is revolutionary, all of it is evolutionary... but Mac owners seem to be happier; less remote exploits, less viruses, prettier interface, prettier hardware, easier to use, cleaner interface, simpler to learn, 'just works mantra'... Things that make people like computing, and make them want to buy more of it. This naturally extends to the iPod and iTMS, and why those two have succeeded when competitors aren't so... prosperous.
So you can feel free not to think Apple is doing anything special... but I expect a change in the music industry, music downloads, and music distribution thanks to Apple. Very soon I think we'll see the same with video, again to Apple, and a huge influx of indie movie folk, again because of Apple.
GPL Deconstructed
HAND
More than a few people in "the community" have made it over 6 months without brushing their teeth or washing themselves. I would say that is pretty much unsurpassed in Apple-land.
I received my new 20" Cinema display last wednesday to go with my new DP G5, the logo on this display back aand front has a 100% reflective surface, the same as a mirror.
This is different from my 15" display and my 22" at work which has the grey graduated apple logo. The only other noticable difference is that it dosn't have the dark grey band around the edge of the frame.
My new display has the model number A1038. I don't have access to another 20" model to verify if this an update to the standard display or if they were all produced this way.
Can anyone out there with a 20" display, let us know what their logo looks like.
or for those who don't but are willing to click some links and read some pages, Macnyt has made an attempt to provide a relatively complete history of the Apple logo.
It seems to me that the big difference is that the chrome apple will replace the big blue X in everything.
I guess they are getting ready for when the go to version 11.
Downloading Mp3 of music that you do not own is illegal. I taught my son a lesson by destroying his laptop. The lesson is that if you work hard and save your money to buy something, once you break the law with it, it will be taken away. By the time he saves enough to buy another laptop (which will be around two years based on his after school pay check) he will have learned that he was doing something bad and wont do it again. It's better that I caught him than the police or an FBI sting operation. Not only would they have taken his laptop, but they could have taken him as well, or taken his rights to use any computer away. In any event, no one here has anymore right to judge my parenting skills than I do. I think I speak for the majority of Mac users by saying that we don't appreciate sarcasm and most of all being talked down to. good day.
as the entire computer industry rushes to imitate them.
God knows, it's time somebody based their company logo on this special lady.
This is the "Apple" part of /. FWIW.
There's an image of the new logo in the article. It's a sad day indeed when the editors (sic) don't even read the articles.
You have violated Robot's Rules of Order and will be asked to leave the future immediately.
You keep talking, but you don't seem to be saying anything.