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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!
I remember that logo from my high-school years... from that time I found a disk that did something nasty to the Apple 2E (is that what they were called? 2E or II-E or something...) and stopped it booting. I then proceeded to take the disk around and do that nasty thing to every Apple in the school.
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!
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.
And no jokes about how the site must be running on a Quadra cos... uhhh... it is. :)
"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
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.
This logo appeared in 7B74. 7B81, which was seeded today (or maybe yesterday) is rumoured to be the GM since it is the first version not to mention "(Pre-release)" in the 'About this Mac' box. We don't know yet if 7B81 has the new cracked logo or if it was changed.
Instant Karma's gonna get you, Gonna knock you right on the head (John Lennon, 1970)
Panther will feel faster on a 400MHz G3 than Jaguar did on a 600MHz G3. I'm currently typing this on a 500MHz iBook running Panther 7B68 and its noticeably faster in nearly every respect from networking to UI responsiveness. Panther is finally that truly polished release of Mac OS X that shows maturity is coming to the OS.
As for the new Apple logo I really could not care any less. Although its probably a more newsworthy item than Dell cloning something else again.
One good thing about the Apple //e was that here was no way that you could permanently mess it up short of physically destroying it. The Apple //e didn't maintain any data between power down and power up so if you screwed it up all you have to do is power down, wait 10 seconds and then power it back up. Yes you could screw up some diskettes and they would never work right again but the Apple //e didn't need a diskette to work.
//e in school. I'm sure the administrator just powered them down and back up and they were fine. This is unlike the Commodore 64 which had a nasty bug where if you quickly toggled certain registers you could fry a chip on the motherboard and ruin the entire motherboard. I had a friend who ran a program which turned out to be a trojan horse of sorts and it did just this, toasting his Commodore.
So go ahead and mess up every Apple
Sapere aude!
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
This troll needs to be updated, dude. It's the G5 era now. Make it a single processor, so that no one can blame the noise on the extra heat. Also, mention that copying 17 meg files or installing Airport cards causes BSD to die, since, of course, in Communist Russia the Mach kernel micro-boots you!
I for one welcome our new Troll overlords.
You're probably thinking of the PET's killer poke.
Yeah... what's that line supposed to be anyway?
What I really want to know is why I don't see my eyeball in the reflection when I put my face up to the screen...
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
No, no, no. That was the Commodore PET. The Commodore 64 never had that bug. Common misconception, since the 64 was the more popular of the bunch.
- oZ
// i am here.
Yeah, but that was like 20 years ago at this point. Surely he can't still be bitter about it, can he?
Man, some people can hold a grudge...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
It's not a crack. It's a molding line.
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
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.