Apple Logo and Alan Turing?

[yojimbo]

I’ve just read that the Apple Logo could be a tribute to the late great Alan Turing? The bite out the Apple etc.

Is there any truth in this? I’d check snopes but the blocking software in my job blocks it :mad:

[h.sapiens]

I couldn’t find anything on Snopes, but a TechTV article has three different possible stories, all from Steve Wozniak, who was there at the time, and if he doesn’t know, only Steve Jobs may have the answer. I have heard the Turing story as well, but it sounds like urban legend to me.

[jjimm]

Snopes doesn’t have it, but this article says it’s probably cobblers.

Would be nice, if a little creepy, if it were true.

[yojimbo]

Sadie plant is coming up a lot in my searches. She seems to be the only one putting the Turing theory out there.

http://www.dromo.com/fusionanomaly/applecomputer.html

According to Sadie Plant, in her book Zeros And Ones, Alan Turing commited suicide by eating an apple that was laced with cyanide (but this might have been unintentional as apparently he was notioriously bad at washing his hands after scientific experiments) and, he was found dead with an apple with a couple of “bytes” taken out of it, and since the rainbow is the symbol for homosexuality, which is why he was harrassed into suicide, the rainbow apple with bytes missing for the Apple Mac symbol is actually a homage to Turing.

I agree that this is almost cetainly a urban myth. Oh well

[panamajack]

There’s a good series of articles on the history of Apple’s logo at this site (the site is Danish, but it’s the English version of the article). They show the original logo designed by Ron Wayne (co-founder of the company), which was replaced by the colored apple.

The rainbow apple logo was designed by Rob Janoff, who worked for an advertising company. The bite was reportedly added to give it some distinction either as a play on ‘byte’ or a Biblical reference to gaining knowledge. According to Steve Wozniak (bottom of one of his letters page), the original design had the colors in rainbow order, which Steve Jobs rearranged (it’s still a rainbow if you start at red in the middle and wrap from top back to bottom) Here’s a picture of the logo.

Note also that the Apple logo was designed by 1977. The Rainbow flag as a symbol of Gay Pride was designed by Gilbert Baker in 1978 and is in ‘correct’ order from red to violet; it also features slightly different colors (see picture and history here).

[Balthisar]

I was so thrilled when the monochrome Apple stickers started coming with Apple hardware instead of the rainbow colored ones, since I’ve always put one on each of my vehicles. It was always difficult for rednecks and (some) gays to comprehend that it was an Apple sticker – not an “I’m gay” sticker.