The Hidden Meaning Behind The Logo

The symbol of lust and knowledge bitten in to, all crossed with the colors of rainbow in the wrong order. And you couldn’t dream of more appropriate logo pointing lust, knowledge, hope and anarchy.

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Table of Contents

Introduction - April 1, 1976

To find the meaning of Apple Computer’s logo,its better to start at the beginning.It was founded on April 1st 1976 by Steve Jobs,Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne.The computer were hand-built by Steve Wozniak and first shown to the public at the ‘Homebrew Computer Club’ in Palo Alto, California.

The Apple 1,went sale in July 1976,a local computer dealer saw it and ordered 100 units.About 200 of the units were built and sold over a ten month period for the symbolically on selling price of $666.66.

Apple’s first logo was designed by Steve Jobs and drawn by Ronald Wayne depicting,Sir.Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree.The word ‘Apple Computers’ were drawn on a ribbon banner ornamenting the picture frame,and the frame itself have a quotation from words Wordsworth;

“Newton…A mind forever voyaging through strange seas of thought…Alone”

Sir Isaac Newton, alchemist

Sir Isaac Newton, was an English physicist, mathematician, astronomer, natural philosopher, alchemist and theologian. And is considered by many scholars and members of the general public, to be one of the most influential people in the human history. Newton’s scientific works may have been lesser importance to him, as he placed emphasis on rediscovering the occult wisdom of the ancients. He is probably best known for his work on universal gravitation, he built the first practical reflecting telescope and he developed a theory of colors,based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light in to the many colors that formed the visible spectrum. Perhaps, this why Apple later transition from their original ‘Newtonian logo’ to the more familiar ‘Rainbow Apple’.

The prism

A prism is a triangular or a pyramidal transparent optical of element usually made of glass that refracts light. It is used to break light, up to is constituent spectral colors, creating the colors of the rainbow. And this is something Newton worked on and developed, in his works of optics.

Technology as a tool of illumination?

Is this Apple’s way of telling us that they are of lights, enlightened or in someway manipulating light. Perhaps,continuing the work of other people in the age of enlightenment, the ‘Illuminati’. The question is; Are they illuminating our mind using these technologies?

Regis McKenna

In 1972, Rob Janoff working for ‘Regis Mckenna’ as an art director was tasked to redesign the Apple’s logo. Regis Mckenna Incorporated,helps start several silicon valley firms during 1970’s and 1980’s including America Online (AOL), Electronic Arts (EA), Microsoft and many others. Although Steve Jobs and the designer Rob Janoff, came out of the ‘Hippie Culture’, Rob said in an interview, that the rainbow color was used because the Apple 2 was the first home/personnel computer,that can reproduce images on the monitor in colors, So it represent color bars on the screen. Also an attempt to make the logo very accessible to everyone, especially the youths, so that Steve could get them in to school. Another source started that Steve wanted the rainbow color,so that it humanized the company.

John Sculley on the logo

John Sculley,the executive of the Apple Company from 1983-93, was asked about his thoughts on the logo, he answered,

One of the deep mystery to me is our logo, the symbol of lust and knowledge bitten in to, all crossed with the colors of rainbow in the wrong order. And you couldn’t dream of more appropriate logo pointing lust, knowledge, hope and anarchy.

Where did the idea of selling computers come from?

In the beginning, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were building an selling the apple 1 computer,from the Job’s family Garage, on 2066 Crist Drive Los Altos, California. So the question is where did these Kids got the idea to built and sell computers?

Wozniak

Wozniak, was early interested in technologies and he went to work with Hewlett-Packard (HP), in Palo Alto. Jobs did a summer job there and later he took a job at ‘ATARI’,to save money for a spiritual retreat to India. So how influential was the Hippie movement, drugs, the counter culture and LSD when it come to the equation of the Apple at the time when most computers were biggest houses and only can be found in an industrial environment.

Drug use

Once Jobs got stoned for the first time,during a high-school summer,he told in the ‘Playboy Magazine’ 1985, “You could get LSD fresh from Stanford”. He and his girlfriend often visited a commune called ‘All One Farm’, where he practiced vegetarianism and experimented with more restricted diets, such as eating only fruits. The two Steves, Jobs and Wozniak, were outcast during their high-school. By 1975, they had withdrawn from Reed College and UC Berkeley respectively. Culture historian, Theodore Roszak made the point that the Apple Computers emerged, from within the west-coast counter culture.

Eventually the rainbow colors in the Apple logo were replaced, by a monochrome theme of steel with a light shining behind it, but more interestingly let us the look at the byte in the Apple’s Logo;

Not byte but bite

According to the designer Rob Janoff, it is not a reference to the computing term byte.

1 byte =8 bits 8(Eight) bits,or binary digit can be used to represent ,two states of information;

• ONE/ZERO
• ON/OFF
• TRUE/FALSE
• MALE/FEMALE
• IGNORANCE/KNOWLEDGE
• GOOD/EVIL

The more bytes, more intelligence, the more information you can store or process faster.

So what fruit is the apple referring to?

Alan Turing?

Is it the Newton’s apple that fell on to his head, when he got the idea for how gravity works. Many have speculated that it is the reference to the father of modern computer Alan Turing, who imprisoned on the charges of homosexuality,in 1952. He was first subjected to chemical castration, treatment with female hormones, and in 1954, he eventually killed himself by taking a bite of a cyanide injected apple. Also Alan’s favorite childhood story was Snow-White, where she falls asleep forever on eating an poisoned apple,to be later woken up by a prince.

The forbidden fruit

Or may be a reference to the forbidden fruit in the ‘Garden of Eden’. The bite taken out of it suggest that it is. If this is a reference to the apple ‘Tree of knowledge of good and evil’ in the Garden of Eden, then what does the Apple company referring to, Eve, the Serpent or may be the knowledge itself (Malum in Latin means both evil and apple). It is apple aligning themselves with the adversary, duality, snake or the Lucifer, the rebel and the liberator of God’s monotheistic tyranny.

In 17th century,the apple was used as a generic term for all form of fruits. Tomatoes were called ‘Love Apple’, Cucumber - Earth Apples, Oranges where called Golden Apples and Psycho-Active substance ‘Datura’ was called Thorn Apples. The Anthropologist, Jeremy Narby said in his book ‘The Cosmic Serpent’, that he particular the plants communicate directly from images, feelings and language during Ayahuasca and tobacco based ritual sessions. The hallucinogenic thorn apples, the fruit of the Datura Plant,be the real fruit from the ‘Tree of Knowledge’,in the Garden of Eden. And the hallucinogenic drug has the long history of getting the user in contact with the Cosmic Serpent.

The story of this logo, find its way in to the popular culture and continue to renew its history itself in modern times. It could be arguable, that there is a message in everything and the message is there if you are clever enough to find it.

Steve Wozniak

Steve Wozniak is also a sworn member of the Freemasons. Wozniak describes his impetus for joining the Freemasons as being able to spend more time with his wife at the time, Alice. Alice belonged to the Order of the Eastern Star, associated with the Masons. He says that although he took the necessary oaths and is a lifetime Freemason, he doesn’t actually put a whole lot of stock in the mystical and religious overtones of the oath or the order. He says that he joined the Freemasons for one specific purpose, but he is very unlike the other members of the order. He says he quickly rose to a third degree Freemason because, whatever he does, he tries to do well. He was initiated in 1980 at Charity Lodge No. 362 in Campbell, California