Episode 62: “Time’s up”

A week ago I did a guest blog post about Apple Spotting and I came across this video showing the product placement used in Independence Day. It’s part of a series by YouTuber JediMoonShyne, featuring the product placements in all different movies.

Thanks to Michael, I have a guest blog post up on Apple Gazette. Head on over there to read: The Beginner’s Guide to Apple Spotting.

Episode 31: “But nothing else could ever take you away”

This is a pretty cool video showing the different front pages at Apple.com through the years, starting in 1996. It’s funny to see how all the different designs and products have evolved throughout the years.

Episode 23:”I’ve never knowingly slept with a Windows user” 

There’s a documentary coming soon called MacHeads about the lives and activities of a bunch of Mac addicts/fans/whatever you want to call them. I do love my Mac, but some people can take it too far: 

Episode 13: “Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

I’m in an Apple mood anyway today, so here’s the video of the Think Different commercial: 

The complete text used in the commercial is:

Here’s to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones,
We see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world,
Are the ones who do. 

By now most of you Leopard users out there will have discovered the “cute” Blue Screen of Death for network Windows machines. And most of you should know the significance of the ICal Date (July 17th 2002 was the day Apple introduced ICal at the MacWorld Expo). But today I stumbled on some other cool Easter Eggs in Leopard.

It started by stumbling on this post about the TextEdit icon. If you take a look at the TextEdit icon in Coverflow, you can actually read the text on it. Seems familiar? It’s the monologue from the Think Different commerical (see here). But who are Kate and John Appleseed? John Appleseed could refer to Johnny Appleseed, an American pioneer that introduced the apple (the fruit, not the computer) to some parts of America. The “Kate” character is a bit more difficult to pinpoint. Some believe it’s a reference to the KDE text editor, while others believe it refers to Katie Cotton, the Apple Vice President of Worldwide Corporate Communications. One thing is certain: both names have also been used in iPhone ads: Kate Bell is calling at the end of this commercial and John Appleseed is calling in the middle image here.

Then you also have the Keynote icon. Blown up in Coverflow you get this:

Ken Drake managed to decode the text and it reads this:

God, I dreamed there was an angel Who could hear me through the wall As I cried out-like, in Latin “This is so not life at all Help me out-out-of this nightmare” Then I heard her silver call- She said: “Just give it time, kid I come to one and all”

She said: “Give me that hand, please And the itch you can’t control Let me teach you how to handle All the sadness in your soul Oh, we’ll work that silver magic Then we’ll aim it at the wall” She said: “Love may make you blind kid- But I wouldn’t mind at all”

It’s the bitch of living (Bitch, just a bitch) With nothing but your hand (Just a bitch, yeah) Just the bitch of living As someone you can’t stand See, each night, it’s like fantastic- Tossing, turning, without rest

It’s the first lines of the song “The Bitch of Living” from the musical “Spring Awakening”. The big question here though is: why this song and what is the significance of Q4 2008? Is something big going to happen then?

Two other cute discoveries are the icons from Dictionary and Mail. The Dictionary icon has the text “Lorem Ipsum Dolor Sit Amet Etiam” on it. The typical Lorem Ipsum doesn’t continue with Etiam, but some quick googling shows that there are some generators that use this version. Another explanation is that one translation of Etiam is And Further, which could be interpreted as a type of Etcetera.

If you look closely at the Mail icon you can see an Apple stamp on it with the words “Hello from Cupertino CA” around it.

There are other interesting icons, but so far no one has been able to figure out what they mean. For instance, the Calculator icon has the number 12374218.75 on it. What does this number mean?? No idea. And the Stickies icon has had for every long time the phone number of Lou on it (555-7361). Who’s Lou?

I also have a feeling that both the Numbers icon and the Spaces icon also have some hidden message within them. Especially the top left space in the Spaces icon has to contain something interesting.

Anybody else found other cool easter eggs in Leopard?