Apple logo--a real buzz kill
I found myself at a friend's birthday party July 4 eve with a bunch of San Francisco hipsters celebrating the fact that the next day was a holiday.
Downstairs, DJs were spinning techno and break beats; upstairs was a mellower scene. The attic of this historic home in the Presidio had been turned into the ultimate chill pad, the floors covered in futons and faux-fur throws, lamps throwing colored light on the ceiling; a carefully chosen ambient selection drifting from iTunes. On a big screen, the interactive iTunes Visualizer was warping the music into beautiful swirls of color and pattern, undulating and flowing in sync with the sounds. Everyone was happy; all guards down; the vibe good.
Then up on the screen popped...the white Apple logo. Repeatedly and spontaneously throughout the night. How brilliant, and troubling, of Jobs and Co. to sneak a billboard so intrusively into trippy visual art being watched by people quite possibly in a vulnerable state to marketing.
The logo reappears every few songs and remains at the center of the screen for what seems like half a minute or so before fading away. There is no option to disable it, but there are other visualizers that can be used. (See screenshot and more information on Wikipedia.)
I pointed the logo out to a friend who's an avowed Microsoft fan, definitely in the minority in this crowd. He laughed as he, ironically, was passing out apples to the blissful group. "Have an iApple slice" he said sarcastically. "And don't forget to use Google search."
Elinor Mills covers Internet security and privacy. She joined CNET News in 2005 after working as a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Portugal and writing for The Industry Standard, the IDG News Service, and the Associated Press. E-mail Elinor. 
miss when cnet used to have journalists that wrote about, oooh,
whats that thing called again? um um, um...yeah thats it...news!
software that Apple itself has designed? I would be more surprised
if they didn't have it show up. Whoever wrote that article needs to
find something else to waste their time on, because I'm sure if they
designed something for a company they owned, they would put
there logo all over it. Enough said
This just shows how good Apple is at marketing. Who would have thought a company could get people to follow them blindly as if they can't do anything wrong.
you had to give your social security number for a credit
check...which you always have to do on any credit check for a new
cell phone...and now you dont like the apple logo which only
appears for 9 seconds....NINE SECONDS!!l You have a friend who is
an avid Microsoft fan?? Boy i wonder what that says about
you...hmm.....
The Mac is more stable. But you're locked into Apple-everything. Windows is less stable but its much more customizable and you can buy things from hundreds of third-parties (and everything doesn't need to be windows approved... unlike mac).
So, yea, you can be a fan of one or the other. It doesn't say much about either. But at least most Microsoft fans don't preach being MS fans... unlike a good portion of mac fans who think Jobs is God and that Apple is a way of life and a status symbol.
Mac: Hi I'm a mac
PC: And I'm a PC
Mac: So what you doing PC?
PC: Upgrading my Graphics card, RAM and Processor.
Mac: Oh.... Ummmm
PC: Don't you just love a good upgrade!
Mac: Well actually, I can't. If you want to upgrade you'll have to buy a new system...
the operating systems section. I looked down and was appalled to
see a Microsoft Windows Vista box with a Microsoft logo right on
it. I stared at it for minutes. The logo never went away. I turned to
my hard-core Apple friend and said, "Can you believe that they
would put their own logo on their own product?" Ironically, we was
wearing a Window repair shirt.
The Windows Vista box's purpose IS NOT visual. In fact it's purpose is to advertise. Unlike the visualization on iTunes. You already have it and are using it.
Some of us don't want to get brainwashed like you folks.
q w - change foreground effect
a s - change background effect
z x - change the colour
The keys q a z cycle back through the effects, and the keys w s x cycle forward. When you hit a key, the current effect gradually fades into the new effect, letting you manually change the slide show.
iTunes provides a few more keystroke controls:
d resets the visualizer to its default settings
f toggles the frame rate display on and off (shown in the top left of the display)
t toggles frame rate capping on and off. With frame rate capping on, visualizer never exceeds 30 frames per second. With capping off, presumably it can and may consume excessive CPU power (and battery juice in a laptop).
b holds the white Apple logo in the middle of the display, which eventually fades out. Alternatively, press d to reset the visualizer and remove the Apple logo immediately.
i displays the currently playing song information, which gradually fades out. Alternatively, press d to reset the visualizer and remove the current song information immediately.
iTunes is free so why don't you go out and pay for something for a
change and then complain.
On Nick at Night they had a freaking logo in the corner!
So I switched to CNN... Another logo in the corner!
Then, on to my local NBC affiliate... ANOTHER LOGO IN THE
CORNER!!!!!!!! And on all these channels, their logos lasted
longer than Apples does in Visualizer!!!!! How dare these
networks force their logos upon us!!!!!! And finally on every
freakin' page on c/net news I see their logo!!!!!!!! This whole
experience is a real Buzz Kill! ;-)
Any post that mentions Microsoft, good, bad or indifferent, rarely if ever, generates an Apple reference.
allowing such low-quality content on their site. Let's write about something
worthwhile. :-)
When pro-Microsoft journalists can only take potshots at Apple's logo on the iTunes visualizer, well . . . let's just say the war is over, and guess who lost.
Windows is better then Mac for some things. Mac is better than Windows for some things.
Get over it people! One isn't better then the other. It's called preference!
At least Microsoft fans aren't so god preachy.
but they always start the same and even the way they
transition/morph is the same. Then there is the inescapable apple
logo every few minutes. I wished there were more options, like
maybe using your iTunes album art, or something more
customizable.
Now we have this genius crying about a visualizer made by Apple that has the Apple logo in it for a few seconds.
Ladies and Gentlemen! How low can you go?
The bar is now so low that the next guy in the limbo line is going to break his back.
logo that was just etched in your forearm.
Oh, pleaze!
made the iPod and the iPhone. So many DJs use MacBooks. So
many young people have iPods. The iPhone is a status symbol.
I find nothing "buzz killing" about the Apple logo. Now Microsoft
is another story:
Microsoft: Your potential. Our passion. Now that will make the
partygoers say "***?"
iPhone's biggest draw: It looks pretty. ::GASP::
No matter what the company does, it doesn't make the logo trippy. It doesn't make the logo look better. It's obtrusive. Just like when Microsoft put the huge X-Box logo on their controllers, just in case you forgot what console you were using.
Apple is just another company people. It's not a state of mind. It's another business trying to get your money (not that there's anything wrong with that).
default desktop, screen saver, generic icon & more. So probably the real point of this
lame commentary is to make Apple seem less hip & cool? Nah, if you are running the
default visualizer, then you are the buzz-kill. Get some imagination, get some real
newsworthy subjects & get a life.
Cheers!
- wow
- by pjhenry1216 July 6, 2007 2:51 AM PDT
- You must really have lost brain cells somewhere along the lines to draw a comparison between the two. The logo isn't obtrusive. It doesn't pop up in the middle of the article you're reading every couple articles just to remind you that "hey, you're reading c|net." maybe if apple decided to have the apple logo be a small little thing at the top left corner and just leave it there, that'd be better. But the whole feature is based around visualization (while c|net isn't) and the logo kills it.
- Like this Reply to this comment
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (74 Comments)Face it. Apple designed something poorly. It can happen. Apple != infallible.