Still frame from Disney’s Snow White
I used to teach an art class for teenagers, and there was one lesson that would always blow their minds. Here’s how the conversation usually went.
“Do any of you have an Apple computer, or an iPhone?” I’d ask. The answer was always yes. “What does the logo look like?”
“It’s an apple,” they’d reply.
“Is it just a plain apple? Is there anything unusual about it?”
“There’s a bite out of it.”
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Here’s where the fun starts. “Have you ever heard a story where someone takes a bite out of an apple?”
A few moments of silence from the class. Then: “Snow White…”
“Right, Snow White,” I’d say. Then I’d ask a student to recall the plot: “The witch gives Snow White a poison apple that kills her.”
“Are there any other stories with an apple?” I’d ask, leading them another step back. This time, there was usually two moments of silence. Sometimes I’d have to nudge them with a clue (“Maybe an older story?”). Eventually, someone would shout, “The Bible!” Cue the astounded chorus of woah.
The Apple computers logo symbolizes knowledge.
In the Bible, Adam and Eve are tempted, by Satan, to taste the fruit from the tree of knowledge. Eve, like Disney’s heroine, gives in to temptation and takes a bite of an apple. Once Adam and Eve had their first taste of knowledge, they knew that they were naked, and they were ashamed. That first bite of the apple represents the fall of man.
This symbol is one of the oldest and most potent in Western mythology. Apple’s use of the logo is extremely powerful; their name and corresponding pictorial icon are synonymous. The simple logo design deftly carries the heft of centuries of meaning. Apple likes their symbol so much that they’re very protective of it, and they don’t like when other people attempt to use apples in their logos.
Early Apple advertisement
Rob Janoff, the designer of the Apple logo, claims that he didn’t explicitly intend this meaning when he created the logo in 1977. He didn’t have to. Mr. Janoff said he included the bite “for scale, so people get that it was an apple not a cherry. Also it was kind of iconic about taking a bite out of an apple.” Why is the bite iconic? Because of its use as a symbol over hundreds of years of mythology. Former Apple executive Jean Louis Gassée called the logo “the symbol of lust and knowledge.”
The Apple logo symbolizes our use of their computers to obtain knowledge and, ideally, enlighten the human race (when we’re not too busy using them to look at cat GIFs, that is).
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I was always under the impression that the bite out the apple pays respect to Alan Turing. Famous mathematician and creator of the enigma machine, essentially the world’s first supercomputer. Turing famously committed suicide by lacing an apple with cyanide and eating it, hence the bite out of the apple.
chris wallace says
Yeah it’s a tribute to Turing, the man who stopped world war II early by inventing the super computer. Which could crack the enigma codes and thereby saving millions if not billions of lives, of course as it turned out he was gay and in post war Europe that also mentioned you must have been a communist? So as the UK didn’t tell it’s allies they could now read everyone’s encrypted messages he was considered a security risk and promptly assassinated with a apple laced with cyanide which was found beside him with only a single bite taken… this is why the apple has a bite out of it and why it used to sport the international gay rainbow motif, in homage to the man who invented the computer, saved the world, and was murdered for his sexual preference…
You’re both wrong about Turing. The logo’s connection to him is an urban legend. Read the interview I linked to with Apple logo designer Rob Janoff; he acknowledges this.
anton ayala says
so the rumors was not true about one of the Apple founder was bought by samsung that’s why there is a bite on apple logo which symbolize being a traitor”‘
loananhnguyen says
so amazingf
Dorie wallwork says
Perhaps Alan Turiq symbolically killed himself by eating a poisoned apple to signify the pain and responsibility that comes of knowledge
Susan E. Lev-Yadun says
It’s the tree of “knowledge of good and evil”, not simply knowledge. Knowing right from wrong, if you will.
GAAAAAWWH says
it’s the apple of discord and everybody is taking a bite from it
Two White Kids says
We thought the artist just got hungry
Ariah says
Jesus is lord of all knowldege.
Orange says
No. It wasn’t ’cause of Turing, the mark of Apple being bitten, that bit of chunk symbolizes the technology that Microsoft stole from Apple.
Apple Watch says
Whatever.. my question now is WHEN will they release the Apple Watch? Take my money already!
Romoz says
In the Bible, in the story (not myth) of Adam and Eve, there is no mention of any apple. It is a fruit. Not an apple. I hear everywhere in North America that people think it’s an apple, probably deliberate change of story. There are lots of hidden meanings in that story, but no apple nor a mention of an apple.
Thanks for your comment Romoz. I wrote about the Biblical background of apple symbolism (and the unnamed fruit in Eden) here
KFarnham says
“Myth” is the arbitrary rendering of historical information that fails to meet the standards of one’s basis for faith.
The New Trstament states that there is a spirit now working in the children of disobedience. (Ephesians 2:2) The purpose of that “working” is further defined as fulfilling the mystery of iniquity. (2 Thessalonians 2:7). The core motive of this supernatural conspiracy is defined in (2 Corinthians 4:3,4)…”blinding the minds of them that believe not.” Blinding them to what? The only escape route that can rescue them from the dilemma they are in…Jesus Christ.
The Apple symbol is demonically inspired. It represents the Satanic Covenant: The promise of knowledge in return for disobedience to God. Today, that covenant has been fulfilled….Man has access to virtually every data source imaginable….it is unprecedented. Ironically, with all that information, Man has failed to find truth (John 14:6).
Myth? Only to those who reject what His Spirit has revealed. “Seek and the shall find… (Matt. 7:7)
David says
it cant just be an accident to have put a bite in the apple. There has to be something behind it maybe not anything in meaning of “Satan” but some meaning. And maybe there is another reason why the designer chose the bite but its way to simple to juts say that it was a simple state of mind.
Michael says
I don’t understand it- the missing piece doesn’t look like a bite at all, it looks like a cut by a knife or such but NOT a BITE!
thiet ke logo says
included so that people did not mistake the apple for a cherry or another fruit
Kristopher says
The apple logo has a bite out of it because of the storage of a computer a byte
Breann morgan says
that cool but help me more about apples please
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Conor McMahon says
If it’s too small to be a bite, maybe it’s a megabite.
Asia says
The bitten Apple symbolizes whatever you want it to. Who really knows, but the creator ? Now think about it!!!!!!
JAIVISHNU. says
THE LOGO OF APPLE IPHONE IS NO ONE CAN COMPLETE ,THE ELECTRONIC FIELD AS ON TODAY.THE BITE OF APPLE DENOTES WE YET TO REACH FURTHER.MEANING OF LOGO ABOUT MY OWN SAGESTION.
Andrew says
People willing to believe that knowledge is “evil” fail to see the masters they serve; men that use old stories and myths to promote the idea that “faith” is a virtue, to be admired. To choose faith over reason usually serves a fantasy of survival beyond death, which is less about faith and more about fairytales. No, children, you will not transcend death to continue for eternity in a magical theme park. No number of bible or q’ran quotes will change the fact that you will end one day, as will we all, but if you use your computers to record your life history maybe a piece of you can contribute to the future of humanity.
Brenda Hickey says
The Apple Logo is in tribute to the genius Alan Turing!!!
Justin Bieber says
That made me hungry
Justin Bieber says
Me hungry now