He now wanted to call it “Let it Beep”, just for fun.
The iPhone Picture Sound.
Did you know that this is the sound of Canon AE-1? So anytime you take a photo on your iPhone, you actually hear the sound of a Canon AE-1. Ever since I know this, I think about Canon every time I hear somebody taking a picture with an iPhone.
The Mac Startup Chime
The sound was born because the original startup sound was too annoying. In the early days, the Mac often crashed and needed to restart. As a user, you would hear this sound too often, driving you crazy.
So a more peaceful and zen sound was designed to indicate your computer’s startup.
The chime is created on a Korg Wavestation EX. It’s a C major chord, played with both hands stretched out as wide as possible with 3rd at the top.
The design initiative came from Apple sound designers, and it was implemented in a smart, fast, and kind of sneaky way.
Because there was no permission to change the sound, it was done anyway. It was very late in the product development process, so it didn’t go through too many review cycles.
Many engineers objected to the implementation, and maybe they were right.
A couple of years ago, Apple decided to remove the startup chime. But now it’s back again.
It turned out that people were missing the startup chime.
The Sosumi Sound
This one starts with a lawsuit. Sound designer Jim Reekes, who worked for Apple in the ’80s, worked on Mac’s sounds. He made a couple of beep sounds that led to the “Sosumi” beep.
Around that time, Apple Records, the label founded by the Beatles, became very popular.
Of course, Steve Jobs got the right to use the name Apple when he started the brand. But he promised never to get involved with music.
But that wasn’t the case. The story goes that the Beatles lawyers started suing because of the sounds Apple was creating. The lawsuit forced Apple to rename a couple of sounds to eliminate all references to music.
One of the beep sounds Jim created now needed a new name. He now wanted to call it “Let it Beep”, just for fun.
But unfortunately, that wasn’t possible. He didn’t like that, so he decided to call it “Sosumi.” He later explained that this means, “So sue me.” He spelled it differently to make it a Japanese word meaning something like “Crude.”