2025-12-18 07:14:00
You will recall the Apple Account fiasco of Paris Buttfield-Addison, whose entire iCloud account and library of iTunes and App Store media purchases were lost when his Apple Account was locked, seemingly after attempted to redeem a tampered $500 Apple Gift Card that he purchased from a major retailer. I wrote about it, as did Michael Tsai, Nick Heer, Malcom Owen at AppleInsider, and Brandon Vigliarolo at The Register. Buttfield-Addison has updated his post a few times, including a note that Executive Relations — Apple’s top-tier support SWAT team — was looking into the matter. To no avail, at least yet, alas.
Adam Engst, writing at TidBITS today:
There is one way the Apple community could exert some leverage over Apple. Since innocently redeeming a compromised Apple Gift Card can have serious negative consequences, we should all avoid buying Apple Gift Cards and spread the word as widely as possible that they could essentially be malware. Sure, most Apple Gift Cards are probably safe, but do you really want to be the person who gives a close friend or beloved grandchild a compromised card that locks their Apple Account? And if someone gives you one, would you risk redeeming it? It’s digital Russian roulette.
I suspect that one part of Buttfield-Addison’s fiasco is the fact that his seemingly problematic gift card was for $500, not a typical amount like $25, but that’s just a suspicion on my part. We don’t know — because key to the Kafka-esque nature of the whole nightmare is that his account cancellation was a black box. Not only has Apple not yet restored his deactivated Apple Account, at no point in the process have they explained why it was deactivated in the first place. We’re left to guess that it was related to the tampered gift card and that the relatively high value of the card in question was related. $500 is a higher value than average for an Apple gift card, but that amount is less than the average price for a single iPhone. Apple itself sets a limit of $2,000 on gift cards in the US, so $500 shouldn’t be considered an inherently suspicious amount.
The whole thing does make me nervous about redeeming, or giving, Apple gift cards. Scams in general seem to be getting more sophisticated. Buttfield-Addison says he bought the card directly from “a major brick-and-mortar retailer (Australians, think Woolworths scale; Americans, think Walmart scale)”. Until we get some clarity on this I feel like I’d only redeem Apple gift cards at an Apple retail store, for purchases not tied to my Apple Accounts. (I’ve still got two — one for iCloud, one for media purchases.)
In addition to the uncertainty this leaves us with regarding the redemption of Apple gift cards, I have to wonder what the hell happens to these Apple Accounts that are deactivated for suspected fraud. You would think that once escalated high enough in Apple’s customer support system, someone at Apple could just flip a switch and re-activate the account. The fact that Buttfield-Addison’s account has not yet been restored, despite the publicity and apparent escalation to Executive Relations, makes me think it can’t be restored. I don’t know how that can be, but it sure seems like that’s the case. Darth Vader’s “And no disintegrations” admonition ought to be in effect for something like this. I have the sinking feeling that the best Apple is able to do is something seemingly ridiculous, like refund Buttfield-Addison for every purchase he ever made on the account and tell him to start over with a new one.
My other question: Were any humans involved in the decision to deactivate (disintegrate?) his account, or was it determined purely by some sort of fraud detection algorithm?
2025-12-18 06:25:25
Wes Fenlon, writing for PC Gamer:
Did Windows 3.1 really ship with a garish color scheme that was dared into being? That was a story I needed to hear, so I went digging for the credits of the Microsoft employees who worked on the user interface back then and found my way to Virginia Howlett, who joined Microsoft in 1985 as the company’s first interface designer, and worked there up through the launch of Windows 95.
Howlett:
I have been mystified about why that particular theme causes so much comment in the media. Maybe it’s partly the catchy name. (Never underestimate the power of a good brand name!)
I do remember some discussion about whether we should include it, and some snarky laughter. But it was not intended as a joke. It was not inspired by any hot dog stands, and it was not included as an example of a bad interface — although it was one. It was just a garish choice, in case somebody out there liked ugly bright red and yellow.
The ‘Fluorescent’ theme was also pretty ugly, but it didn’t have a catchy name, so I’ve never heard anything about it.
I remember this color theme, because I had to use Windows 3.1 at a few jobs in the 1990s, and anyone who used it remembers “Hot Dog Stand”. Howlett’s explanation is exactly what I always thought. It wasn’t for accessibility. It wasn’t a dare or a joke. It was something they knew was ugly and they shipped it anyway in case people wanted an ugly UI.
That’s Microsoft.
2025-12-17 08:05:28
The letter is typeset in Papyrus, the typeface for which James Cameron’s affection inspired not one but two classic SNL shorts starring Ryan Gosling — which Cameron has a good sense of humor about.
Terrence Malick’s letter accompanying Tree of Life in 2011 was plainly and humbly set in Helvetica. David Lynch’s accompanying Mulholland Drive was also in Helvetica, but in a very Lynchian way. And then there is Stanley Kubrick, whose letter to projectionists that accompanied Barry Lyndon was typeset in Futura — quite the feat in 1975. (It was almost certainly IBM’s Mid-Century typeface, a beautiful adaptation of Futura for their Executive line of typewriters.) Cool custom letterhead on Kubrick’s as well.
2025-12-17 03:58:17
I dare say this post from Adrian Roselli — first published in 2015 and updated 16 times (and counting) since — is the definitive debunking of the pseudoscience claims regarding deliberately ugly fonts being somehow beneficial to readers with dyslexia.
2025-12-17 03:39:44
Modern Illustration is a project by illustrator Zara Picken, featuring print artefacts from her extensive personal collection. Her aim is to preserve and document outstanding examples of mid-20th century commercial art, creating an accessible resource for understanding illustration history.
Glorious collection of mid-century illustrations and graphic design. Also a good follow on Instagram. (Via Dan Cederholm.)
2025-12-17 03:08:56
Tim Nudd, writing at Ad Age a few weeks ago (paywalled, alas):
As we mentioned in roundup yesterday, Finneas (aka, Finneas O’Connell) has developed a new sonic logo for Apple TV, the streaming service previously known as Apple TV+. However, the rebrand, created with Apple agency TBWA\Media Arts Lab, goes beyond the audio mnemonics to include a striking new visual look as well.
The visual branding centers on layers of shifting colored light, a metaphor for the range of genres and emotions that Apple TV has cultivated since its 2019 debut.
I held off on posting about this new Apple TV fanfare (a.k.a. sonic logo, a.k.a. mnemonic ) until I’d experienced it a few times, and after a few weeks, watching a bunch of episodes from a few Apple TV series — Mr. Scorsese, a 5-star five-part documentary by Rebecca Miller, absolutely riveting; Pluribus, Vince Gilligan’s excellent new the-less-you-know-about-it-before-you-start-watching-the-better series starring Rhea Seehorn; and The Morning Show season 4, a series that’s skirting just above the good-enough-to-keep-watching line for me — I’m willing to render a verdict.
I love it.
The old one was not bad. But “not bad” should never be good enough for Apple. I can’t find anyone from Apple stating so explicitly, but it seems pretty obvious that the piano chord accompanying the old fanfare was meant to evoke the Macintosh startup chime. That’s a neat idea. And no one is more a fan of the Macintosh than me. I’d argue that the Mac remains the definitive Apple product, the one that best exemplifies everything the company does and should stand for. So harking back to the Macintosh was an interesting idea for the Apple TV fanfare/sonic logo/mnemonic.
But: it just wasn’t great. What makes that chord great for a computer booting up doesn’t make it great for a cinematic sonic logo. Netflix’s “tudum” is so iconic that it’s the name of their company blog. HBO’s static + chanted om is the OG standard-setter. I suspect the new Apple TV fanfare will be seen in that class. The old one was not.
The new one feels like a branding stroke unto itself. Sonically, it doesn’t evoke anything else. It just sounds rich and cool. Visually, with its rotating prism effect, it does evoke the classic six-color Apple logo. Thus, despite moving away from a sonic callback to the Macintosh, the overall effect feels more rooted to Apple’s on-the-cusp-of-a-half-century history. The change makes Apple TV original content feel more like a part of Apple, less like a possible passing fancy (which is what many in Hollywood fear).
That prism effect was created practically. From a LinkedIn post from Apple’s longtime agency partner TBWA Media Arts Lab (no clue why they posted this on LinkedIn, of all places):
Built from real glass and captured entirely in camera, the new identity explores reflection, color, and light to express the cinematic spirit at the heart of Apple TV. Every shimmer was made for real, no CG shortcuts, a nod to Apple’s belief that craft should be felt, not faked.
The work spans the entire platform, from a sharp five-second show open to a full-length cinematic version for films, paired with a new sonic logo composed by Oscar winner Finneas and a custom typeface, SF TV, developed with Apple’s design team.
They include a very short video showing behind the scenes of its creation. It matters not to me that they photographed this practically, rather than via computer-generated graphics, but the bottom line is that it looks cool, timeless, and Apple-y.
Chris Willman at Variety has an interview with Finneas (O’Connell) regarding the music:
Mnemonic, Finneas says, “is sort of a beautiful word for a logo” accompanied by sound. “The things that I think of as real classic mnemonics are NBC — you can hear that in your head — or HBO has its static.” Finneas is well aware of how modern streaming consumption might make this especially ubiquitous, household by household. “If you’re binge-ing the whole season of Ted Lasso or Severance or Disclaimer” (the last of those being the limited series that he composed the score for himself), “you’re going to hear the mnemonic 10 times in one day. So it’s gotta be something that’s like the bite of ginger between rolls or something, you know?”
See and hear for yourself. Here’s the old Apple TV mnemonic:
Here’s the new 5-second version, shown at the beginning of each episode of Apple TV original series:
And here’s the full 12-second version, shown before Apple Original Films:
Bravo.
