No, Not That Apple

Because we’re a Bible software company and because we produce software for Apple devices (iOS and macOS), we sometimes hear from people who are concerned because of Apple’s deep connections to evil and the influences of Satan. The most frequent evidence cited is the Apple logo, which is clearly the same apple from which Eve took a bite before handing it off to her husband, thus condemning all of humanity.

First of all, the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not an apple. Apples grow on apple trees. You’ve never seen a Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, so you don’t know what its fruit looks like. Or tastes like. And the Bible just says “the fruit”, not “the apple”.

So we could stop there and move on to a more useful topic. But let’s continue.

The Original Logo

Ignoring for a moment that there was no apple in the story of the fall in Genesis 3, and therefore the Apple apple could not refer to the Eden “apple”, it’s reasonable to ask, “Then where did the Apple logo come from?”

The original logo of Apple Computer Co. was this woodcut. In it, we see Sir Isaac Newton about to “discover” gravity when an apple falls on his head. The story is undoubtedly apocryphal, but, just like we imagine naked Adam and Eve gorging themselves on apples behind conveniently arranged foliage, the image of Sir Isaac Newton sitting under an apple tree in his Sunday best while reading a book is how we imagine gravity being discovered.

The falling apple inspired Newton to think about gravity. The name “Apple Computer Co.” stands for inspiration and discovery. That’s what the company wanted to be identified with. Hence the incorporation of the apple (and Isaac Newton — a God-fearing Christian, by the way) into Apple’s logo.

The Modern Logo

Very early in their history, the folks at Apple discovered it was difficult to reproduce this complex image on their products. So they reduced it to the essential image of the silhouette of an apple with a bite taken out of it.

“Aha!” you might exclaim. “That’s the bite by which Eve disobeyed God!” You would exclaim that right before I smacked you upside the head and reminded you that the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was not an apple, but rather was the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

No, the bite out of the Apple logo apple serves three purposes. First, it distinguishes the silhouetted apple from the similar-looking cherry (which is also not the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, by the way). Second, it is a play on the word “byte”, the technical term for 8 bits of computer memory*. Finally, it is an homage to famed computer science pioneer Alan Turing, who died by his own hand and was found with a half-eaten apple at his bedside.

As tempting as it is to don my tinfoil hat and go looking for conspiracies behind every (apple) tree, I’m not biting. Not on this one. Sorry.

* _{A byte is 8 bits of memory. A half-byte (4 bits) is called a nybble. Yes, we computer nerds are a witty lot.}