The Sound of Apple 1.0

Summary

Podcast Summary: Twenty Thousand Hertz – "The Sound of Apple 1.0"

Release Date: July 31, 2024
Host: Dallas Taylor
Duration: Approximately 28 minutes

Introduction

In the episode titled "The Sound of Apple 1.0," Dallas Taylor delves into the intricate world of Apple's sound design, exploring how audio elements have become as pivotal as the company's renowned visual aesthetics. Through insightful conversations with key Apple design team members and creator Kelly Jacklin, the episode unpacks the history, philosophy, and evolution of the distinctive sounds that have become synonymous with Apple devices.

---

1. Apple's Integrated Design Philosophy

Sound as a Core Element

Dallas Taylor opens the discussion by highlighting Apple's impeccable design, emphasizing that while the visual aspects are immediately noticeable, sound design plays an equally crucial role in the overall user experience.

Billy Sorrentino on Sound Design Integration
Billy Sorrentino, a member of Apple's design team, underscores the foundational role of sound in Apple's product development:

“Sound really is at the beginning of the design process. It isn't a coat of paint at the end.” ([00:40])

He elaborates that the sound team collaborates from the inception of product ideas, ensuring that audio feels intrinsically part of the device rather than an add-on feature. This multidisciplinary team includes audio engineers, classical composers, and spatial audio experts, all working in unison within a cohesive studio environment.

---

2. Collaborative Creative Process

Unified Studio Environment

Billy Sorrentino explains that unlike other companies where departments operate in silos, Apple's design team functions as a unified studio:

“Really are all together in projects. We all sit together all the time. We work together, we play together, we make together. So it is one studio.” ([01:31])

Hugo Varay on Jamming Together
Hugo Varay, the lead sound designer at Apple, likens the collaborative environment to a jam session:

“Instead of designing sounds for a product that somebody else made somewhere else, you're really working together on this experience that you're designing.” ([01:50])

This synergy fosters a holistic approach to design, where sound seamlessly integrates with visual and physical elements to craft a unified user experience.

---

3. Philosophies Behind Apple’s Sound Design

Universal Language Through Sound

In an Apple conference, Hugo Varay shares his philosophy on device sounds:

“It's like using a universal language that is already understood by everyone, and it gives our devices a voice so they can tell us things, they can talk back to us. So if your iPhone is playing a sound, what is it trying to tell you?” ([02:04])

He emphasizes that sounds should communicate effectively with users, enhancing the functionality and intuitiveness of Apple devices.

Historical Inspirations: The Minute Repeater

Drawing from history, Hugo discusses how Apple looks to traditional mechanisms for inspiration. For instance, when designing sounds for the Apple Watch, the team was inspired by the 18th and 19th-century minute repeaters—wristwatches with chimes that audibly indicated the time.

“We were looking for a way to create a similar experience in the Apple Watch...create the illusion that what you're hearing coming from the watch is actually a sound that's made inside the watch case itself, rather than coming from the speaker.” ([03:03])

This approach led to the creation of organic, resonant sounds that evoke familiarity and craftsmanship.

---

4. Evolution of Iconic Apple Sounds

From MacAlert to Heroin

The episode traces the transformation of Apple's alert sounds, starting with the nostalgic MacAlert tones from the 90s. Hugo Varay recounts the 2020 Big Sur update, where the team preserved elements of these classic sounds while infusing them with modern, natural elements:

“We took elements of the old sounds and we sampled those, and we didn't record anything new, and we created new sounds out of these elements.” ([07:04])

One notable creation from this process was "Heroin," a blend of the beloved "Hero" alert with new auditory textures, exemplifying the balance between legacy and innovation.

Kelly Jacklin and the Tritone Alert

Kelly Jacklin, a software engineer at Apple, shares the story behind the creation of the iconic tritone alert sound:

“So SoundJam MP was released, and it sold reasonably well, but nothing spectacular. And then I hear from Jeff that Apple bought it. And then Apple released it in 2001 as iTunes, and it still had the same disc burning sound.” ([19:32])

Originally crafted in 1998 for SoundJam MP, Jacklin's "158Marimba" sound was seamlessly integrated into Apple’s ecosystem, becoming the default text message tone known as "Tritone."

Understanding Tritone’s Musical Structure

Contrary to its name, Apple's tritone is harmonious, consisting of the root, perfect fifth, and octave, diverging from the traditional dissonant tritone interval. Over time, the sound earned the nickname "boodling" for its onomatopoeic quality:

“They called it Tritone for some reason... but Apple's tritone is made up of a much more harmonious set of the root, perfect fifth, and the octave, just like Kelly's original name for it, 158 Marimba.” ([21:04])

Transition to Note and New Sounds in iOS 17

With the release of iOS 7, the tritone was replaced by a new notification sound called "Note," a C on a glockenspiel, chosen for its simplicity and organic quality:

“It's also one of the sounds that is recorded on a real instrument. It's a C on a glockenspiel.” ([23:46])

In 2023, iOS 17 introduced "Rebound" and "Chord," new sounds designed to be gentle and respectful, enhancing user experience without being intrusive:

“The thinking behind rebound is really about being gentle and being respectful and meeting people where they're at.” ([25:07])

These updates reflect Apple's ongoing commitment to evolving its soundscape in response to user needs and technological advancements.

---

5. Personal Reflections and Impact

Kelly Jacklin’s Journey

Kelly Jacklin reflects on the personal significance of her contributions:

“When I was going to college... this was a fun side project on the weekend for me. So this was, you know, I'm not at work, it's my free time, I'm going to do it the way I want it.” ([27:34])

Her work on the tritone and subsequent sounds has left a lasting legacy, making abstract concepts tangible and recognizable for users worldwide.

The Enduring Legacy of Apple Sounds

Dallas Taylor remarks on the profound impact of Apple's sound design:

“The impact of sounds like tritone and note is beyond compare. Without a doubt, these are some of the most recognizable sounds ever made...” ([28:06])

The episode concludes by acknowledging the deep-rooted connection users have with Apple’s audio signatures, highlighting the company's exceptional sound design prowess.

---

Conclusion

"The Sound of Apple 1.0" offers an in-depth exploration of how Apple meticulously designs its soundscapes to complement its products' visual and functional aspects. Through collaborative innovation and a respect for historical influences, Apple's sound design team creates audio signatures that are both iconic and deeply integrated into the user experience. Kelly Jacklin’s personal journey underscores the symbiotic relationship between creativity and technology, demonstrating how a single sound can resonate globally, becoming a recognizable part of daily life.

---

Produced by Nicholas Harter and Casey Emmerling, with sound design by Joel Boyder and Brandon Pratt. Special thanks to guests Billy Sorrentino, Hugo Varay, and Kelly Jacklin.

Transcript

[Dallas Taylor]

You're listening to 20,000 hertz. I'm Dallas Taylor. When I think of Apple, one of the first things that comes to mind is their impeccable design. From the unmistakable white packaging, to the gentle curve of the iPhone's metal and glass, to the colorful animation that appears when you activate Siri, every aspect of these devices has been crafted to be sleek and beautiful. While Apple is renowned for its stunning visual design, sound design is just as important to the Apple experience.

[Billy Sorrentino]

Sound really is at the beginning of the design process. It isn't a coat of paint at the end.

[Dallas Taylor]

That's Billy Sorrentino from the Apple design team.

[Billy Sorrentino]

The sound team is sitting at the table from the very beginning of ideas, the very beginning of whole new products. Ultimately, we're hoping users can feel that. They can tell that those sounds feel innately part of the device itself, rather than, you know, hey, let's make a cool ringtone. Our sound design team is audio engineers, classical composers, folks who are incredibly gifted at spatial audio or some more advanced ways of thinking about sound.

[Dallas Taylor]

But sound designers are far from the only people in the Apple design team.

[Billy Sorrentino]

Of course, it is human interface designers and industrial designers, but it's so much more than that. We have 3D designers, graphic designers, interaction designers, CAD modelers, and then, of course, haptics design and sound design.

[Dallas Taylor]

But unlike other companies where the departments are siloed off from each other, we.

[Billy Sorrentino]

Really are all together in projects. We all sit together all the time. We work together, we play together, we make together. So it is one studio.

[Hugo Varay]

What's great about being a sound designer around that table is that it really feels like you're kind of jamming together.

[Dallas Taylor]

That's Hugo Varay, who leads the sound design team at Apple.

[Hugo Varay]

Instead of designing sounds for a product that somebody else made somewhere else, you're really working together on this experience that you're designing.

[Dallas Taylor]

During an Apple conference, Hugo explained his philosophy for how device sounds should work.

[Hugo Varay]

It's like using a universal language that is already understood by everyone, and it gives our devices a voice so they can tell us things, they can talk back to us. So if your iPhone is playing a sound, what is it trying to tell you?

[Dallas Taylor]

When Hugo and his team designed the voice for a new Apple device, the.

[Hugo Varay]

Inspiration is always the Apple product itself. So it's the hardware, the materials, the way it feels in your hand, and then the UI and animations that go along with the sounds that you're designing and the colors of the UI and then the haptics. It all comes together as this One experience.

[Dallas Taylor]

With so many factors to consider, it can be hard to know where to begin. But the design team often starts by looking to history.

[Hugo Varay]

When we were designing sounds for the watch, we were looking for inspiration in traditional watchmaking. And we found out about this thing called a minute repeater.

[Dallas Taylor]

A minute repeater is basically a set of chimes built into a wristwatch. These were popular back in the 18th and 19th century. It was a way for people to be able to tell the time using only sound. You'd press a button and the chimes would be struck by a tiny hammer inside the watch. Then you'd count up the chimes to tell the time.

[Hugo Varay]

Usually there's two different pitches, the minutes and the hours. But we were looking for a way to create a similar experience in the Apple Watch. So create the illusion that what you're hearing coming from the watch is actually a sound that's made inside the watch case itself, rather than coming from the speaker.

[Dallas Taylor]

To achieve this, Hugo went over to the industrial design team and picked up a few of the metal housings for the upcoming Apple Watch. So essentially just the outer shells without any of the electronics inside.

[Hugo Varay]

We took those to the studio and went into a very quiet room with very sensitive microphones and tried to record them.

[Dallas Taylor]

At this point in the interview, Hugo shows me the hollowed out stainless steel casing of an Apple watch along with a small wooden mallet.

[Hugo Varay]

So what we did was we ended up just playing them, like, just banging them in different ways.

[Dallas Taylor]

When Hugo tapped the watch while holding onto it, the sound was muted.

[Hugo Varay]

Of course, you can just like do that. It's not very interesting.

[Dallas Taylor]

But then he held up the watch casing by a string so it was dangling in the air when he tapped it again. It produced a very familiar sound when.

[Hugo Varay]

You hang it up and let it resonate. So we found out that these chimes were actually quite beautiful. And we ended up using them for the watch notification, for messages.

[Dallas Taylor]

Pitch it up and you get this. They also layered these taps together to create the original Apple Watch ringtone. To hammer home this idea of an old fashioned analog watch, they added one final detail.

[Hugo Varay]

When you turn the Apple Watch crown.

[Dallas Taylor]

That'S the little dial on the side of the watch.

[Hugo Varay]

There's a very subtle ticking sound.

[Dallas Taylor]

Analog inspired sounds give these devices a kind of built in familiarity, which is important when you're introducing people to something brand new.

[Hugo Varay]

It's very tempting when you create new sounds for technologies that people have never used before to make them sound very futuristic and science fiction almost.

[Billy Sorrentino]

In that entire Space people immediately go to, like, 70s sci fi. They go to Blade Runner enhance 34 to 46. So they finally are, like, delivering the future that we thought of 40 years ago. And that weirdly feels backwards, right?

[Hugo Varay]

We like to actually go the different route and record actual instruments, sounds that are feeling more familiar, that have a more organic quality. We feel like that makes people more comfortable when they're using new technologies.

[Dallas Taylor]

Hugo joined Apple in 2013. Before that, the company had a somewhat different approach to sound design. Here are the older MacAlert sounds that I remember most. I definitely wouldn't describe these sounds as natural, but I still have a lot of nostalgia for them, and so does Hugo.

[Hugo Varay]

I remember going to college and hearing these sounds when I was learning how to produce music and create sounds on my computer. And all throughout my professional career, they've been part of the soundtrack of my life.

[Dallas Taylor]

In 2020, with the new Big Sur operating system, Apple decided to update those old Mac alert sounds.

[Hugo Varay]

And so we didn't want to just, like, erase those sounds and create something completely new. So what we ended up doing is we took elements of the old sounds and we sampled those, and we didn't record anything new, and we created new sounds out of these elements. So let's say I take this sound, the Hero sound. I may take the tail end of it and filter out some of the high end, and that might be a nice little percussion sound. And that is one instrument. Okay. And then I take maybe the beginning of the sound, the little fade in part, and I flip it around and I filter out the low end and I add some reverb to it. That's my second instrument. And so I keep going until I have maybe five or so different little instruments, as I like to call them, and then I start composing a new sound with those instruments.

[Dallas Taylor]

After a ton of experimenting, the design team arrived at a sound that combined the old with the new. It kept elements of the Hero Alert that people knew and loved and blended in sounds that felt more natural. This new version of Hero was called Heroin. They went through this same process with all of the old alert sounds. For all of these examples, I'll start with the old version and then play the update. Here's tink and Boop. Blow and breeze, Pop and bubble, Glass and crystal, Funk and funky. Frog and jump, Bottle and pebble, Purr and pluck, Ping and sonar, Submarine and submerge. But there's one Apple sound that's gone through more updates and revamps than any other over the last 25 years. This sound has been heard in itunes, the iPhone, and the MacBook. It's indicated everything from your CD ROM is done burning to your software is installed to you've received a message that sound is coming up after the break. It's hard to overstate just how much I love my Sonos speakers, and they have speakers for just about every situation you can think of. So no matter who you're shopping for this holiday season, these devices make excellent gifts. Personally, I have almost 20 Sonos devices throughout my house. For instance, I have my record player hooked up to the Sonos port. This wirelessly sends the audio signal to any Sonos speaker. For me, that's mainly my Sonos Move 2, which is super portable. That way I can listen to vinyl records in my studio, out on the porch, or playing in the backyard with my kids. I also have several Sonos speakers linked together. For my home theater setup. I like to turn on both night sound and speech enhancement features so I can still hear the dialogue without waking up the kids. Sonos is a huge part of my daily routine. For me, every product they make has been easy to set up and they all sound fantastic. Sonos has great gifts for everyone on your list. Visit sonos.comhertz to wrap up your holiday shopping. That's sonos.comhertz and just as a reminder, be sure to use our unique URL so they know that you came from us. Sonos.comhertz Congratulations to Brett Dore for getting last episode's mystery sound. Those strange sounds come from an instrument called the Daxophone. It's like saxophone, but with a D. The instrument was invented in the late 1980s by a German experimental musician named Hans Reichl. The Daxophone involves a vibrating wooden tongue, a cello bow, and a curved block of wood called a dax. As the player slides the bow and the Dax along the tongue, it produces all kinds of strange vocal sounding tones. And here's this episode's Mystery Sound I Hunger, Beware, Coward. If you know who or what made those sounds, tell us at the web address mystery.20.org anyone who guesses it right will be entered to win one of our super soft 20,000Hz T shirts. When 20,000Hz first started selling super soft T shirts, I didn't know the first thing about making an online storefront or tracking orders and merchandise. That's when I discovered Shopify. Shopify gives you everything you need to take your business to the next level. It includes a stylish website builder and a powerful backend where you can track inventory and run reports. It also has a ton of integrations, including sites like Instagram and Amazon. One of my favorite Shopify features is called Shop Pay. Basically, when a customer enters their address and payment info on any Shopify website, Shopify can save that info for future purchases. So when they shop on your website, it's much faster and less of a hassle to check out. That added convenience can boost conversions up to 50%. In other words, it means less abandoned carts and more sales. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout as companies like Heinz, Mattel and Allbirds. Sign up for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com 20k all lowercase go to shopify.com 20k to upgrade your selling. Today, that's shopify.com 20k in the 1960s, some scientists predicted that by now we'd be living on the moon, driving flying cars and taking all of our D nutrition in a single pill. And yet, here we are. The point is, it's hard to predict the future, but you can still make smart decisions for the future of your business thanks to NetSuite. NetSuite by Oracle is the number one cloud based enterprise resource planning system. And what that means in normalspeak is that it brings all of your accounting, financial management, inventory and HR software into a single platform. The result is all of that crucial data ends up in one unified place. Then you can use NetSuite's Real Time Insights and forecasting tools to make informed decisions. On top of that, netsuite will save you a ton of time. And as we all know, time is money. If you're ready to stop looking backwards and start looking forwards, then I highly recommend signing up with NetSuite. Chances are, there are opportunities for your business that you never even considered. Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com 20,000. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com $20,000. Modern Apple sounds are intentionally elegant and organic. But some of the most recognizable Apple sounds go back decades.

[Kelly Jacklin]

The first time I saw it on a TV screen, an episode of some show, and they receive a text.

[Dallas Taylor]

That's software engineer Kelly Jacklin.

[Kelly Jacklin]

I turn to, you know, my son and I'm like, dude, I made that sound. He's like, what are you talking about? I'm like, that sound. I made that sound. You know?

[Dallas Taylor]

Kelly is the creator of Apple's unforgettable tritone alert sound. Back when Kelly first made that sound, he was working as a software engineer for Apple. But he didn't create it for Apple.

[Kelly Jacklin]

Back sometime in 1998, a friend of mine that I used to work with, he approached me about a project that he was working on.

[Dallas Taylor]

Kelly's friend's name was Jeff Robin, and the project was an early version of a computer program called SoundJam MP, which.

[Kelly Jacklin]

Was basically a Mac version of Winamp, you know, an MP3 player.

[Dallas Taylor]

Back then, MP3s were usually super compressed in order to make these files as small as possible. But that digital Compression often made MP3 sound pretty crummy.

[Kelly Jacklin]

So when he said, you know, hey, do you want to come work on a Mac version of winamp? I'm like, who would want that? And why would they pay for it? And no, MP3 is gross. No. You know, it's always easier to see these things in retrospect.

[Dallas Taylor]

After Kelly declined to work on the software itself, Jeff asked him to help with a much smaller part of the project.

[Kelly Jacklin]

Part of being an MP3 player at the time was, hey, I want to not only RIP CDs, but I also want to be able to burn a CD from my MP3s. You know, make a mixtape, if you will. And at the time, burning CDs took a long time. And so Jeff was like, I need some kind of alert sound to let people know, hey, we're done burning this cd. Are you interested? And I was like, sure, why not?

[Dallas Taylor]

You see, Kelly was also a musician. For him, this was an opportunity to combine his love of computers with his love of music. And as he freely admits, he totally geeked out on it.

[Kelly Jacklin]

I did. I went way overboard.

[Dallas Taylor]

To make the sound, Kelly used a programming language called LISP. Back in the 90s, LISP was commonly used for AI research.

[Kelly Jacklin]

I've always been a artificial intelligence student.

[Dallas Taylor]

Using Lisp, Kelly created an algorithm that generated random strings of numbers between 1 and 8. These numbers corresponded to notes in the major scale.

[Kelly Jacklin]

I knew I wanted some selection of a set of intervals, so I was looking at 1, 3 and 5, 1, 4 and 8, 1, 5 and 8, and 1, 3, 5, and 8. I used Lisp to generate a list of all of the permutations of those values.

[Dallas Taylor]

Then he converted those numbers into a MIDI file that could be read by a music program. From there, he could choose various digital instruments and try out the different note combinations. In other words, unlike modern Apple, there.

[Kelly Jacklin]

Was zero analog involved.

[Dallas Taylor]

Kelly picked the instruments, fed in the numbers, and out came dozens of musical variations. Here are a few of his actual alternate versions from back in 1998.

[Kelly Jacklin]

I wanted something clean. I Wanted something simple, but something that would wake people up from, you know, doing whatever else they're doing and be recognizable in the background of screaming kids or music playing or whatever is going on. Something that would sort of stand out and grab the user's attention. And I was really into world music at the time, so I loved, like, marimbas and kalimbas and harps and Kodos, you know, pizzicato string sounds, all those synthy, sampled sounds that were making the rounds back then.

[Dallas Taylor]

Kelly ended up with a long audio file with all of these options.

[Kelly Jacklin]

I listened to it sequentially and sort of made notes, and I weeded down the ones that I really liked. The attack of the pizzicato was good, but there wasn't enough meat behind the sound. It's very sharp, but it doesn't have any sort of midrange. And the harp was pretty sounding, but it was a little too sort of gentle. I weeded it down to relatively small set, and I sent it off to Jeff and I told him my recommendation, which was I really liked the 1,5 8 sound. I really liked both the kalimba and the marimba sounds.

[Dallas Taylor]

But Kelly felt like the kalimba just didn't quite cut through well enough.

[Kelly Jacklin]

So158marimba was the one that I recommended to him.

[Dallas Taylor]

Jeff liked Kelly's pick, and so 158Marimba became the youe CD is done burning sound on SoundJam.

[Kelly Jacklin]

So SoundJam MP was released, and it sold reasonably well, but nothing spectacular. And then I hear from Jeff that Apple bought it. And then Apple released it in 2001 as iTunes, and it still had the same disc burning sound. And I'm like, hey, that's kind of cool. You know, showing my wife and friends, hey, look, when you burn a cd, that sound, Hey, I made that sound.

[Dallas Taylor]

After its second life on itunes, Apple gave this sound another job.

[Kelly Jacklin]

Then a couple Years later, the macOS installer team decided that they would use this same sound for the completion sound of the install. So at some point, I was installing some software, and there's my sound. I'm like, oh, my God. Wow.

[Dallas Taylor]

But none of that prepared him for what happened Next. It was 2007. Kelly was still at Apple, working on programs like Final Cut Pro. But the company's next big announcement was top secret. Even for most of their employees.

[Kelly Jacklin]

Apple was pretty good at the whole secrecy thing. Surprise and delight.

[Hugo Varay]

Every once in a while, a revolutionary product comes along that changes everything.

[Dallas Taylor]

At the Macworld conference that year, Steve Jobs introduced the world to a Brand new device.

[Hugo Varay]

An ipod, a phone, and an Internet communicator.

[Kelly Jacklin]

An ipod, a phone.

[Hugo Varay]

Are you getting it?

[Kelly Jacklin]

The first I saw of an iPhone was Steve talking about it on stage.

[Hugo Varay]

These are not three separate devices. This is one device.

[Kelly Jacklin]

Imagine my surprise when we ship an iPhone and the default text message tone is my tone. What really went through my head is, wow, every time someone receives a text, that sound's gonna play. That's pretty freaking cool.

[Dallas Taylor]

In the iPhone settings, the Marimba 158 sound is called Tritone.

[Kelly Jacklin]

They called it Tritone for some reason. I mean, obviously it's three tones, but tritone kind of means something different musically.

[Dallas Taylor]

Now, technically, a tritone is a pair of notes consisting of the root and the flattened fifth. The tritone is sometimes called the devil's interval because it sounds dissonant and sinister. But Apple's tritone is made up of a much more harmonious set of the root, perfect fifth, and the octave, just like Kelly's original name for it, 158 Marimba. But over the years, Kelly has taken to calling it the boodaling.

[Kelly Jacklin]

Bootling is what I came up with because that's what most people will recognize. It sounds onomatopoeic.

[Dallas Taylor]

Boodling a little ways into its new life. On the iPhone, Apple gave boodling a minor update.

[Kelly Jacklin]

At some point, someone went through and took all the old sounds and sort of remastered them to cut out the midrange and make it play better on the iPhone speakers.

[Dallas Taylor]

Here's the original version, back to back with the remaster. Tritone was the default text tone for about five years until the release of iOS 7. That update shifted Tritone to being a general alert sound for messaging. The Apple sound design team created a new sound called Note.

[Hugo Varay]

So Note is our default notification sound for messages.

[Dallas Taylor]

Again, that's Hugo Varay, which is kind.

[Hugo Varay]

Of a special notification sound, if you think about it, because it's not just an app sending you a notification, it's an actual person. So when I hear this sound, I know that someone is actually thinking of me.

[Dallas Taylor]

The design team wanted the sound to cut through if you heard it on a noisy city street, but not feel abrasive in a quiet living room.

[Hugo Varay]

So we want to strike the balance between, on one hand, for it to be very audible, and on the other hand, for it to be pleasing to hear, even if it's a more quiet environment.

[Dallas Taylor]

To achieve this, Hugo used something organic and tactile, just like he had done with the Apple Watch tones.

[Hugo Varay]

It's also one of the sounds that is recorded on a real instrument. It's a C on a glockenspiel.

[Dallas Taylor]

A glockenspiel is basically a metallic xylophone.

[Hugo Varay]

It makes it one of our most simple sounds and one of the only sounds that I could actually play live if I wanted to.

[Dallas Taylor]

Here's Hugo at an Apple Developers conference.

[Hugo Varay]

Ladies and gentlemen, for the first time in the history of this sound, here it is. Okay, concentration. Hope I hit the right one.

[Dallas Taylor]

Today. Note and tritone are both commonly used in movies and TV shows as audio shorthands for texting. Okay, everyone, settle in. Today we're discussing ways to navigate difficult interaction.

[Hugo Varay]

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above where Christ is seated.

[Dallas Taylor]

In 2023, for the release of iOS 17, Apple designed an entirely new suite of iPhone sounds. This included a new default alert tone called rebound.

[Billy Sorrentino]

The thinking behind rebound is really about being gentle and being respectful and meeting people where they're at. So rebound was really about, hey, if you get a lot of notifications during the day, we don't want you to turn your sounds off. We actually want you to feel like this is actually kind of a lovely experience.

[Hugo Varay]

It's really made up of two very short notes. And we added this muted reverb in the end that makes it sound like a little bit of a droplet. We like to think of it as like a droplet in a bucket of notifications.

[Dallas Taylor]

The introduction of rebound meant that tritone was no longer the default for anything, though you can still select it in the settings. But for the new calendar alert sound called chord, Hugo chose a familiar melody.

[Hugo Varay]

I have the instrument here.

[Dallas Taylor]

Is that the actual sound right there?

[Hugo Varay]

It's the actual chord instrument right here.

[Dallas Taylor]

Hugo shows me a small wooden instrument with a row of metallic tines. It's called a kalimba, but since you play it with your thumbs, some people.

[Hugo Varay]

Call it a thumb piano. So let me play a few notes. And we used only three of those notes to create chord.

[Dallas Taylor]

That's amazing. Can I just hold it? Just to say that I have.

[Hugo Varay]

You can play it.

[Dallas Taylor]

Oh, my goodness.

[Hugo Varay]

Wow.

[Dallas Taylor]

That is so cool. I'm sorry, I'm just totally fanboying right now. Just like the classic tritone, this sound is built around an ascending three note melody made up of the 1, the 5 and the 8, although it's in the key of F rather than D. At one point, Hugo gave everyone on the design team a kalimba as a.

[Billy Sorrentino]

Gift, and you could imagine the studio for the next week. All you could hear all day long. Was everybody trying to.

[Dallas Taylor]

The boodaling has more than 20 years of nostalgia and recognition built into it, so it's no wonder why Apple would want to keep that legacy alive.

[Kelly Jacklin]

The collective social consciousness around that sound is so iconic that people would recognize it immediately as a you've received a message.

[Dallas Taylor]

For Kelly, making this sound feels like an accomplishment that anyone can grasp, even if they're not very tech savvy.

[Kelly Jacklin]

When I was going to college and describing to my parents what a software engineer is and what computer science is, I get glazed looks. And this was one spot that I could point to and I could tell my parents and they would understand. This was a fun side project on the weekend for me. So this was, you know, I'm not at work, it's my free time, I'm going to do it the way I want it. The casualness with which I created it I think belied the impact that it would have.

[Dallas Taylor]

The impact of sounds like tritone and note is beyond compare. Without a doubt, these are some of the most recognizable sounds ever made, and this only scratches the surface of Apple's sound design experience. That's coming up next time. 20,000 Hz is produced out of the Sound Design Studios of Defacto Sound. Hear [e-mail] this episode was written and produced by Nicholas Harter and Casey Emmerling with help from Grace East. It was sound designed and mixed by Joel Boyder and Brandon Pratt. The music in this episode is by Keith Kenneth. Keith is a fantastic composer whose music has been featured in some of my favorite Apple commercials. Thanks to our guests Billy Sorrentino, Hugo Varai and Kelly Jacqueline. Also thanks to everyone at Apple who worked behind the scenes to make this episode possible. I'm Dallas Taylor. Thanks for listening. Supporting the things you love doesn't have to just be something you do out of the kindness of your heart. It can also come with real concrete benefits for you. For instance, all of the apps and services that we advertise here on 20000 Hz are useful tools that I can fully recommend. So if any of them sound helpful to you, then sign up using our unique URLs and promo codes. On your end, you'll save money on something that makes your life a little easier in one way or another. On our end we'll get a confirmed signup coming from one of our listeners, which means that these companies will to book with us again. The whole spirit of this is so that we can keep making 20,000 hertz. It's really a win win with that in mind. Find a great doctor fast at zocdoc.com 20k get 10% off your first month of therapy at betterhelp.com 20k get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com Hertz and simplify your business software with flexible financing at netsuite.com you can find all of our active offers and [e-mail] sponsors each episode of 20,000 Hz takes 2 to 300 hours to make. That's because we jam pack this show with as much ear candy, immersive sound design and amazing music as we can fit in. But with all of that work, you might wonder how we actually pay for it. Well, about 5% of our revenue comes from the listeners who've signed up for our ad free feed. You can sign up [e-mail] plus or directly within Apple Podcasts. The next 25% comes from the work we do over at my sound design company, Defacto Sound. So if you happen to work in advertising, streaming film, games or television, introduce yourself by writing [e-mail] the remaining 70% of our revenue comes comes from our advertisers. Now, we actually turned down quite a few potential advertisers because they're not really the right fit for our show. But every company that you do hear me talk about is one that I sincerely believe is useful and a good deal. Now here's the thing. The biggest thing these advertisers care about is seeing results. So if you try out any of these services, make sure to use our unique URL or promo code. It's the only way to show these companies that we're sending them new customers. And if enough people do that, they'll book with us again. Which means we can keep making this show. It really is that simple. You can find today's sponsor codes in the show notes of this episode, and to view all of our discount codes and offers, just head to 20k.org sponsors.