The Sound of Apple 2.0

Summary

Podcast Summary: “The Sound of Apple 2.0”

Twenty Thousand Hertz delves into the intricate world of Apple’s sound design, exploring how the tech giant meticulously crafts the auditory experiences that define its products. Hosted by Dallas Taylor, this episode features insightful conversations with key members of Apple’s design and sound teams, as well as contributions from renowned beat maker Flying Lotus. Below is a comprehensive summary of the episode’s key points, discussions, insights, and conclusions.

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1. Apple’s Human-Centered Sound Design Philosophy

Key Discussion: Apple emphasizes a human-centered approach to sound design, prioritizing tactile and organic sounds over futuristic, digital tones. This strategy ensures that high-tech devices evoke familiarity and comfort among users.

Notable Quotes:

• Billy Sorrentino (Apple Design Team) [00:44]: “Making sure that it is human centered is first and foremost. There's oftentimes an analog quality to it, a purity to that sound.”
• Hugo Varay (Apple Sound Design Team) [00:37]: “We do have a through line of how we approach the design discipline.”

Insights: By selecting sounds from traditional instruments like the glockenspiel and kalimba, Apple creates a sonic identity that feels both timeless and approachable. This approach is evident in default alerts such as the message notification (a C on a glockenspiel) and the calendar chord (three notes on a kalimba).

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2. Evolution of Default iPhone Ringtones

Key Discussion: Apple’s default ringtones have evolved over time while maintaining a coherent sonic identity. Starting with the iconic "Marimba" ringtone, Apple has introduced variations like "Opening," "Reflection," and "Radial" to keep the experience fresh yet familiar.

Notable Quotes:

• Dallas Taylor [02:44]: “Marimba was the default iPhone ringtone up through iOS 6. For iOS 7, Apple continued this marimba theme with a new default ringtone called Opening.”
• Hugo Varay [03:37]: “Reflection, our current default ringtone, is made up out of two different layers. One is the melodic part, like the marimba notes, and then there's like an ambient layer with some effects.”

Insights: Each ringtone iteration retains elements of its predecessors while introducing subtle changes. For instance, "Reflection" introduced a dreamier ambient layer, enhancing the depth and emotional resonance of the sound. This evolution ensures that the ringtones remain relevant and engaging for users.

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3. Collaboration with Artists: Flying Lotus and New Ringtones

Key Discussion: Apple collaborates with diverse artists to expand its sound repertoire, offering users a broader selection of ringtones. The partnership with Flying Lotus (Flylo) resulted in unique sounds like "Chalet" and "Daybreak," which diverge from Apple’s traditional approach by incorporating lo-fi and ambient elements.

Notable Quotes:

• Hugo Varay [04:37]: “We usually design our sounds in house, but for some special projects, like a new suite of ringtones, we like working together with a diverse group of artists.”
• Flying Lotus [05:08]: “Finding that balance of where it's a bit of ambient, but also something that cuts through.”

Insights: Flying Lotus contributed ringtones that blend ambient textures with clear, looping melodies, creating sounds that are both soothing and noticeable. This collaboration highlights Apple’s commitment to diversifying its sound palette while maintaining quality and user appeal.

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4. Integration of Haptics and Sound: The Taptic Engine

Key Discussion: Apple’s Taptic Engine technology seamlessly integrates haptic feedback with sound, enhancing the tactile experience of using Apple devices. This synergy creates a more immersive and intuitive user interaction.

Notable Quotes:

• Dallas Taylor [08:03]: “It's like haptics and sound are two sides of the same coin because it's all vibration.”
• Hugo Varay [07:28]: “When I play, especially Daybreak, the haptics feel so good with it.”

Insights: The Taptic Engine allows for precise vibrations that complement auditory cues, making notifications and interactions more perceptible and satisfying. Whether it’s the subtle pulse when typing or the rhythmic vibration accompanying a ringtone, haptics enrich the overall user experience.

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5. Designing Sounds for Apple Pay and Tap Back Reactions

Key Discussion: Apple meticulously designs sounds for specific functionalities like Apple Pay and tap back reactions in messaging. These sounds communicate actions and emotions effectively without being intrusive.

Notable Quotes:

• Hugo Varay [10:00]: “We wanted to create a sound that clearly communicated successfully.”
• Billy Sorrentino [12:15]: “The amount of thought and design details and incredible amount of hours put into crafting individual sounds for every tap back.”

Insights: For Apple Pay, sounds like the confirmatory chime are designed to convey success and reliability. Tap back reactions (like thumbs up or heart) use brief, distinct tones that allow users to identify responses audibly, facilitating quick and intuitive communication.

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6. AirPods Sound Design and Enhancements

Key Discussion: The introduction of AirPods and AirPods Pro brought new sound design challenges and opportunities. Apple developed unique sounds for connectivity, active noise cancellation modes, and low battery alerts, ensuring these auditory cues are both functional and pleasant.

Notable Quotes:

• Hugo Varay [19:11]: “AirPods were our first wireless headphones, and so we had the opportunity to design some new sounds for that.”
• Billy Sorrentino [21:51]: “It still has that continuous beep that radar also has, but it has some flourishes.”

Insights: AirPods sounds deviate from the marimba and glockenspiel tones, utilizing modular synthesizers to create deeper and more textured sounds. Active noise cancellation modes each have distinct auditory signals, enhancing user awareness and control over their listening environment.

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7. Evolution of iPhone Alarm Tones

Key Discussion: Apple continuously refines its alarm tones to cater to varying user preferences, balancing effectiveness with a pleasant auditory experience. From the long-standing "Radar" tone to the more recent "Radial," Apple ensures that alarm sounds remain both functional and gentle.

Notable Quotes:

• Hugo Varay [22:26]: “Some people have a hard time waking up in the morning. If they used radar, they would wake up.”
• Dallas Taylor [23:22]: “With iOS 17, Hugo and his team created a new default alarm tone. This one is a little closer to that original radar sound. It's called Radial.”

Insights: Alarm sounds are designed to effectively wake users without being jarring. The introduction of new tones like "Radial" and collaborations with composers like Max Richter for sounds such as "Seedling" and "Unfold" emphasize a balance between functionality and auditory comfort.

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8. Contributions from Max Richter

Key Discussion: Collaborations with esteemed composers like Max Richter have enriched Apple’s sound library, introducing sophisticated and emotionally resonant tones that enhance user experience.

Notable Quotes:

• Hugo Varay [23:58]: “Max Richter is one of my absolute favorite modern composers.”
• Dallas Taylor [23:58]: “Max Richter composed two sounds for Apple. The first one is called Unfold.”

Insights: Max Richter’s compositions, such as "Unfold" and "Seedling," bring a high level of artistry to Apple’s sound design. These sounds leverage advanced speaker technology to deliver rich, layered tones that were previously challenging to produce on mobile devices, offering users a more immersive auditory experience.

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9. Team Collaboration Behind Apple’s Sound Design

Key Discussion: Apple’s sound design success is a product of collaborative efforts across various teams. Sound designers, animators, and other specialists work in tandem to ensure that each auditory element complements the visual and tactile aspects of Apple’s products.

Notable Quotes:

• Hugo Varay [25:55]: “I might be designing the sound for Apple Pay, while at the same time, somewhere else in the studio, somebody is designing the checkmark, the animation that ends up being perfectly synchronized to the sound that I'm designing.”
• Billy Sorrentino [26:14]: “Every single sound is given the same level of focus and attention.”

Insights: This multidisciplinary collaboration ensures a cohesive and seamless user experience. Each sound is meticulously crafted and integrated with other design elements, reinforcing Apple’s commitment to excellence in every aspect of its products.

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10. Conclusion: The Art of Sound in Apple’s Ecosystem

Key Discussion: Apple’s dedication to sound design exemplifies how thoughtful auditory elements can significantly enhance user interaction and brand identity. The meticulous attention to detail and collaborative spirit behind each sound contribute to the overall elegance and functionality of Apple’s products.

Notable Quotes:

• Billy Sorrentino [26:39]: “When we believe in something, we go very, very, very deep, and I think that's kind of what makes an Apple product feel.”
• Hugo Varay [17:23]: “I think we're always looking for sounds that are concise and compact and really tell the essence of the experience.”

Insights: Apple’s sound design philosophy centers on creating sounds that are not only functional but also emotionally engaging. By prioritizing simplicity, clarity, and emotional resonance, Apple ensures that every sound enhances the user experience without becoming intrusive or repetitive.

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Final Thoughts: “The Sound of Apple 2.0” masterfully uncovers the layered complexity behind Apple’s sound design. From default ringtones to specialized sounds for Apple Pay and AirPods, Apple’s commitment to a human-centered, collaborative, and artistically rich approach is evident. This episode highlights how sound plays a pivotal role in shaping the intuitive and delightful experiences that Apple users have come to expect.

Transcript

[Dallas Taylor]

You're listening to 20,000 hertz. I'm Dallas Taylor. In our last episode, we explored how Apple uses sound design to give their devices a distinct voice. Instead of futuristic, hyper digital tones, Apple tends to choose sounds that are tactile and organic. This makes these high tech devices sound familiar, so people feel more comfortable using them. You can hear this approach in sounds like the note alert for messages, which is a C on a glockenspiel. There's also the chord alert for calendar, which is composed of three notes on a kalimba.

[Billy Sorrentino]

We do have a through line of how we approach the design discipline.

[Dallas Taylor]

That's Billy Sorrentino from the Apple design team.

[Billy Sorrentino]

Making sure that it is human centered is first and foremost. There's oftentimes an analog quality to it, a purity to that sound, which is why we do that so often. Find an instrument and record an analog instrument in a really beautiful way and lead with that tonality.

[Dallas Taylor]

Apple has taken this approach for quite a while now. For instance, when they made the default ringtone for the original iPhone, they could have chosen something dense and futuristic, but instead they chose an upbeat melody played on a single instrument. An instrument that's been around in some form or another for thousands of years. Here's Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone in 2007. And so this is what it looks.

[Hugo Varay]

Like when you get a call. This is what it sounds like. It's one of our ringtones. You can pick, of course.

[Dallas Taylor]

That ringtone was called marimba. And as iPhone sales skyrocketed, it became known all over the world.

[Hugo Varay]

Those default ringtones have really become so iconic, they have become part of the voice of the product.

[Dallas Taylor]

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

[Hugo Varay]

You hear it coming from your own phone, from the people around you. Hello. But also when you're watching a TV show or a movie. Hi.

[Dallas Taylor]

Hey.

[Hugo Varay]

You hear these sounds everywhere you go, really.

[Dallas Taylor]

Marimba was the default iPhone ringtone up through iOS 6. For iOS 7, Apple continued this marimba theme with a new default ringtone called opening. Over the years, I've probably heard both marimba and opening thousands of times. And at this point, they're kind of blended together in my mind as the classic iPhone sound.

[Billy Sorrentino]

It's funny how memory puts them together with the full package. Like the startup maxound that is anchored in, I think, most people's collective memories as part of the entire Mac experience.

[Dallas Taylor]

Opening was the default for another four years until the launch of the iPhone X.

[Hugo Varay]

When the iPhone X was released, we wanted to create a signature ringtone just for this phone. And Reflection was that tone.

[Dallas Taylor]

Reflection is a bit dreamier than marimba or opening, although once again, the instrument.

[Hugo Varay]

It'S played on is a marimba.

[Billy Sorrentino]

We do a lot of nods to history like Marimba, Opening and reflection, the three iconic iPhone sounds.

[Hugo Varay]

Reflection, our current default ringtone, is made up out of two different layers. One is the melodic part, like the marimba notes, and then there's like an ambient layer with some effects.

[Dallas Taylor]

With iOS 17 and 2023, Reflection got a small update.

[Hugo Varay]

What we decided to do is fade in the notes a little bit slower than the ambient layer, so the beginning of the sound becomes a little bit more gentle, and it takes a little bit for it to develop into the recognizable melody that we all know so well.

[Dallas Taylor]

This new version of Reflection was one of two dozen new ringtones in iOS 17.

[Hugo Varay]

Usually we design our sounds in house, but for some special projects, like a new suite of ringtones, we like working together with a diverse group of artists to give our users a variety of options to choose from.

[Dallas Taylor]

In this case, that group of artists included the legendary beat maker Flying Lotus, also known as Flylo. Here's one of his most popular tracks, called Crust.

[Hugo Varay]

We really thought that the atmospheric and cinematic nature of Flylo's music would be a really good fit for our set of ringtones.

[Flying Lotus]

At first, I didn't know how to feel. I was like, what? They want me to be a ringtone maker? Now, what is that all about?

[Dallas Taylor]

That's Flylo.

[Flying Lotus]

The one thing that was in my benefit was that I actually had made ringtones for myself before. So I kind of feel like I knew what was pleasing to hear as a loop over and over and over and over and over again. Something that alerts you but isn't abrasive. Something that's musical but isn't cheesy. So just finding that balance of where it's a bit of ambient, but also something that cuts through.

[Dallas Taylor]

Flylo made two ringtones for Apple. The first one is called Chalet.

[Flying Lotus]

The big difference, I guess, with making the ringtones in my own thing, is just a matter of time. Telling your musical story in such a short amount of time to where it feels complete and can loop infinitely. It's like making the perfect loop.

[Dallas Taylor]

Yeah. To me, it gives me this sense of peace and nostalgia.

[Flying Lotus]

Yeah. There is a nostalgic element. I think there is some kind of longing in the sound. I wouldn't say it's a sad thing, but there is some kind of memory, like you're listening to an old cassette. It Is nice to have these tones that I can associate with people who give me this warm feeling and this nostalgic feeling. You know, if my girl calls me and I hear the chalet ringtone, it's like, oh, you know, there's something. Something really nice about it.

[Dallas Taylor]

That nostalgic lo fi sound also comes through in Flylo's other ringtone, Daybreak. This lo fi feel is very different from Apple's usual approach.

[Hugo Varay]

When we design sounds at Apple, we usually make them very clean, sounding very pristine and natural. And anything that sounds like crackles or whatever, we would remove that. But that's exactly why we chose to work with Flylo, because we wouldn't come up with this ourselves.

[Dallas Taylor]

These new ringtones don't just use sound. The Apple design team paired them very intentionally with the iPhone's vibrations, also known as the haptics.

[Hugo Varay]

When I play, especially Daybreak, the haptics feel so good with it.

[Dallas Taylor]

So right now, I'm pressing my phone up against my microphone so you can really hear how my phone is vibrating.

[Hugo Varay]

It really feels like you're putting your hand on a subwoofer. It's so well connected to the tones that it almost feels like the tones are creating this feeling rather than just adding a vibration at the end.

[Dallas Taylor]

This delicate blend of touch and sound permeates modern Apple products. It's made possible through what Apple calls the Taptic engine, which was introduced in 2015 with the Apple Watch.

[Hugo Varay]

For the first time, we had the Taptic engine, which was the haptic actuator that could very precisely play taps on your wrist.

[Dallas Taylor]

Soon after, the Taptic engine was added to the iPhone, this allowed them to design more precise and musical vibrations, like the little pulses you feel when you type. To me, it's like haptics and sound are two sides of the same coin because it's all vibration. But it seems like haptics can sometimes sync directly with the music, but sometimes you're using it as an entirely different instrument, Kind of like a bass guitar that's not playing the same as what a guitar guitar would play right now. Do you think of that haptic note as a bass frequency? How do you put that together in your mind musically?

[Hugo Varay]

Yeah, I think for the shorter sounds, we try to synchronize them precisely because it just creates these satisfying experiences that are very short. But if you have a longer tone, like an alarm or a ringtone, we can be more creative and we can actually see it as an instrument in the composition.

[Dallas Taylor]

Here's another ringtone with a distinctive haptic pattern called breaking. Along with ringtones and notifications, haptics also play a key role in the in person Apple Pay experience. For anyone who's not familiar with it, Apple Pay lets you pay for things by holding your iPhone or Apple watch up to a contactless card reader.

[Hugo Varay]

With Apple Pay, the haptics play a big role because we know that you're not having your phone in your pocket, and we know that you have it in your hands when you're holding it up to the terminal. So you will definitely feel the haptic.

[Dallas Taylor]

To design the sound. For Apple Pay, Hugo thought to himself, if my credit card had a voice, what would it say?

[Hugo Varay]

If you think of designing sounds for payment, you may start thinking about like a cash register or something traditional like that.

[Dallas Taylor]

For Hugo, a classic ka Ching sound was close, but not quite right.

[Hugo Varay]

We wanted to create a sound that clearly communicated successfully. There's this magical thing happening, like it's all connecting to your bank account and then through the air. You pay, but all you care about is that it was successful.

[Dallas Taylor]

Here's the sound they landed on.

[Hugo Varay]

So there's a little bit of a coin, like chime in the sound.

[Dallas Taylor]

Along with the sound, there's a short animation of a checkmark as well as two quick haptic vibrations. And all three are perfectly synchronized into one satisfying little moment.

[Hugo Varay]

It just illustrates how what you feel, what you see, and what you hear blend together in a single experience.

[Dallas Taylor]

While a coin sound felt like a logical choice for a payment system, other alerts were more abstract. For instance, how do you turn emotions into quick audio shorthands? That was the question that Hugo and his team thought about when they designed the sounds for the iPhone's tap backs. These are the reactions you can give to a message, like thumbs up, thumbs down, heart, and question mark.

[Hugo Varay]

It was also quite a challenge because you're creating a language in sound. You know, what does a heart sound like? What does love sound like?

[Dallas Taylor]

For thumbs down and thumbs up, they used quick two note melodies.

[Hugo Varay]

You have the thumbs down, right, which is like tu du, and then the thumbs up, which is kind of the opposite. For the heart, we chose to actually use the thumbs up sound, but with a little chime at the end so it gives this little extra sparkle. It's like, no, I don't like this message. I love this message.

[Dallas Taylor]

The next tap back reaction was laugh for laugh.

[Hugo Varay]

One of the first things we tried was just like record a person laughing and then just like kind of speed it up.

[Dallas Taylor]

But they felt like that was too cartoonish.

[Hugo Varay]

But we did listen to like the voice and analyze the voice and see what melody that had and then try to mimic that using some electronic sounds. It really feels like a laugh.

[Dallas Taylor]

For the question mark tap back they used a single tone that slides up a bit in pitch. It kind of sounds like someone saying huh. The exclamation mark tap back is more attention grabbing. It sounds the most like a traditional alert sound or maybe like someone saying oh gosh. Designing a unique sound for each reaction is actually pretty brilliant because once people learn these sounds, they can identify a tap back response without even needing to pull their phone out of their pocket.

[Hugo Varay]

So when you send me a text and say, hey, do you want to get lunch? I send you a thumbs up. You don't even have to look at your screen. It kind of showcases the power of sound in that way.

[Billy Sorrentino]

The amount of thought and design details and incredible amount of hours put into crafting individual sounds for every tap back. It's one of those design details that seems so nuanced and small, but matters so deeply to the team itself.

[Dallas Taylor]

Most iPhone sounds are warm and inviting, but for years there was one default sound that was a big exception. How and why that was replaced after the break Predicting the future of your business can be really hard, especially when you're looking at data from a bunch of different apps and tools. And that's one of the things that makes NetSuite so helpful. NetSuite is the world's number one cloud based ERP, which stands for Enterprise Resource Planning. Now that term sounds kind of complicated, but what it really means is that NetSuite is a unified platform where you can manage your accounting, inventory, payroll, HR and more with one integrated system. You don't have to waste time and money training people on multiple pieces of software and manually transferring information from one place to another. Better yet, netsuite has real time stats and forecasting tools that allow you to make informed decisions about your company's future. Over 38,000 companies have future proofed their business with NetSuite. And speaking of the future, you can now download the CFO's guide to AI and machine [e-mail] 20,000. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com 20K. That's netsuite.com 2. Congratulations to Nathan Gamson for getting last episode's mystery sound right.

[Hugo Varay]

I Hunger.

[Billy Sorrentino]

Beware, Coward.

[Dallas Taylor]

That's the voice of Cinestar, the villain from the 1982 arcade game of the same name. Sinistar was one of the very first games to use real recordings of a human voice. Those sound bites were recorded by John deremus, who was a popular radio DJ in the Chicago area. Here's John on his radio program and.

[Billy Sorrentino]

For the London Festival Orchestra, a beauty.

[Hugo Varay]

It's called if I Rule the World.

[Dallas Taylor]

And here's this episode's Mystery Sound. If you recognize that sound, submit your guess 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. And if you want to snag some merch without guessing, just head to 20k.org shop at the home Depot the holidays.

[Billy Sorrentino]

Have arrived and so has all my.

[Dallas Taylor]

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[Hugo Varay]

I think we're always looking for sounds that are concise and compact and really tell the essence of the experience.

[Dallas Taylor]

Elaborate sounds can get annoying pretty quickly, especially when you hear them over and over, and sometimes the best option is no sound at all.

[Billy Sorrentino]

We really are a thousand no's for every yes. The amount of things that we could try or places where we could put sounds in our OSS and our products is pretty limitless. And Hugo and the sound team are the first to say no. Actually, we think it's wildly inappropriate to have sound there. And really being critical about where sound plays an impactful role, that's as much of the design process as crafting the sounds themselves.

[Dallas Taylor]

One of the only times where it makes sense for your phone to make a loud, alarming sound is when you've lost it. If you have an iPhone, then you might be familiar with Find My. It's an app that helps you find your lost Apple device by making it play a sound. This one, to me, sounds like it's very intentional. It's kind of even going back to this. We need to be very overt and very pointed with this sound, not blend into the environment. We need to be very attacky, very sharp, very bright.

[Hugo Varay]

That's right. The character of the sound. Why this is such a good Find My sound is it is kind of persistent. It has multiple notes that repeat.

[Flying Lotus]

And.

[Hugo Varay]

Then it's pretty dry. There's not a lot of effects and echoes, which of course would make it.

[Dallas Taylor]

Really hard to find that sharp, dry sound. Helps if you're trying to find your iPhone under a cushion or deep inside a bag. Find My also works with Apple's AirPods, which have their own unique set of UI sounds.

[Hugo Varay]

AirPods were our first wireless headphones, and so we had the opportunity to design some new sounds for that, like connect sound and a disconnect sound. And for those sounds, we wanted to create something that was still kind of simple, but we didn't want it to be just a generic poopoo, you know, connect tone. And we wanted to be a little.

[Dallas Taylor]

Bit more special for these sounds. They decided to stray away from the marimbas and glockenspiels of the iPhone.

[Hugo Varay]

We were using modular synthesizers to come up with new sounds, things that weren't very common in our palette. And we ended up with sounds that still have the simple quality of the two tone Du du. You're connected, but that have a little bit more depth to them.

[Dallas Taylor]

Here are the AirPods connected and disconnected sounds back to back.

[Hugo Varay]

But then some years later, we introduced active noise cancellation with AirPods Pro.

[Dallas Taylor]

The AirPods Pro have three different noise cancellation modes. Each one needed a distinct sound to tell the user which mode they're currently in.

[Hugo Varay]

So we had to make sure that these sounds worked well together with the sounds that we already had.

[Dallas Taylor]

The first mode is active noise cancellation, which blocks out unwanted sound.

[Hugo Varay]

So for active noise cancellation, we have a sound that sounds like you're closing something off.

[Dallas Taylor]

Next is transparency mode, which amplifies the sounds around you. It's basically the opposite of noise cancellation for when you need to be aware of your surroundings.

[Hugo Varay]

For transparency, it opens up, there's like this airy feel to the sound to.

[Dallas Taylor]

Really hear the difference. Here's active noise cancellation in transparency mode, back to back. The third one is called adaptive mode.

[Hugo Varay]

Which is a feature that adjusts according to the noise levels around you. It feels almost like magic, like the technology is working for you and it's listening for you. And the sound for this mode has a little bit of sparkle to it.

[Dallas Taylor]

Finally, there's a sound for when the battery is low.

[Hugo Varay]

The low battery sound is one that we don't want to be ambiguous about. We want it to be super clear because we don't want you to run out of batteries.

[Dallas Taylor]

I remember the first time I heard it, I was like, I know exactly what that means. I don't need to even look it up. I don't need anything.

[Hugo Varay]

Yeah, there's different elements to this sound that make it that way, I think. Of course, we have that winding down feel of the. Which makes it kind of satisfying, which is funny for a low battery sound.

[Dallas Taylor]

Altogether, these AirPod sounds form a cohesive sonic palette or voice. It's a voice that's friendly and even a bit playful.

[Billy Sorrentino]

That came out of a lot of the design discussions of what are AirPods? What are the feelings we want people to have? How do we communicate these things through sound, but in a way that still feels friendly and a little bit of a wink and a little bit of a hey, we're here with you on this journey. Rather than kind of cold, technical language of 10% left or whatever percentage.

[Dallas Taylor]

Another group of sounds that's gone through a big evolution over the years is the iPhone's alarm tones. Here's radar, which was the default alarm tone for 11 years.

[Hugo Varay]

Some people have a hard time waking up in the morning. If they used radar, they would wake up.

[Dallas Taylor]

Now. Some people, like myself, prefer a much more gentle waking experience.

[Hugo Varay]

When we introduced the bedtime feature on iOS, we introduced a set of sounds that were specifically designed to help you wake up in a pleasant way. And early riser is the default there. It's a beautiful, like, piano sound that starts very slowly and then fades in. And then there's a chime that is the element that makes sure that you will actually wake up rather than just stay in this dream state.

[Dallas Taylor]

Well, I will say on behalf of millions of others, thank you for whatever that change was. With iOS 17, Hugo and his team created a new default alarm tone. This one is a little closer to that original radar sound. It's called Radial.

[Hugo Varay]

So radial is a sound that still has that continuous beep that radar also has, but it has some flourishes, like some effects. The sound itself is a little bit more gentle.

[Dallas Taylor]

Gentleness is a theme throughout the timer and alarm sounds for iOS 17.

[Hugo Varay]

Great examples of those are Seedling and Unfold, the tones that we worked with Max Richter on.

[Dallas Taylor]

Max Richter is one of my absolute favorite modern composers. He's composed a ton of beautiful music, like the theme from the Leftover series, like Flying Lotus. Max Richter composed two sounds for Apple. The first one is called Unfold.

[Hugo Varay]

These sounds can be used for people to wake up to, or they can be used as ringtones. And so we want to really provide something for people to get notified in a bit more gentle way than was previously possible.

[Dallas Taylor]

And here's the second piece that Max Richter made for Apple, called Seedling.

[Hugo Varay]

Over the years, our speakers have become better, so we are now capable of playing sounds that would have been hard to play on the phone speaker in the past, sounds that have some lower frequencies and that have a little rounder character. We can now play those sounds in a clean way. And a great example is the piano tones that Max Richter designs.

[Dallas Taylor]

While Hugo and Billy are crucial to the voice of Apple's products, it takes a village to make these devices look, sound and feel the way they do. From the gentle melody that wakes you up in the morning, to the pulse of the haptics when you make a purchase, to the way the icons zoom in from the edges when you unlock your screen, each of these components has an entire team of experts behind it, and they all work together to create one seamless user experience.

[Hugo Varay]

I might be designing the sound for Apple Pay, while at the same time, somewhere else in the studio, somebody is designing the checkmark, the animation that ends up being perfectly synchronized to the sound that I'm designing. And so I can walk over to that person and we can discuss it at Apple.

[Dallas Taylor]

No design detail is too small to care about.

[Billy Sorrentino]

Every single sound is given the same level of focus and attention, whether it's the hero ringtone or it's the heart and the tap back.

[Hugo Varay]

We often spend so much time thinking about sounds that people might not even hear, but we think it really enriches the experience if you do hear them, so it's really worth the exploration and the time it takes to develop these kind of experiences.

[Billy Sorrentino]

When we believe in something, we go very, very, very deep, and I think that's kind of what makes an Apple product feel.

[Dallas Taylor]

20,000Hz is produced out of the sound design studios of Defacto Sound. Hear more@defacto sound.com this episode was written and produced by Nicholas Harder and Casey Emmerling, with help from Grace East. It was sound design and mixed by.

[Hugo Varay]

Jesus Zartiaga and Brandon.

[Dallas Taylor]

Thanks to our guests Billy Sorrentino, Hugo Varai and Flying Lotus. And a special thanks to everyone at Apple who helped make these episodes possible. The soundtrack of this episode is by Keith Kenneth and the Unseen Music Library. I'm Dallas Taylor. Thanks for listening. 20,000Hz is only possible because of the support of our sponsors. If they ever stopped booking ads with us, we simply could not afford to make this show, which would make opening up your podcast app a little more sad. Now, I don't just accept ads from anyone. There have been lots of companies that I've said no to, but if I'm telling you about a business or service, it's because I sincerely believe in it. With that in mind, find a great doctor fast at zocdoc.com 20k simplify your business software with flexible financing at netsuite.com 20k get 10% off your first month of therapy at betterhelp.com 20k and go subscribe to what it's like to be a podcast that asks professionals all of the questions that you've been too afraid to. You can find all of our active offer codes and [e-mail] sponsors.