Mysterious background at apple.com: Easter Egg?

[samiznaetekto]

Apple's homepage [sometimes?] has this gray gradient background while other areas of the site do not. I think this background started appearing only a few months ago (iPad or iPhone 4 launch?)

The background is not a smooth or finely dithered gradient but is composed of rather large gray dots scattered seemingly randomly.

Could it be that this is an Easter Egg and there's some hidden message in the dot pattern? The pattern looks a bit like LiveScribe dot paper (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anoto) or MaxiCode and the like (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MaxiCode.svg).

Anyone, crack the secret?

From my Apple sources, the message is saying "We like to delight and surprise our users, and so iPad 2 will have 2048x1536 resolution! - Steve"

 

[roadbloc]

No. It's just part of the site redesign.

 

[samiznaetekto]

No. It's just part of the site redesign.

Maybe, but not of recent redesign (where they changed the top bar to darker color and changed animations of product lineups).

It first appeared several months ago and I think it kinda correlated with big announcements. In between, they would change the background back to white.

My Apple sources continue to milk the secret information to me... there's another message encrypted into that background: "...and Boom! - MacBook Air will see the return of backlit keyboard!"

 

[samiznaetekto]

Well well well. The file is called gradient_texture20101116.jpg. Why would anyone include date in the name of the image file serving as a background? The answer is, they have multiple versions and they want to track them.

So what happened on 2010/11/16?

https://www.macrumors.com/2010/11/16/the-beatles-appear-in-itunes-store/

You get my drift now. Big announcement -> Apple puts up this "dot code" background. Then, after some time, they replace it with white background. Let's see if the name of their background changes and what it correlates to and if the pattern of dots is any different...

 

[AlphaDogg]

Well well well. The file is called gradient_texture20101116.jpg. Why would anyone include date in the name of the image file serving as a background? The answer is, they have multiple versions and they want to track them.

So what happened on 2010/11/16?

https://www.macrumors.com/2010/11/16/the-beatles-appear-in-itunes-store/

You get my drift now. Big announcement -> Apple puts up this "dot code" background. Then, after some time, they replace it with white background. Let's see if the name of their background changes and what it correlates to and if the pattern of dots is any different...

That is quite interesting.

 

[R94N]

It's a conspiracy!



But seriously, it's kinda interesting.

 

[davedee65]

You really need to get out more

 

[Pink∆Floyd]

That is quite cool

 

[iPhoneCollector]

We're from the government and we're here to help you.

and yes. we insist.

 

[samiznaetekto]

Well well well. With the announcement of new MacBook Pros on 2/24/2011, the gray dotted gradient background on Apple's home page is gone.

My prediction that on March 2nd (iPad 2 announcement) the background will be back. Let's see how it will be different from the background saved in the 1st post in this thread.

 

[Tailpike1153]

The truth is out there.

 

[vincenz]

I think you're reading a little too much into it...

 

[R94N]

I think you're reading a little too much into it...

Actually, yeah, I agree. I think you're over-analysing things a little too much.

 

[ConnorTurnbull]

It's nothing. The "dots" are just noise added in Photoshop.