No, it isn't because the designer was hungry
Have you ever noticed that it’s the things we come into contact with multiple times a day that we tend to take for granted? Like the Apple logo, for example. You see it adorning laptops in coffee shops, glowing on Apple watches atop people’s wrists and dotting those big, futuristic glass stores across America. That logo is so ingrained in our daily lives that we barely stop to question it. But have you ever really thought about why it looks the way it does?
You must have a theory or two. I mean, having an apple as the symbol for a company named Apple isn’t exactly revolutionary. However, this is no ordinary apple. There’s a very cleanly cut bite taken out of it. And a little leaf. What’s it all for? Because, as we know, brand logos are never left to chance. They’re created intentionally, and often with hidden messages. And now that this has been brought to your attention, surely you’re a little curious, so let’s get to the bottom of the Apple logo.
Read on for all the details about that little bite, as well as how Apple got its name.
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How did Apple get its name?
There’s an idea that people are simple, and that might apply to geniuses as well.
“Start with the name,” says branding expert Joseph Nother, co-CEO of Designsensory. “Steve Jobs liked apples—simple as that. It makes sense; he grew up around the orchards of Cupertino and the Bay Area.”
This aligns with Walter Isaacson’s biography of Jobs. Reportedly, he had been on a fruitarian diet, which led to the name Apple. Steve Wozniak, Apple’s co-founder, tells this anecdote in Isaacson’s book: “I remember I was driving Steve Jobs back from the airport along Highway 85. Steve was coming back from a visit to Oregon to a place he called an apple orchard. It was actually some kind of commune. Steve suggested a name—Apple Computer.”
What are the theories behind the Apple logo’s bite?
When you have a legendary brand like Apple, there are going to be theories behind the company’s lore, and that includes the logo’s bite. But not all of them are facts. Here’s the truth behind a couple of them.
Its roots lie with Adam and Eve
Is the Apple logo a reference to the Bible? You know, the whole biting into an apple from the Tree of Knowledge? Apparently not.
“People have long speculated that the bite references Adam and Eve,” says Jon Logan, a marketing and brand strategist. “But the truth is much simpler than that.”
It pays homage to famed computer-science pioneer Alan Turing
Alan Turing is the genius who cracked Nazi Germany’s Enigma code and laid the foundations for modern computing. He later died by suicide from cyanide poisoning—with a half-eaten apple lying next to him. Some people theorize that naming the company Apple was a tribute to Turing’s contributions to computer science … but this is also not true.
That bite is actually a pun on the word byte
Clever! And yes, it makes sense … but this computer pun is still not the reason for that Apple bite. “Brands are in the business of myth-making,” says Nother. “I’ve worked on programs where, over time, rationale gets reconned into the origin story to add depth and drama to something that may have started flatter. Culturally, the ‘byte’ wordplay stuck. It’s memorable, even if it wasn’t the original [reason].”
Why does the Apple logo actually have a bite taken out of it?
Apparently, much like the company’s name, the meaning behind the bite is a lot less complicated than we’d all like to think. And the bite wasn’t Jobs’s invention—it was actually the brainchild of the graphic designer who created the logo.
“Designer Rob Janoff added the bite so the logo would never be mistaken for a cherry when scaled small,” Logan says. “The brilliance is that the logo inspired myths and stories, which only added to its cultural weight.”
Yep, it boils down to people not mixing up their fruits. And that bite has been with us ever since this particular Apple logo came into existence.
Did the Apple logo always look like this?
Nope! There was one brief precursor to everyone’s favorite half-eaten apple. “The first Apple logo in 1976 was an elaborate drawing of Isaac Newton under a tree, created by co-founder Ronald Wayne,” Logan says. “Beautiful, but far too complex. Steve Jobs quickly moved to Janoff’s bitten apple, which has been refined but never abandoned.”
The Janoff design came to be in 1977, just a year after the initial elaborate drawing. And the apple with the bite out of it has been the logo for decades, though it did have a somewhat colorful evolution. Think back—way back. (If you’re old enough, that is.) Between 1977 and 1999, that little apple had rainbow stripes running through it. It was a nod to the Apple II’s color display. Remember, color wasn’t always the norm for computers. In fact, for a long time it was all very black and white. After 1999, the company ditched the colors and evolved into the logo we know today.
“The Apple logo is simple, symbolic and adaptable,” Logan says. “The rainbow-striped version of 1977 highlighted the Apple II’s color graphics. Later monochrome and flat versions reflected evolving culture, but the core silhouette never changed. It is like a family heirloom: The frame shifts, yet the image remains timeless.”
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Sources:
- Joseph Nother, branding expert and co-CEO of Designsensory; interviewed, September 2025
- Jon Logan, brand strategist and author of Billionaire Branding: How to Build a Fanatical Following with a World Class Brand; interviewed, September 2025
- Macworld: “Why is Apple called Apple?”
- Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
