#Turing and the Apple logo

This story never seems to die. Over Turing's centenary weekend the story that the Apple logo (the apple with a bite out) may be a reference to Turing and the poisoned apple it's alleged he committed suicide with cropped up all over the world. Articles like this one for CNN are typical - they all claim that Steve Jobs enjoyed the myth and never debunked it despite the fact that the logos designer, Rob Janoff, categorically stated that he'd never heard of Alan Turing when he designed the logo.
    Regular readers of this blog will know that I reported back in 2011 that Stephen Fry said on his BBC TV show QI that he'd asked Jobs about the Apple logo and Turing. Jobs replied “It isn't true, but God we wish it were!”  It seems though that this is one creation myth that isn't going to go away. We all just want the Apple logo to refer to Turing. It's appropriateness is even more extraordinary when you look at the old rainbow colored Apple logo, which could imply a reference to Turing's homosexuality. In fact the rainbow colors were used by Apple to simply point out that the Apple II supported color graphics. However, I don't think we're going to let the truth stand in the way of a good story anytime soon.